FYI.
Amadeu
attached mail follows:
WASHINGTON - April 21, 1999) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN) today announced the five
companies that have been selected to participate in the initial testbed
phase of the new competitive Shared Registry System for the .com,
.net, and .org domains. These five participants will be the first to
implement the new system for competition in the market for .com, .net,
and .org domain name registration services. Currently, registration
services in the .com, .net, and .org domains are provided by Network
Solutions, Inc. (NSI), which has enjoyed an exclusive right to handle
registrations under a 1993 Cooperative Agreement with the U.S.
Government.
The five registrars participating in the testbed are, in alphabetical order:
America Online
CORE (Internet Council of Registrars)
France Telecom/Oléane
Melbourne IT
register.com
Under the Cooperative Agreement between NSI and the U.S. Government, the
competitive registrar testbed program will begin on April
26 and will last until June 24, 1999 (Phase I). Following the conclusion of
Phase I, the Shared Registry System for the .com, .net, and .org
domains will be opened on equal terms to all accredited registrars, meaning
that any company that meets ICANN’s standards for
accreditation will be able to enter the market as a registrar and offer
customers competitive domain name registration services in the
.com, .net, and .org domains.
"Today’s announcement marks a major milestone in the joint efforts of the
public and private sectors to bring Internet users the benefits of
real competition in registration services in the most popular Internet
domains -- .com, .net, and .org," said Esther Dyson, ICANN’s interim
chairman. "The five testbed participants bring a wealth of technical
capability, business experience, and geographic reach to the testbed
program, and each has demonstrated a strong commitment to make this effort
succeed on behalf of the global Internet community."
In addition to the five testbed participants, ICANN also announced today
that 29 other applicant companies have met its accreditation
criteria and are expected to be accredited to compete as registrars upon
completion of the testbed phase. Those companies include the
following: 9NetAvenue; A Technology Company; Active ISP; Alldomains.com;
All West Communications; American Domain Name
Registry; AT&T; Domain Direct; DomainRegistry.com; eNom, Inc.; InfoAvenue;
InfoNetworks; InfoRamp; Interactive Telecom Network;
Interdomain; Internet Domain Registrars; interQ Incorporated; MS Intergate;
NameSecure.com; Name.Space Inc.; NetBenefit; NetNames;
Nominalia; Port Information System AB; RCN; Telepartner AS; Verio; Virtual
Internet; and WebTrends.
"As the list of post-testbed registrars makes clear, there is a tremendous
level of commercial interest in opening the market for domain
name services to competition," said Mike Roberts, ICANN’s interim president
and CEO. "These companies are ready, willing, and able to
compete. ICANN is committed to working with the United States Government,
the testbed participants, and all post-testbed registrars to
launch this program successfully."
COMMENTS FROM TESTBED PARTICIPANTS
George Vradenburg, Senior Vice President for Global and Strategic Policy,
America Online:
"Today's announcement is an important step in the Internet's evolution.
Movement to an open, competitive model in domain names is,
in fact, a natural step for a medium that has thrived because of its
openness. America Online looks forward to participating in the
testbed phase of the transition to a competitive system."
Ken Stubbs, Chair of the Executive Committee, CORE:
"We at CORE are very pleased to see a major step in the transition process
being taken here and are honored to be chosen as one of
the key organizations selected to play a significant role in effecting the
movement towards more open global participation and
competition in the domain name registration process. This is the first of
many important changes which we feel will ultimately result in a
more competitive and open process for management of the expansion of the
domain name system. CORE commends ICANN and
the participating parties for their hard work and commitment to the spirit
of the "white paper" process and looks forward to the
opportunity to play an increasing role in the global transition of the
Internet into the 21st century."
Jean-Jacques Damlamian, Group Executive Vice-President, Development
Division, France Telecom:
"France Telecom has played an active role in the worldwide
consensus-building effort that led to the creation of ICANN. Today, France
Telecom is very proud to be selected by ICANN as one of the testbed
registrars. It will contribute to strengthening our position as a
leading Internet company, by acknowledging our capacity to be a partner of
the Internet development at the international level.
Moreover, our subsidiary Oléane, which was a pioneer of the Internet in
France, is once more at the forefront of the Internet evolution,
by taking part in this strategic project for the future of the network."
Peter Gerrand, CEO of Melbourne IT:
"As the largest registrar in the Asia-Pacific region, Melbourne IT is
excited to expand its operations in the global domain name
registration business. We are committed to working with the other four
testbed registrars in this historic opening of the .com, .net, and
.org registries to competition, which will result in lower costs, better
service, and more choices for customers. In particular, we look
forward to offering a high standard of service to the diverse and booming
Internet market throughout the Asia-Pacific region."
