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.us Fasten your seatbelts boys and girls

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WASHINGTON, July 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- GoDaddy.com, Inc. and Afilias USA, Inc., have teamed up to create The Domain Name Alliance Registry, LLC ("Alliance Registry"), a joint venture seeking to assume stewardship of the usTLD, America's sovereign space on the Internet. Yesterday, Alliance Registry submitted a proposal in response to the request for quotations issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for a registry operator for the usTLD.


"Today, the usTLD ranks 9th among the world's country code domains, despite America's leadership of the Internet and the most robust domain growth market in history. Now is the time to change usTLD leadership and put it on a growth track," said Roland LaPlante, Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer for Afilias. Added Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's President and Chief Operating Officer, "We believe Alliance Registry pools the strengths of its partners, Go Daddy and Afilias, to offer usTLD superior technology, enhanced marketing, and focused administration to improve this critical national resource."


The bid submitted by Alliance Registry includes several key elements that would improve the .us domain registry, both in technological security and marketing tactics. Over the past 6 years, the .us domain has underperformed relative to its international competition and Alliance Registry has the resources and the capabilities to make major improvements. Some of these improvements include:

-- Reduced pricing for usTLD registrations to make them more affordable
and deliver greater value to the usTLD community
-- Greater volume, growth, and usage of the usTLD stimulated by registry
enhancements and marketing programs that have been proven to work by
Alliance Registry's joint owners
-- Enhanced Locality space support to enable every city and town in
America to have its own dedicated space within the usTLD (e.g.
anytown.us)
-- World class stability and security of the registry platform and DNS
services supporting the domain
-- Expanded administration services to facilitate oversight and provide
better counsel for the DoC
-- Enhancing kids.us so it becomes the feature-rich, safe online
environment for America's children it was envisioned to be


In addition, the proposal outlines a proven plan to ensure a smooth transition, based on the experience of its partner Afilias in transitioning numerous top-level domains and with Go Daddy's experience in ensuring harmless data transitions for consumers. DoC is expected to award the new contract by September, with the administrator taking full responsibility of the usTLD when the contract with the current provider expires on October 26, 2007.


During a news tele-conference earlier today, Brian Cute, Alliance Registry's new Director of .us activities said, "This is an exciting opportunity for us to work closely with DoC to realize the full potential of the usTLD." He continued, "We believe it's time for a change, and Alliance Registry is uniquely positioned to take usTLD to its rightful position as a leading country code domain."


To hear a replay of today's news conference and to learn more about Alliance Registry's bid, please visit http://www.dnalliance.us.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Afilias Background Info

I found some more information about Afilias for those who might question their abilities or background:

About Afilias

Afilias is a global leader in advanced registry services and provides a wide range of capabilities essential to the smooth and efficient operation of any type of registry service.

Afilias launched its registry services in July 2001 with the launch of the top-level domain registry for .INFO– the most successful of the seven new top-level domains (TLDs) selected by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Today, Afilias provides registry services for .INFO, .ORG, .mobi (for the mobile Internet), .aero (for the aerospace industry), .asia (for the Asia Pacific region) and several country code TLDs (ccTLDs). Together Afilias supports over eleven million domain names, making it the second largest provider of registry services worldwide.

Sponsored TLDs: Afilias provides core back-office registry services for several sponsored TLDs (sTLDs) including .aero, managed by SITA SC for the aerospace industry; .mobi, managed by mTLD top-level domain Ltd. for mobile use; and .asia, managed by the DotAsia Organisation for the Asia Pacific region.

ccTLDs: Afilias provides core back-office registry services for several ccTLDs, including AG (Antigua and Barbuda), BZ (Belize), GI (Gibraltar), HN (Honduras), IN (India), MN (Mongolia), SC (the Seychelles), and VC (St. Vincent and the Grenadines).

And this ... Afilias and .ORG

You may not be familiar with the Public Interest Registry (PIR), but every .ORG Web site, and every person who visits a .ORG Web site, uses PIR's services.

PIR, a not-for-profit corporation created by the Internet Society (ISOC) in 2002, manages the .ORG top-level domain (TLD) and plays a number of roles in helping .ORG thrive. PIR's primary responsibility is managing the database of .ORG domain names (Internet addresses), which it does with support from its technical provider, Afilias Limited. That database connects individuals surfing the Web to the .ORG sites they seek.
 
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Let's just hope that .us domains don't become as difficult to scan as .org domains...
 
