.Org registry PIR wants to bring best practices to IDN top level domain names.

One of the big questions facing registries of existing top level domain names is how they should pursue Internationalized Domain Name “equivalents” of their domain names when they become available. These so-called IDN.IDN domain names will be available once new gTLDs — such as .nyc and .music — come out.

Last month we learned more about VeriSign’s plans for .com and .net; today I reached out to Lance Wolak, Director of Marketing & Product Management for Public Interest Registry (PIR), which manages .org.

PIR hopes to take a leading role in IDN top level domain names, as it has in other initiatives such as DNSSEC.

“We’re not primarily commercially driven in what we do,” explained Wolak. “We’re really driven to do what helps and protects the domain name registrant.”

When it comes to IDN top level domain names, PIR wants to show support for various communities.

“We’re doing this in the public interest and to show our support and respect for the different language communities,” said Wolak. “Idn.idn is a technology that we want to see move forward.”

IDN.org domain names, with the standard .org at the end, have been available in many languages since the middle of the last decade. Wolak said that many of these have been registered for search engine optimization purposes (i.e., exact match to what the searcher types in his or her language/script).

Wolak said it would be premature for PIR to give definite plans for .org-as-IDN domains, given that new TLD guidelines aren’t finalized yet.

“Right now we are watching the information that’s coming out of ICANN, and looking over the Draft Applicant Guidebook,” said Wolak. “Until that is finalized, we won’t have a hundred percent picture of the requirements to launch a new gTLD, which would include IDN TLDs. So we don’t have anything to announce on how many scripts we’ll go after, which ones, etc.”

Wolak noted that, in addition to Chinese script, Cyrillic and Arabic, PIR is looking at other popular scripts that have large populations behind them. Script tables are currently being developed for some scripts sets, including Arabic. PIR has been working with the community as it develops the tables. In addition to settling the tables, there are other issues for IDN TLDs that need to be worked out, such as current getting them to work with email systems.

There are still a number of open issues for IDN TLDs. But regardless of how they develop, PIR wants to be a thought leader.

“We want to take the approach that we can bring the best practices with what we’re doing in the .org space to a new IDN TLD,” said Wolak.

Tags: .org, new tlds, public interest registry

Guagua.com hits six figures, Domaining.com owner scores nice sale.

Sedo has sold the domain name Guagua.com for $100,000. Guagua has a number of different meanings, including being the name of a language and a municipality in the Phillipines.

The company also helped broker the sale of Pepe.com for 45,000 EUR. It looks like Francois Carrillo of Domaining.com scored a nice flip on this domain name. He bought it at Bido.com a couple months ago for only $15,000, and then listed it for sale on his Mocus.com domain listing site. Sedo brought a buyer to the table, helping Carrillo score about four times his money in just a couple months.

Here are other notable sales for the week from Sedo:

.COM
gastronomie.com 35,000 EUR
telemar.com 12,000 EUR
xtrader.com 10,000 USD
afx.com 8,100 USD
mallchina.com 6,000 EUR
buffalogroup.com 5,432 USD
cosmetiques.com 5,150 USD
okta.com 5,100 USD
bookmate.com 5,000 EUR
jpsports.com 5,000 USD
qualcos.com 5,000 USD
landingpagedesign.com 5,000 GBP
stayfair.com 5,000 USD
tridien.com 5,000 USD

ccTLD
risultati.it 32,000 EUR
energieagentur.de 21,500 EUR
escortservice.de 16,660 EUR
transpower.nl 15,500 EUR
ioffer.co.uk 11,500 USD
jb.de 9,500 EUR
stelle.it 8,000 EUR
shirts.co.za 8,000 USD
73.de 7,500 EUR
87.de 7,500 EUR
call.at 6,750 EUR
drucker-toner.de 6,500 EUR
carworld.eu 6,000 EUR
designshop.ch 6,000 EUR
luxury.co.za 6,000 USD
tmb.de 5,950 EUR
healing.de 5,950 EUR
mamme.it 5,900 USD
xa.de 5,700 EUR
hurghada.ch 5,000 EUR

Other
sys.net 12,500 USD
open.org 6,200 USD
analytics.info 5,000 USD
docs.net 5,000 USD

Tags: sedo

Domain Name Wire started publishing five years ago today.

On March 9, 2005, I wrote the first post on Domain Name Wire, reporting on the sale of Local.com for $700,000. 3,141 posts later, Domain Name Wire is running as strong as ever.

If you’re reading this, I’d like to thank you for making Domain Name Wire a premier news source for the domain industry. It’s because of your readership that I commit my time reporting on and analyzing this exciting industry.

Of course, that’s all possible thanks to DNW’s many advertisers. Please take a moment to peruse the ads on this page. If you haven’t visited any of the advertisers, please take a moment to do so.

A lot has changed in the past five years. Looking back at what I wrote in March 2005 is like a time capsule:

TrafficClub now open to public – Moniker launched one of the first major “traffic splitting” systems for domain parking, which closed down after upstream providers limited the practice and Oversee.net eventually bought Moniker.

Go Daddy launches radio show – Bob Parsons revved up the publicity act. I was later a guest on the show.

Yahoo to challenge Google Adsense – “Challenge” was probably too strong of a word. Yahoo Publisher Network is still in beta, five years later.

MSN readies pay-per-click system – Microsoft announced its Adcenter program. Fast forward to 2010, Adcenter will soon be the management platform for PPC ads on both Microsoft and Yahoo.

Thanks again for reading DNW over the past five years. If you haven’t yet done so, please subscribe to the DNW RSS feed and follow it on Twitter.

Here’s to the next five years.

ICANN meeting in Nairobi running well, report attendees.

With all of the hype around security and possible disruptions, those in attendance at ICANN’s meeting in Nairobi say all is going well.

Attorney John Berryhill writes “The summit and the ICANN meeting are both running smoothly here. The “security issue” is waaaay overblown by those who simply didn’t want the meeting held in Kenya. The conference center is huge and in a secure block with Kenyan military around the perimeter…”

Berryhill surmises that it’s probably safer than Philadelphia.

Berryhill sent this picture from the room of the conference center in Kenya. He said the buses enter a secure gate and then all guests go through a second perimeter. The conference center is huge, and there were no difficulties with the African leadership summit.

Reports on Twitter show that ICANN leadership is actually making progress on issues at this meeting, holding various groups accountable rather than letting them just delay progress.

Here’s a picture of the Mount Kilimanjaro climbers arriving at the Nairobi conference:

Finally, a little humor for you. A celebrity guest interrupted the ICANN meeting today:

Notice the tattoo on Kayne West’s forearm.

Thanks John for keeping us all up to date.

Tags: icann nairobi

Debtors behind on bills for the past year.

With Sex.com heading to the auction block, there’s a been a lot of talk about what went wrong with the current owner, Escom LLC. According to a Reuters article, Escom has been in default on its loan for over a year to lender DOM Partners.

“The loan was in default and DOM partners is foreclosing pursuant to its right under the security agreement,” DOM’s attorney Scott Matthews told Reuters.

The auction is still scheduled for March 18. Clearly, there are some disagreements amongst Escom LLC investors. There was early indication from one of the investors that there might be a lawsuit filed to block the auction, but a search of Federal District Court records did not turn up any such suit yet.

Auctioneer Maltz Auctions says there’s been significant interest in the domain name. Prospective bidders need to deposit a $1 million check prior to the auction. There will definitely be bids in excess of $1 million, but any winning bid is subject to DOM Partners’ acceptance.

Tags: sex.com auction