Chicago, IL, USA -
December 28, 2009
As announced on November 4, 2009, WorldRoot will start
charging a fee for TLDs to be listed in the WorldRoot, beginning January
1, 2010.
This fee will apply to
all TLD listings except legacy ICANN TLDs and ccTLDs. The fee for 2010
will be US $175 per year.
This fee will be used to support new WorldRoot servers and provide
redundant connectivity and reliable power for the current servers.
John Palmer, President and CEO of American Webmasters, Inc. said today
that the company is
moving the Alpha root to a highly connected data center in the
first week of
January 2010. "We will be moving to 350 E. Cermak in Chicago's South
Loop - this is one
of the most highly connected, secured facilities in the world", Palmer
said. 350 E. Cermak
is owned by
The Digital Realty Trust
which operates
data centers around the world. Information about 350 E. Cermak is
located
HERE
In addition to this upgrade for A.WORLROOT.NET, other WorldRoot servers
will be installed
around the world until the complete set of 13 servers is deployed. All
of this depends
on funding from TLD listing fees mentioned above.
In 2010, WorldRoot will
also implement tools for both TLD holders and the internet public such
as a comprehensive WHOIS service for TLDs listed in the WorldRoot,
including the ability to track changes to TLDs as listed in the
WorldRoot and also information about colliding versions of TLDs.
The WorldRoot is dedicated to supporting all of the known, active TLDs
that exist in the
world and will not de-list anyone that does not pay the annual fee, but
instead, will
put placeholder TXT records in place for the un-funded TLDs until and
unless the
TLD holder wishes to activate his or her TLD in the WorldRoot. All of
the "legacy" TLDs,
that is, ICANN TLDs and ccTLDs will be grandfathered in because
excluding TLDs such as .COM or any of the ccTLDs would make WorldRoot un-usable and it is
highly unlikely
that ICANN, the legacy gTLD registrars or the ccTLD operators would pay,
although they will be
invited to support the WorldRoot, if they so choose.
The fee structure will
be implemented in phases. Starting January 1, 2010, WorldRoot will
continue its audit of the WorldRoot zone. Each TLD will be checked to
make certain that it has a minimum of 2 authoritative, operational
servers visible to the public on the internet. Contact information for
the TLD holder will be verified and an invoice will be sent to the TLD
holder, by e-mail and then by postal mail, if the holder does not
respond to the e-mail within 14 days. If the TLD holder does not respond
within 30 days after the postal mail invoice has been sent, the TLD will
be removed from the live WorldRoot zone file by removing the NS records
from the root zone and replacing those records with TXT records
explaining that the TLDs are "taken" but are un-funded and therefore not
operational in the WorldRoot.
No TLD records will be
changed until the audit is complete for that TLD. A complete audit of
the WorldRoot zone will probably take several months.
In the next few weeks, the formal WorldRoot listing policy will be
posted on the WorldRoot website in the
RESOURCES section.
For more information about this and other WorldRoot matters, please
visit WorldRoot
website at http://www.worldroot.net. You may also contact WorldRoot
through the online
contact form at that site.