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Send an email to the Dept of Commerce

At this stage of the game, it will be helpful for members to send an email to the Dept. of Commerce expressing your honest opinion regarding the efforts of Neustar (who currently oversee .US). A good number of people, myself included, feel that Neustar have shown little initiative and follow-through in advancing dotUS, and that the new Alliance Registry (GoDaddy + Afilias) would exercise much better promotion and management of the .US extension. If interested, please send your email to: [email protected] Your expressed thoughts on the matter can make a difference in who is awarded the .US contract!

It is my view that Neustar have shown rather poor promotional efforts, and appear to have not accomplished much with US search and zip code directory, or e-gov services.

I have been in direct communication with Neustar about the enormous number of US states (California.US, NewYork.US, NorthCarolina.US, Georgia.US, and many others) that forward back to a Neustar landing page or don't even resolve at all. That the state entities are letting these domains sit dead/idle is a terrible waste. I would have hoped that Neustar might have required official state government to at least have a modest functioning website for their .US state domain. In fact, some of the States have not even had listed nameservers (for years!) resulting in a dead link to the official state .US site. (Thanks Neustar for your oversight!, :( ) Did Neustar intervene to aid the states? Not that I can tell. Alas, I was just informed by Neustar that states can do whatever they want with the offical .US state domain name. That seems to me that Neustar have little regard for .US --- allowing state governments to have a deadlink to their official .US state government website! Think about that for a second. Is that the kind of disregard and "oversight" we want for .US over the next few years?

I will get off my soapbox now. If you feel this cause is worth an email to the DoC [email protected], then please go for it. Thanks for your support of the .US namespace.


dsiomtw said:
WASHINGTON, July 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- GoDaddy.com, Inc. and Afilias USA, Inc., have teamed up to create The Domain Name Alliance Registry, LLC ("Alliance Registry"), a joint venture seeking to assume stewardship of the usTLD, America's sovereign space on the Internet. Yesterday, Alliance Registry submitted a proposal in response to the request for quotations issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for a registry operator for the usTLD.


"Today, the usTLD ranks 9th among the world's country code domains, despite America's leadership of the Internet and the most robust domain growth market in history. Now is the time to change usTLD leadership and put it on a growth track," said Roland LaPlante, Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer for Afilias. Added Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's President and Chief Operating Officer, "We believe Alliance Registry pools the strengths of its partners, Go Daddy and Afilias, to offer usTLD superior technology, enhanced marketing, and focused administration to improve this critical national resource."


The bid submitted by Alliance Registry includes several key elements that would improve the .us domain registry, both in technological security and marketing tactics. Over the past 6 years, the .us domain has underperformed relative to its international competition and Alliance Registry has the resources and the capabilities to make major improvements. Some of these improvements include:

-- Reduced pricing for usTLD registrations to make them more affordable
and deliver greater value to the usTLD community
-- Greater volume, growth, and usage of the usTLD stimulated by registry
enhancements and marketing programs that have been proven to work by
Alliance Registry's joint owners
-- Enhanced Locality space support to enable every city and town in
America to have its own dedicated space within the usTLD (e.g.
anytown.us)
-- World class stability and security of the registry platform and DNS
services supporting the domain
-- Expanded administration services to facilitate oversight and provide
better counsel for the DoC
-- Enhancing kids.us so it becomes the feature-rich, safe online
environment for America's children it was envisioned to be


In addition, the proposal outlines a proven plan to ensure a smooth transition, based on the experience of its partner Afilias in transitioning numerous top-level domains and with Go Daddy's experience in ensuring harmless data transitions for consumers. DoC is expected to award the new contract by September, with the administrator taking full responsibility of the usTLD when the contract with the current provider expires on October 26, 2007.


During a news tele-conference earlier today, Brian Cute, Alliance Registry's new Director of .us activities said, "This is an exciting opportunity for us to work closely with DoC to realize the full potential of the usTLD." He continued, "We believe it's time for a change, and Alliance Registry is uniquely positioned to take usTLD to its rightful position as a leading country code domain."


To hear a replay of today's news conference and to learn more about Alliance Registry's bid, please visit http://www.dnalliance.us.
 
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Carlton said:
I will get off my soapbox now. If you feel this cause is worth an email to the DoC [email protected], then please go for it. Thanks for your support of the .US namespace.

I've sent mine. Clearly the only way to save the .US namespace is to transfer the namespace to an adequate provider. :imho:
 
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