Domain Names | featured news

Federal law enforcement authorities have announced the seizure of 132 domain names in several countries to stop them from selling counterfeit merchandise online.

When the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided to expand the domain landscape -- letting brands and anyone else with the money apply for the rights to own and run .anything -- it did so to create competition in a world of expanding demand.

If Google has its way, you won't need to type "Google.com" any more to do your searches. You can simply access the search engine at ".Google." Google's bid for ".Google" as an Internet suffix is among about 2,000 proposals submitted as part of the largest expansion of the Internet address system since its creation in the 1980s. Google Inc. also wants to add ".YouTube" and ".lol" - the digital shorthand for "laugh out loud." Others want approval for ".doctor," ".music" and ".bank."

The next time you find yourself pounding your keyboard in frustration because the domain name you want is already taken, direct your ire toward Mike Mann. Mann is one of the longest members of the clubby world of domain speculators, and he's buying up names in force these days. And not all on the aftermarket, as some others do. But new names. Dot-com names that aren't registered -- even though 100 million-plus already are -- that he then turns around and sells for a few hundred bucks, sometimes far more.

The parent company of GoDaddy.com, a top registrar of Internet domain names, has been sold to a group of private investment firms for $2.25 billion, a person familiar with the transaction told The Associated Press.

Coming soon to the Internet: website addresses that end in ".bank," ".Vegas" and ".Canon."...

The Internet is running out of room and, as a result, it is about to undergo a major transition to expand the number of available addresses online. This transition is from today’s IPv4 IP protocol to the new IPv6 standard. Businesses need to know and understand this transition – because there will be new security problems in the interim period.

Apple may have purchased the domain iCloud.com from Sweden-based company Xcerion for a reported $4.5 million, according to GigaOM.

The pillar of the basic Web address - the trusty .com domain - is about to face vast new competition that will dramatically transform the Web as we know it. New Web sites, with more subject-specific, sometimes controversial suffixes, will soon populate the online galaxy, such as .eco, .love, .god, .sport, .gay or .kurd.

It's the end of the web as we know it. Every Internet-connected computer, smartphone, car, gadget and gizmo is assigned a four-digit IP address that lets it communicate with the net, thanks to a system known as IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4). And the flood of new gadgets means we're running out of those addresses.