Blogger users will just love that

I was recently informed that Blogger, the free blogger platform from Google, is about to announce that SSL certificates ("https" secured addresses) will soon be activated for personal domain names.

In more simple words:

• The SSL certificate will become allowed for personal domains and allow visitors to view your blog over an encrypted connection by visiting "https://";
• It is free.

I am testing this on gtld.club and guillon.blog (this blog). It seems to work.

For information, Google also offers the SSL certificate on the new version of Google Sites, available in its G Suite.

What more do you need to run a company?

Reserved names : ICANN confirms its list

It will have taken four years for the ICANN to finalize the list of reserved names and put a date on it for its implementation at registrars and registries.

What are we talking about?
The list of reserved names consists in blocking certain domain names from being registered by third parties because they could belong to certain identified organizations:

1. The Red Cross (www.icrc.org);
2. The International Olympic Committee (www.olympic.org);
3. International Governmental Organizations (IGOs);
4. International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs).

First of August 2018
The first of august if the deadline when all this must be organized and implemented at registrars and registries. In more simple words, it means that keywords from that list must not be made available for registration anymore in any existing (and coming) domain name extension. An example: you will not be supposed to register a domain name such as www.redcross.whatever - www.nisseki.whatever or www.idea.whatever. Note that this is already the case for most of these strings nut the list has been updated. I suggest to check the complete list because it is a rather long one and there are many words with 3 and 4 characters.

From my understanding, you will receive (or already have received) an email if you use one of these domain names but the ICANN also have plenty of procedures to deal with this. Note that for INGOs, the ICANN suggests to consult an attorney or legal expert for guidance if you have questions.

Trademarks

What do they think about this and why...is this offered to specific organizations and not all trademarks? Well, this has been a question asked by many and I suggest anybody who wants to have that question answered to join the ICANN working groups to try to change this ;-)

Details

You can check the front page for reserved names here and the complete and up-to-date list of reserved names here: it is this that you want to read. For the "bla-bla" and a much longer explanation, it's here.

Jovenet Consulting in French

For the second time, I spent the necessary hours to translate the second version of the Jovenet Consulting website...into French.

This is now done and I will be adding a few more things soon.

The .BANK and .INSURANCE new gTLDs are NOT removing eligibility verification

A recent letter was sent from the ICANN, by the Registry Services and Engagement Director, to Craig Schwartz in charge of the .BANK and .INSURANCE new gTLDs.

Removal of Eligibility Verification

The letter is entitled "Removal of Eligibility Verification for gTLD: .bank and .insurance for RSEP ID: [#879030]" but it appears that the content is not exactly about this.

A misleading title
It appears that the title of the letter is misleading and in fact, the two registries are not removing eligibility verification. The registries of these two restrictive TLDs, are considering a change in how verification is performed.

Read the letter here.

New gTLDs: a good read

New TLD Launch: Lessons Learned

1. Far Too Much New GTLDs at Once
2. High Complexity on the Introduction of New gTLDs
3. Technical and Operational Challenges Due to Non-Scalability
4. Marketing and Awareness – the Assumptions Were Wrong
5. Unpleasant Pitfalls
6. Future Prospects

Read the article on CicleId

Finance and new gTLDs: blue or red?

There is a lot happening in Finance "and" new gTLDs. In fact this report on monthly domain name registration volumes is one of the longest from the Jovenet Consulting new gTLD reports. One of the reasons for this is that lots of Trademarks in the finance applied for their .BRAND new gTLD. The top of the report clearly is about generic domain name extensions dedicated to selling domain names but almost two thirds of it is about .BRANDs. Surprisingly, half of the .BRAND TLDs...are just not being used.

54 .BRANDS and 34 generics
Some Trademarks have put their personalized domain names in use and have registered more than 100 for them: .CREDITUNION (500 domain names) - .DVAG (200 of them) .BNPPARIBAS - .CITIC - .BLOOMBERG - .BRADESCO and .BARCLAYS

Between 10 and 100 .BRAND domains
15 financial .BRAND Trademarks have registered between 10 and 100 of their domain names. The interesting thing about this is that the volume of these registrations has kept increasing: a sign that .BRANDs are finding adoption?

No news from Boston Ivy
The registry in charge of operating .FOREX - .MARKETS - .TRADING - .CFD - .SPREADBETTING and .BROKER shows small signs of development and such niche TLDs with their low number of domain names registered seem to find difficulties to recruit registrars. Note that the price of these domains has already been lowered but...have all solutions been considered? Not sure.

Abandoned .TRUST new gTLD?
The .TRUST new gTLD received no more registrations on a one year period of time and sticked to 51 domains from January to December 2017. We found interesting titles used such as a "Domain Assured Portal" which could be an attractive service for owners of domain names at high risk of being stolen, wrongly transferred or..."and more".

Generics: blue or red?
What about generic financial new gTLDs? These are the domain name extensions dedicated to selling financial domains through the network of accredited Registrars: have they been successful in terms of volumes of domains registered?

First of all, it is important to note that 10 of them kept receiving registrations month after month and never lost one single registration (and when it was, more other domains were registered). This is a good sign for a registry (when it does not cheat). The extensions concerned are: .MARKET - .FUND - .CASH - .CAPITAL - .EXCHANGE - .FINANCE - .CREDIT - .FINANCIAL - .INVESTMENTS and .MARKETS

Then we have extensions which behaved strangely: the .LOAN gained 1,3 million registrations during the year. This is a lot and there is a story behind this...of course. It lost 1,8 million domains between June and July (...) The funny thing is that the plural version of this same TLD - the .LOANS new gTLD - gained registrations too but only has 3,584 registrations in total. Strange, isn't it?

Some TLDs lost (a lot of) registrations: The .BID new gTLD lost 90,000 registrations between January and December and .ACCOUNTANT lost 39,000 (its plural version - .ACCOUNTANTS - only has 2,573...in total. The .TRADE Top-Level domain lost 2,500 domains.

Finally, only five TLDs like .DIAMONDS lost registrations between January and December and 22 .BRAND extensions sticked to one single registration in one year.

Check the full report here.

New gTLDs for the Law: blue or red?

Have new domain name extensions dedicated to the law received many domain name registrations in 2017? This table tracked registration volumes from January to December.

The list
There are not so many TLDs related to the law: .LAWYER - .LEGAL - .LAW - .商标 (".trademark") - .ATTORNEY - .PARTNERS - (.BAR) - .ASSOCIATES - .ABOGADO - .FAIRWINDS (a Trademark) and .ESQ

We found no other generic extensions dedicated to selling domain names but we found other trademarks with a connection to the law. We did not list them because they do not deal with legal things only but also accounting and plenty of other subjects. We are happy to add those we could not have noticed.

Blue or red?
The .LAW new gTLD gained more domain name registrations than all other extensions: 3,500 of them in one year and 2,000 for .LEGAL while .LAWYER gained...none.

The .PARTNERS and .ASSOCIATES kept receiving domain name registrations each month and sticked to the blue from January to December ("blue" meaning that they received registrations and "red" that they lost some).

Check the full report here.

Unsure if this .BRAND has noticed

It is a fact: owners of new gTLDs do not all use their personalized domain name extension because they don't know what to do with it. They pay for it because they can.

It is also a fact that some...don't know what they bought. I went to some meetings where the people belonging to a .BRAND new gTLD did not even know that they had their own extension.

I wonder if it is the case for the .LAMER new gTLD which advertises for a .CREMEDELAMER on the frontpage of its Registry. This is a Top-Level Domain that actually does not exist.

http://nic.lamer/