Neustar representatives attended the second annual Internet Governance Forum USA (IGF-USA) which took place on July 21, 2010 at the Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC.

"The Administration is leading the way in better securing the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS).  The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), with support from NIST and DHS, has worked since 2003 to spearhead the implementation of a security technology known as DNS Security or 'DNSSEC.' In July, the most significant step in that process will be completed, when the authoritative DNS root is signed.

Neustar is recommending the establishment of a Registry Lock Service offered to the registrar channel as an additional domain security layer. The service will offer a second level of protection against unintentional modification, transfer, or deletion.  Because Neustar receives periodic requests from the registrar community to place certain premium domain names on registry lock as a component of brand protection efforts, we wish to formalize the availability of this service so that registrars may pass the service offering along to registrants.

Neustar is proposing to develop the currently reserved .us second-level domain name “S.US” into a popular and secure “URL shortener” service. URL shorteners enable individuals to copy and paste a long URL from their web browser, submit it to a web-based interface, and receive back a “shortened URL” hyperlink that will forward to the original long URL when clicked.   Neustar will collaborate with a leading URL shortening service provider to create a new service aimed at raising the awareness of the .US TLD space.

DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) targets a specific DNS vulnerability that exposes Internet users to cache poisoning, or “man in the middle” attacks. Its implementation addresses this vulnerability by adding a digital signature to DNS query responses, allowing verification of  those responses through an unbroken communication chain.

Welcome to the .US Blog. As the Administrator of the .US country-code top-level domain, Neustar has established this blog to provide a forum for communicating changes, updates, proposals, and new services to the community of .US domain name users. It will also serve as a forum for community input and feedback to Neustar’s administration of .US.

In the coming days and weeks we will be posting a number of exciting proposals and announcements for new services and initiatives in the .US domain space.  We hope you find this informative and useful, and we look forward to your comments and constructive engagement.

Neustar is proposing a program to adjust and expand marketing efforts for the .KIDS.US domain space. After nearly six years of operation of the .KIDS.US space, it has yet to capture the interest of .US accredited registrars, content providers or the public at large. Despite previous efforts to promote awareness, broaden uptake by registrars, encourage growth and increase usage of .KIDS.US domains (including offering free names and content subscriptions), we believe new measures are now required.

This program would include the following components:

Neustar is proposing to make available the currently reserved one-character and two-character second-level .US domain names. The primary goal of the proposed program is to allocate desirable one- and two-character domains in a manner that increases use and awareness of the usTLD, which will in turn enhance the attractiveness of the in the marketplace. The domains proposed for release would exclude the two-character second-level domains that currently support the legacy locality namespace.