[AfrICANN-discuss] .xxx reveals new gTLD support problems

[Anne-Rachel Inné]

.xxx reveals new gTLD support
problems<http://domainincite.com/xxx-reveals-new-gtld-support-problems/>
http://domainincite.com/xxx-reveals-new-gtld-support-problems/<http://domainincite.com/about>
Kevin Murphy <http://domainincite.com/about>, August 5, 2011, 09:25:21
(UTC), Domain Tech <http://domainincite.com/category/domain-technology/>

*It’s late 2012. You’ve spent your $185,000, fought your way through
objections, won your contention set, and proved to ICANN that you’re
technically and financially capable of running a new generic top-level
domain.*

The registry contracts have been signed. But will your gTLD actually work?

The experiences of .xxx manager ICM Registry lately suggest that a certain
amount of outreach will be needed before new gTLDs receive universal support
in applications.

I’ve encountered three examples over the last few days of .xxx domain names
not functioning as expected in certain apps. I expect there will be many
more.

*Skype.* Type http://casting.com into a chat window and Skype will
automatically make the link clickable. Do the same for the .xxx
equivalent<http://domainincite.com/the-first-xxx-porn-site-has-gone-live/>,
and it does not.

*Android*, the Google mobile platform. I haven’t tested this, but according
to Francesco Cetaro on
Twitter<https://twitter.com/#%21/findub/status/99219143605227525>,
unless you manually type the http:// the domain doesn’t resolve.

*TweetDeck*, now owned by Twitter. It doesn’t auto-link or auto-shorten .xxx
domains either, not even if you include the http:// prefix.

This problem is well known from previous new gTLD rounds. ICANN even warns
applicants about it in the Applicant Guidebook, stating:

All applicants should be aware that approval of an application and entry
into a registry agreement with ICANN do not guarantee that a new gTLD will
immediately function throughout the Internet. Past experience indicates that
network operators may not immediately fully support new top-level domains,
even when these domains have been delegated in the DNS root zone, since
third-party software modification may be required and may not happen
immediately.

Similarly, software applications sometimes attempt to validate domain names
and may not recognize new or unknown top-level domains.

As a 10-year .info registrant, I can confirm that some web sites will still
sometimes reject email addresses at .info domains.

Sometimes this is due to outdated validation scripts assuming no TLD is
longer than three characters. Sometimes, it’s because the webmaster sees so
much spam from .info he bans the whole TLD.

This is far less of an issue that it was five or six years ago, due in part
to Afilias’s outreach, but just this week I found myself unable to sign up
at a certain phpBB forum using my .info address.

I understand ICM has also been reaching out to affected app developers
recently to make them aware that .xxx now exists in the root and has
resolvable domains.

ICANN also has released
code<http://www.icann.org/en/topics/TLD-acceptance/>in C#, Java, Perl,
and Python (though not, annoyingly, PHP) that it says can
be easily dropped into source in order to validate TLDs against the live
root.

The last beta was released in 2007. I’m not sure whether it’s still under
development.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/africann/attachments/20110805/84c1d9f3/attachment-0001.htm