However, the news that the U.S. plans to loosen its grip on ICANN (and by extension, The Internet, itself) has been one of the few exceptions because of the patriotic overtones involved. Even so, a lot of people I talk to are still primarily interested in what the move means to them and their business. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published the best breakdown I've seen thus far on how this development will (and will not) change the Internet world we've come to know and love. The piece by Gautham Nagesh titled ICANN 101: Who Will Oversee the Internet? covers everything from (for the complete beginner) what ICANN is to when the change in U.S. oversight will happen, what happens after that and how it will affect U.S. businesses and the operation of the Internet.

If you are not an ICANN insider it is a good way to get a handle on the basics and decide whether or not this is an issue you want to head to the front lines to fight for or against (plenty of people are already there and the battle will rage on for some time to come as there are many details still to be sorted out and decided on).

Frank Schillng Uniregistry Founder	Elsewhere today, Frank Schilling's new domain registration service, Uniregistry.com, has launched in Preview mode, which has allowed some test users to access the site with a password and poke around ahead of the public launch that could come at any time now. I was able to do so last night and found the site had a very clean, easy to navigate interface that will appeal to many domain investors.   Features are still being added to the site ahead of the public debut so I can't yet speak to whether or not Uniregistry will have everything that is important to me. However, the fact that Frank is a domain investor with a very large portfolio of his own leads me to believe anything that is  important to domain investors will likely get incorporated at
Uniregistry in fairly short order. History has already shown us that his domainer-friendly investment background helped Frank develop disruptive products in his previous service offerings covering domain monetization and sales (DomainNameSales.com).

Like most large portfolio owners, I need a very competitive wholesale price to help ease the pain at annual renewal time. Bulk pricing information is not yet posted on the site, so, wanting to test Uniregistry's Support response anyhow, I used it to send a question on how to get that information. I got a very quick response from industry veteran Sevan Derderian (who recently joined the Uniregistry team). He said that for now those interested in bulk pricing can send an email to [email protected] to get that information and that in the near future a permanent link will be added to the site's Contact section.

Also important to those who invest in a variety of extensions (especially with the  flood of new gTLDs now arriving on the scene) is having a registrar that supports a wide variety of extensions. While Uniregistry - again in Preview mode - supports many both new and traditional gTLDs (including their own new strings like .tattoo and .sexy), I immediately 

Sevan Derderian
Uniregistry.com

noticed there was no support for ccTLDs. So, I tried the Support system again and again got a very quick response, this time from Heather Pierre who assured me, "We will be supporting ccTLDs and they will be coming soon. We have focused on launching with some of the top TLDs along with some of the new gTLDs, but will be offering other TLDs shortly. If there are any particular ccTLDs that you are interested please let us know and we could possibly provide you a better update as to when they would be available."

While everything is not in place yet, it appears to be on the way. I expect Uniregistry will hit most, if not all, of the other marks that are important to investors including security and easy transfer in and out options.  Uniregistry is also breaking some new ground by offering free WhoIs privacy. It's not an important feature to me as I don't use it, but it is highly valued by many and could be a real money saver for those who require it.