ICANN

Still Missing in Action

After wading through the various IANA Notice of Inquiry (NOI) submissions I thought I would take a break and do a secondary review of the recently concluded ICANN regional meeting in San Francisco. In doing this review there were three things that kind of jumped out at me as still missing in action.

Relinquishing IANA Would Be a Mistake for NTIA

In comments to the U.S. Government, ICANN sought to convince the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to relinquish its oversight of the Internet Address and Number Authority ("IANA") functions. At its heart, ICANN's presentation is a plea for NTIA to declare the privatization of DNS management finished. For several reasons, ICANN's plea should be refused.

The Dangers of Building a Brand on a Tenuous Country Code

About two years ago I wrote with concern about Bit.ly's use of Libya's country code. I noted that It's always important to keep in mind that a company can't "own" a domain the way it owns real estate. Now it appears that companies that have built brand names on Libya's country code are facing difficult times.

Impenetrable Processes and Fool’s Gold at ICANN

A couple of weeks ago, I attended part of the ICANN meeting in San Francisco. I've been watching ICANN and been peripherally aware of their issues since the organization began, but this was my first chance to attend a meeting. What I learned is that ICANN is a crazy behemoth of a bureaucracy, steeped in impenetrable acronyms and processes that make it nearly impossible for someone new to get up to speed. The best example of this is the recent approval of the .XXX top-level domain.

ICANN Sets June Target for New gTLD Program Launch

npt its recent meeting in San Francisco, ICANN approved a new draft timeline for the launch of its new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) program that will let its Board of Directors approve the final Applicant Guidebook in June 2011, enabling companies to apply for gTLDs before the end of the year.

Stumbling Forward Means Promoting IDNs

A couple of weeks ago during the 40th ICANN meeting in San Francisco I got up to talk at the microphone. I spoke about the needs of developing markets on the web, about the importance of focusing on the 56% of the world that doesn't use Latin character scripts and about the struggles they still face as they go about their everyday lives - chatting, shopping or when pushed, promoting regime change - all using the internet...

Mooning the Porn Stars

Steve DelBianco did a great job of discussing the rocky relationship between ICANN's Government Advisory Committee (GAC) and the Board of Directors, in his piece entitled ".XXX Exposes the Naked Truth for ICANN". I've been keeping an eye on the adult industry press to see what their reaction is to the .XXX debacle. But before we start, let's get something out of the way.

.XXX Exposes the Naked Truth for ICANN

Internet governance can be a little on the dry side. So when tech policy reporters get a chance to write an ICANN story that features porn stars on picket lines, it's hard to blame them when they run with it. But all the media hype about ICANN's .xxx decision at last week's meeting in San Francisco exposed the real dilemma facing ICANN: how to engage governments in a multi-stakeholder model that's led by the private sector.

ICANN and the GAC - Lessons Learned Since Cartagena

Experience is the best teacher. In the interest of capturing lessons learned (and avoiding the repetition of hard experiences needlessly), it is worth highlighting what the interactions between the ICANN Board and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) since Cartagena have taught.

DNSSEC Deployment Reaching Critical Mass

Less than nine months after the DNS root was signed, the rollout of DNSSEC across the Internet's top-level domains is approaching the tipping point. Thanks to the combined efforts of registries around the world, the new security protocol will soon be available to the majority of domain name registrants in almost a quarter of all TLDs.