Iron Mountain Announces Commitment to Deliver Escrow Services for New gTLD Registries at ICANN Sydney Meeting
White Paper on New gTLDs Now Available
SYDNEY - June 18, 2009 – Iron Mountain Digital, the
technology arm of Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), will be
participating as a sponsor and exhibitor at the 35th ICANN
meeting being held in Sydney, Australia, June 21 – 26. ICANN, the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is responsible for
the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique domain name
identifiers. A major theme of ICANN’s Sydney meeting will be planning
for the expansion of the generic top-level domain (gTLD) space. Iron
Mountain currently provides escrow services for the majority of gTLDs
currently in existence, and plans to offer its Registry Data Escrow
services to the registries that will operate the new gTLDs.
ICANN has initiated a unique opportunity for businesses and
communities to define and acquire their own gTLDs. The organization is
preparing to accept new gTLD applications in early 2010, when
potentially hundreds of new gTLDs will be introduced to supplement the
current 21 gTLDs in existence, such as .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .mobi, and .tel, as well as the over 250 country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), such as .uk, .de, and .au. With ICANN’s new gTLD program, companies, special interest groups, or geographic regions could create their own gTLDs such as .ironmountain, .music, or .berlin.
In addition, Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) will become
available for non-ASCII, multi-byte character languages such as
Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic.
To help the Internet community further understand the impact of new
gTLDs, why an organization may want to get one, how to apply, and
issues around brand protection, Iron Mountain’s Intellectual Property
Management group has developed a white paper on the topic, entitled Make Way .com … Here Come the New gTLDs, which can be downloaded at: www.ironmountain.com/gtld.
In 2001, Iron Mountain was the first company ever selected to
protect registry data via escrow agreements, and today Iron Mountain is
poised to provide Registry Data Escrow services to the registries that
will operate the new gTLDs. A registry is a repository operator
that stores the master WHOIS database of registrants and domain names
under a given TLD; registries are also responsible for their TLD’s root
domain name system servers that aide in quick and efficient Internet
routing.
“Depositing registry data into secure escrow accounts managed by a
neutral third-party such as Iron Mountain helps safeguard the
continuity of service across the Internet,” explains John Boruvka, vice
president of intellectual property management at Iron Mountain Digital.
“Iron Mountain has proven itself to be a safe, reliable choice for the
escrow needs of registries.”
As the new gTLDs are created, their registries will be required to
comply with the same data escrow requirements that ICANN maintains for
existing gTLDs. This is to ensure the continuation of Domain Name
System operations in the event of a physical or business failure of a
registry.
As part of their Registry Agreement with ICANN, each registry
operator must comply with provisions contained within a Registry Data
Escrow Agreement. That agreement requires registries to periodically
transfer registry data for their gTLD to a reputable escrow agent to be
held in escrow. As a trusted, neutral, third party, Iron Mountain works
with registry operators to fulfill this requirement by safeguarding
valuable registry data in secure, access controlled escrow accounts.
For more information on Iron Mountain Digital’s Intellectual Property Management services, visit www.ironmountain.com/resources/services/icann.asp.
About ICANN
ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's
system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and
country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet
protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet.
Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's
operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop
policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability.
ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit
company. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.
About Iron Mountain Digital
Iron Mountain Digital is the world's leading provider of Storage-as-a
Service solutions for data protection and recovery, archiving,
eDiscovery and intellectual property management. The technology arm of
Iron Mountain Incorporated offers a comprehensive suite of solutions to
thousands of companies around the world, directly and through a
worldwide network of channel partners. Iron Mountain Digital is based
in Southborough, Mass.
About Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM) helps organizations around the
world reduce the costs and risks associated with information protection
and storage. The company offers comprehensive records management and
data protection solutions, along with the expertise and experience to
address complex information challenges such as rising storage costs,
litigation, regulatory compliance and disaster recovery. Founded in
1951, Iron Mountain is a trusted partner to more than 120,000 corporate
clients throughout North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia
Pacific. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ironmountain.com.