From Domain News

Monday February 6th 2012 at 3pm PST / Monday February 6th 2012 at 6pm EST / Tuesday February 7th 2012 at 10am AEST

ARI Registry Services, a leading global provider of technical services for new Top-Level Domains, will host a special free webinar this Tuesday 7 February highlighting the implications of .brand for the corporate world.

ICANN is seeking individuals to serve on the Support Applicant Review Panel (SARP), an important component of the New gTLD Applicant Support Program that seeks to serve the global public interest by ensuring worldwide accessibility to, and competition within, the New gTLD Program. Panelists will be responsible for evaluating and scoring applications for financial assistance.

In order to participate, please RSVP via email to the GNSO Secretariat
(gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org) to receive the call details.

Whether you plan to participate in the upcoming ICANN meeting in Costa Rica remotely or in person, you're invited to a quick reminder of the background and current status of each major policy issue currently under discussion in ICANN.

A year ago today ICANN allocated the last five IPv4 address blocks to the five Regional Internet Registries in a ceremony with leaders from the Internet Architecture Board and the Internet Society. The use of the next generation of Internet addressing – IPv6 – has been steadily growing in that year and that's a good thing, because IPv6 is how the Internet will continue to serve as a platform for innovation and economic development.

An arbitrator with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center has awarded to A.S. Roma the domain name ASRoma.com.A.S. Roma is a professional Italian football club based in Rome .

Geb.com domain was sold through the Sedo domain name marketplace for 40,000 EUR.According to whois records the domain name was created in 1996 .

Verisign has sought to clarify recent reports that came to light following a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing that they were hacked back in 2010, saying that the Domain Name System was not compromised.

The extended domain name auction from DOMAINfest 2012 is now underway.The auction ends on SnapNames on February 16,2012.There are about 285 domain names in the auction,including all those in the live auction which did not sell .

KeyDrive, a Luxembourg- and German-based company providing domain registration, monetisation and aftermarket services has acquired the Moniker and SnapNames business units of Oversee.net.

Two leading domain name companies have been subject to hacking.Verisign, responsible for the .COM and .NET top level domains and other internet infrastructure, has been hacked repeatedly by outsiders who stole undisclosed information, Reuters reports.

A nationwide enforcement operation called Operation Fake Sweep that targeted stores, flea markets and street vendors selling counterfeit game-related sportswear throughout the country and also targeted illegal counterfeit imports into the United States, saw hundreds of websites seized that were engaged in counterfeiting and piracy online.

The live auction from DOMAINfest Global just ended  .23 out of 61 domain names were sold for about $390,000 . QR.com received a bid of $350,000 ,but it seems that the bidder wanted to bid on another domain.So,this was an accidental bidding.

Sedo in partnership with the .ME Registry is holding an exclusive auction of premium .ME domains.The auction began on February 2,2012 and runs for a full week,until February 9,2012 .

The auction for Sion.fr domain name is underway .Sion.fr received one bid of 35,000 EUR and has six days left until the auction closes .

There are now more than 100 million .COM domain names according to separate statistics revealed by RegistrarStats and HosterStats.

DENIC,responsible of the administration of .DE extension ,is approaching 15 million domain name registrations under .DE .
This number makes .DE one of the largest ccTLDs when one looks at the number of domain names registered per person.

An arbitrator with the National Arbitration Forum has awarded MGM Resorts International two domain names:Belaggio.com and Mandalabay.com .MGM Resorts submitted a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum on January 3,2012,asserting legal rights over the two dispute domain names .

Customers of Australian domain name reseller Netfleet may have had their personal details and encrypted credit cards compromised after hackers infiltrated the reseller’s database, CRN reported.

A domain name is often one of a company's most valuable assets, yet businesses often do little to prevent the domain being hijacked.CIO recently published an article on the practice that they note is becoming more prevalent and one that IT leaders need to understand so they can protect their companies from the damages domain hijacking wreaks.

The Singaporean communications company StarHub has become the sixth company to publicly announce they will be applying to ICANN for their top level domain, joining organisations such as Unicef, Deloitte, Neustar, Canon, Hitachi and possibly even IBM.