Richard Forman, CEO and President of register.com:
"We are very pleased to have been selected by ICANN to be one of the five
test-bed registrars. We would like to thank the members of
ICANN and the Department of Commerce for this vote of confidence. We would
also like to thank all register.com employees, for
turning our company’s vision into a reality, and our hundreds of thousands
of customers who have made register.com’s service the
most popular registrar on the Internet. Moving forward, register.com is
looking forward to a healthy and cooperative relationship with
Network Solutions in re-defining this industry. Our mutual efforts will
create a larger, more diverse market, thereby benefiting all
accredited registrars and customers alike. Register.com welcomes this next
stage in the further development of the Internet industry."
ABOUT ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a new
global non-profit corporation formed to oversee a set of the
Internet’s core technical management functions. Between now and September
2000, ICANN will gradually be assuming responsibility for
coordinating the assignment of protocol parameters, the management of the
domain name system and root server systems, and the
allocation of IP address space.
In the past, many of these functions have been handled by the U.S.
Government or by its contractors and volunteers. This informal structure
represented the spirit and culture of the research community in which the
Internet developed. However, the growing size and international
importance of the Internet has necessitated the creation of a technical
management body that is both more formalized in structure and
more fully reflective of the geographic diversity of the Internet community.
ICANN is a non-profit corporation with a ten-member international Board of
Directors. Its Initial Board is led by interim chairman Esther
Dyson, and has members drawn from Europe, North America, and the
Asia/Pacific region. This initial board has been charged with
finalizing ICANN’s bylaws and procedures and working to pave the way for a
smooth and stable transition from the present administrative
system. The initial board members will ultimately be replaced by board
members elected by three different constituency groups based on
technical subjects and an at-large membership, collectively representing a
broad cross-section of the Internet’s technical and user
communities around the globe.
For more information, please contact:
Mike Roberts
Interim President and CEO, ICANN
roberts@icann.org
+1 (415) 309-4431
Andrew McLaughlin
Senior Adviser, ICANN
mclaughlin@icann.org
+1 (617) 834-6723
Pam Brewster
Alexander Ogilvy
+1 (415) 923-1660
ABOUT THE TESTBED REGISTRARS
America Online
Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the
world’s leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet
technologies, and E-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: two
worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than
17 million members, and CompuServe, with approximately 2 million members;
several leading Internet brands including ICQ and Digital
City, Inc.; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.COM portals; and the Netscape
Navigator and Communicator browsers.
Contact: Jim Whitney
Tel: +1 (703) 265-2896
Email: whitneyjg@aol.com
CORE (Internet Council of Registrars)
CORE (http://www.corenic.org ) is a not-for-profit international membership
association of Internet domain name registrars. It was created
in the fall of 1996 in order to fund, develop and run a shared registry
system (SRS) for the proposed new generic top-level domains
(gTLDs). CORE’s membership spans 23 countries and reflects a wide array of
domain names-related activities, including ISPs,
telecommunications carriers, country code TLD registries, research
foundations and specialized small businesses.
Contact: Tom Gable
Tel: +1 (619) 234-1300
Email: tomg@gablegroup.com
France Telecom/ Oléane
Oléane (http://www.oleane.com), created in 1989, was an Internet pioneer in
France. Oléane has since grown to be the leading ISP
serving business customers in France and was acquired by France Telecom
(http://www.francetelecom.fr) in 1998. France Telecom is one
of the world's leading telecommunications carriers with operations in more
than 50 countries and 24.6 billion euros in 1998 revenues. In
addition to Internet services, France Telecom provides businesses and
consumers with a full range of services, including local,
long-distance and international telephony, as well as data, wireless,
cable-TV and value-added services. France Telecom is listed on the
Paris Bourse and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: FTE).
Paris contact: Nilou Du Castel, +33 1 44 44 93 93,
<nilou.ducastel@francetelecom.fr>
New York contact: Elizabeth Mayeri, +1 (212) 332-2115,
<elizabeth.mayeri@francetelecom.fr>
Melbourne IT
Melbourne IT is an Australian IT company that provides high-performance
e-commerce services. Melbourne IT’s business division Internet
Names Australia, which administers the .com.au domain for Australian
businesses, is the largest country code-based commercial domain
name administrator in the Asia-Pacific region. It was the first domain name
registrar in the world to offer money-back service performance
guarantees, and to provide pre-sale online linkages to authoritative
trademark and business registration databases.
Contact: Clive Flory
Tel: +61 (3) 9344-9337
Email: clive@ina.com.au
register.com
Register.com is a division of Forman Interactive Corp., a leading provider
of Internet-based solutions for small- and medium-sized
businesses. Register.com was ranked among the top 100 Web Sites by PC
Magazine in both December 1998 and April 1999. The
Company has relationships with First Data Corporation, USA.NET, Geocities,
theglobe.com, spree.com and Ziff Davis. Forman
Interactive Corp. was founded in 1994 and is based in New York, NY.
PR Contact: Joyce Connelley
Email: jwconn@register.com
Tel: +1-408-294-9293.
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