Alliance designed to help Chinese companies apply for "dot.BRAND" top-level domains

ICANN SINGAPORE - June 20, 2011 - Afilias Limited, a global provider of Internet domain name registry and Managed DNS services, today announced that it has entered into a formal agreement with Chinese Internet services leader HiChina, a subsidiary of Alibaba.com, to help Chinese brands take advantage of ICANN's New TLD Program.

ICANN’s New gTLD application window recently closed. Now is the time to start preparing your company for the next ICANN gTLD application window. ICANN has not yet announced when the new application window will open, but we will keep you posted when they do.

At its recent meeting in San Francisco, ICANN approved a new draft timeline for the launch of its new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) program that will let its Board of Directors approve the final Applicant Guidebook in June 2011, enabling companies to apply for gTLDs before the end of the year.

The first-ever .nxt conference recently concluded in San Francisco. The conference featured two days of productive, educational, and passionate discussion about the business of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs).

SAN FRANCISCO – Feb. 10, 2011 – Afilias Limited, a global provider of Internet domain name registry and Domain Name System (DNS) services, today announced that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Crowell & Moring LLP. Under this MoU, Afilias and Crowell & Moring will extend their current working relationship into supporting new top-level domains (TLDs).

Almost exactly nine years ago, the .INFO domain first started accepting registrations. This was an historic event as it was the first time a new generic top level domain (TLD) was launched to an existing domain marketplace and, in fact, was the first new TLD to be added since .com. We’ve seen (and provided technology to power) many other TLD launches since then, with many business models.

Due to the many groups that did not attend this month's ICANN meeting in Nairobi for various reasons, I don't think anyone expected the meeting to result in major decisions on new TLD issues we've been debating for over a year. However, that is exactly what happened.