domains

You're one of the 2.1 billion people actively using the Internet.

Looking at the state of the online world throughout 2011, traffic site Pingdom found that the number of Internet users has jumped from a mere 360 million at the end of 2000 and now accounts for 30 percent of the planet's population.

Sweeping across the continents, Asia holds 922 million Internet users, Europe has 476 million, and North America is in third place with 271 million. Drilling down to individual countries, China is on top with 485 million people using the Internet, more than 36 percent … Read more

ICANN has started to accept applications for new generic top-level domains, which will include words for brands and non-Latin characters.

The organization said that the move "could trigger a dramatic expansion of the Internet" in a statement yesterday to mark today's launch.

"Starting today, ICANN begins accepting applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs)," said the statement. "The world of .com, .gov, .org and 19 other gTLDs will soon be expanded to include all types of words in many different languages."

Read more of "ICANN opens generic domain application process" at … Read more

Salesforce.com lost an attempt to gain control of the domain name Forces.com, which it wanted because it has a product called Force.com.

The panel that handles disputes about domain names, the National Arbitration Forum, said in its ruling that Salesforce.com doesn't have rights to the name because the owner, Internet Venture Holdings, registered Forces.com before Salesforce.com trademarked and began using Force.com.

Salesforce.com argued that Internet Venture Holdings was typo-squatting--in other words, using a name that's confusingly similar to its trademark with the hope that sloppy typers will end up on … Read more

Go Daddy is trying really, really hard to distance itself from the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The domain registrar today announced that its name is no longer on a U.S. Congressional list of SOPA supporters. That's right: Go Daddy is announcing that its name has been removed from a list. But it's not just any list to Go Daddy. The company's off-and-on love affair with SOPA is having a profound impact on its operation. And at this point, even saying that it's not on a list is important for the company.

SOPA, which was introduced … Read more

Playboy's frequent portfolios of college women across the U.S. are bad enough--never mind the prospect of porn sites with names like "www.USCleazy.xxx."

That seems to be the thinking employed by colleges that, according to the Associated Press, are grabbing .xxx domain names to keep them off the market and prevent the sullying of their collegiate reputations.

The AP offers up the example of the University of Kansas, which, it says, spent nearly $3,000 to lock down names like "www.KUgirls.xxx" and "www.KUnurses.xxx."

Businesses, too, are buying … Read more

Apple has won its dispute with a domain name squatter and now is in control of iphonesex4s.com and six other names that contain the term "iPhone."

Apple filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization earlier this month, aiming to gain control of the names.

The names still serve up sites pushing porn--so you've been warned--but Apple terminated the case this morning. All seven names are now controlled by brand protection agency MarkMonitor, the company that handles domain names for most big companies, including Apple.

Domain Name Wire, which first reported the story, said Apple … Read more

Porn bigwig Manwin Licensing International has filed a lawsuit arguing that the new .xxx top-level domain arises from a monopoly aimed at hurting the adult film industry.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which obtained the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, Manwin specifically targets the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN), as well as ICM Registry, the company that is managing the domain. In the suit, Manwin argues that those companies have engaged in "monopolistic conduct, price gouging, and anticompetitive and unfair practices," according to the Journal.… Read more

Hollywood-backed legislation to knock suspected copyright-infringing Web sites offline could hinder efforts to secure Internet domain names, a key member of Congress said today.

Rep. Dan Lungren, who heads the Homeland Security subcommitteee on cybersecurity, said his panel has been working on ways to tighten the security of the Internet's domain names through a set of security improvements called DNSSEC.

An "unintended consequence" of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, would be to "undercut the real effort that would practically help us secure the Internet" through DNSSEC, Lungren said during a hearing this morning. &… Read more

We're going hands-on with the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet, released ahead of schedule to a few lucky customers today.

Also leaked from today's 404 podcast: Apple replacing original iPod Nanos, breaking up on Facebook, waging war on infographics, and tap-to-pay apps coming to Ultrabook laptops.

Also, a big congrats to CNET's Bonnie Cha, the new chief correspondent at Crave!

Stream the podcast on audio or video after the page break!… Read more