ICANN

Privacy, Legal vs. Natural Persons, and the Never-Ending ICANN EPDP

It has been just over 3 years since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect, and the work within ICANN (type "EPDP 2a" into your acronym decoder ring) to develop a permanent Registration Data policy is progressing at a snail's pace. At issue is a proposed mandatory requirement for Contracted Parties (really just Registrars), to differentiate between "legal persons" (a fancy way of saying corporations and similar organizations) and "natural persons" (the kind that eat and breathe and schedule Zoom calls).

Why Is Verisign Ignoring New Revenue?

Last month saw a much-anticipated decision handed down in the Independent Review Panel (IRP) proceeding examining the controversial 2015 auction for the .web generic top-level domain name registry (gTLD). This decision has been covered by others, including Kevin Murphy's DomainIncite, and has been the subject of unsurprisingly incongruous statements by both Verisign and Afilias, who are both contending for the .web concession privilege.

10th Registration Operations Workshop (ROW), June 8th, 2021, Online

The Registration Operations Workshop (ROW) was conceived as an informal industry conference that would provide a forum for discussion of the technical aspects of registration operations in the domain name system and IP addressing. The 10th ROW will be held online on Tuesday, June 8th, 2021 at 13h00-17h00 UTC. Click to learn more about the discussion topics and registration details.

IRP Panel Dismisses Afilias’ Claims to Reverse .WEB Auction and Award .WEB to Afilias

On Thursday, May 20, a final decision was issued in the Independent Review Process (IRP) brought by Afilias against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), rejecting Afilias' petition to nullify the results of the July 27, 2016 public auction for the .WEB new generic top level domain (gTLD) and to award .WEB to Afilias at a substantially lower, non-competitive price. Nu Dotco, LLC (NDC) submitted the highest bid at the auction and was declared the winner, over Afilias' lower, losing bid.

“It’s Always DNS!” Why DNS Is the Biggest Single Point of Failure in the New Norm

Many in the network security field may be familiar with the phrase: "It's always DNS."  This is a popular meme within the industry, often making reference to the internal domain name system (DNS), the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) part of a company's online network, that whenever there is a network issue, it's always an issue with DNS.

Multistakeholderism Is Working: Even in Exile

I'm happy to report (mostly) positive feedback on my last article that examined how the multistakeholder model tackled, and tackled well, Phase 1 of the review of all Rights Protection Mechanisms. While bad news may sell more clicks, a little good news from time to time also appears to be welcome. Good news also reminds us of how fortunate we are to have a private sector ICANN with a multistakeholder model of policy development...

ICANN’s Tax Exemption Requires Updated Review

In September 2015, John Levine asked why ICANN should be considered a tax-exempt organization following the completion of the U.S. government's transition of technical management of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) determined that ICANN was an exempt organization in 2000 and, inarguably, circumstances have evolved materially since then.

Mistrust of ICANN Is Fully Vindicated

Recently, I have been reporting on a highly questionable auction scheme for a single domain name, o.com, which is currently being improperly warehoused by ICANN along with a number of other .com and .net domain names. This violates ICANN's Bylaws -- but, so what?

Ten Years of Passive DNS

The report, "A Decade of Passive DNS" provides a longitudinal analysis of the use and popularity of top-level domains over a ten-year period. The findings are based on what Farsight Security has seen in passive DNS from 2010-2019 based on a ten-year data rollup, excluding DNSSEC-related records. This study allows us to report on four measures for that period for each of the 1,576 IANA-recognized TLDs.

Leaked Documents Reveal Xi Jinping’s Communist Chinese Plan to Control the Internet’s Root

Yesterday, The Epoch Times reported on leaked internal Chinese government documents revealing that premier Xi Jinping has "personally directed the communist regime to focus its efforts to control the global Internet, displacing the influential role of the United States." Xi's ultimate aim is for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to wield "discourse power" over communications and discussions on the global geopolitical stage by controlling content on the Internet.