Oversee.net is a sprawling Internet advertising company. Its hydra-headed holdings include DomainSponsor, Low.com, and Revenue.net, but of interest to us are two recently-purchased long-time domain name companies not mentioned on their main site: Moniker, Monte Cahn’s pioneering live-auction company when it comes to live auctions, and SnapNames, well known as the place to go [...]

Profile of auction provider Pool.com, which handled the .ASIA auctions.

Back in the bad old days, Network Solutions, as the monopoly provider of gTLDs, charged $100 for two years for a new domain name registration. (After a court ruling against a portion of this fee as an “Internet tax,” this was lowered to $70 for two years.)
People wailed and gnashed their teeth [...]

An in-depth profile of Sedo, detailing their auction offerings to new TLDs.

An auction (or a series of auctions) is fast becoming an important part of any new TLD. .MOBI has used it successfully, .ASIA has done the same, and most recently ICANN has approved the use of auctions both a a tie-breaker for new TLDs (PDF, comments here), and also to profit from [...]

Recently released figures show that, with a few happy exceptions, most ICANN directors can’t even pad their expense reports properly. How can the public put their trust in a group that can’t even demonstrate basic life skills such as squeezing every last penny in expenses out of a not-for-profit set up for public benefit?

Summary of the Registry Speed-Dating contest, with a downloadable PDF of the results, along with a checklist of what to look for when choosing your TLD registry service provider.

NameSmash is a new blog edited by Kelly Hardy at Marksmen. I give it a quick review and recommendation.

So says this news bulletin. Via ICANN’s [ga] mailing list.

The US government has called on all federal offices to take measures to prepare their domains for DNSSEC. Starting in January 2009, the US government will use DNSSEC for all .gov top level domains Second level domains for federal offices will [...]

Contestant #11 in our guide to registry operators is Community DNS, which emphasizes robust DNS services and has worked with a number of ccTLDs.