The .info registry opened yesterday at 9pm GMT for real-time
registrations of .info domain names. Over 350,000 .info domain
names are now functional on the internet, the first unrestricted
global registry to go live since the first .com was registered back
in 1985.
The .info domain names are late in arrival. They were first
approved in November 2000 by the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN), the internet’s official domain naming
authority. ICANN then approved a consortium called Afilias as the
official registry – effectively the body responsible for
co-ordinating and maintaining a central database of all .info names
sold by various domain name registration companies around the
world. At this time, it also approved a company called NeuLevel to
run the registry for .biz, another of the new domain names
authorised last year by ICANN.
Recently, .info names were scheduled for a “live” date of 12th
September, but the launch was postponed due to the recent
atrocities in New York. NeuLevel’s .biz domain name registry was
recently scheduled for a 1st October launch, but NeuLevel has now
postponed the launch until 23rd October, citing the same reason for
the delay.
However, NeuLevel is also facing legal action over a claim that
it is running an illegal lottery. The claim is the result of the
rules adopted by NeuLevel for allocating the .biz names to those
with trade marks in potential domain names. The action in a
Californian court threatens to further delay the launch of .biz
names.
