ICANN

Name Collisions II - A Call for Research

This post is a heads up to all uber-geeks about a terrific research initiative to try to figure out causes and mitigation of name-collision risk. There's a $50,000 prize for the first-place paper, a $25,000 prize for the second place paper and up to five $10,000 prizes for third-place papers. That kind of money could buy a lot of toys, my peepul. And the presentation of those papers will be in London -- my favorite town for curry this side of India. Interested? Read on.

Rewiring Internet Governance: U.S. Government Will Likely Be Forced to Jettison ICANN (Part 3)

The survival thesis mentioned in Part 2 goes like this. ICANN's imaginary mandate is global. But the mind set is provincial. The latter is defensive; focused on keeping power and therefore control over internet policy. But the evidence points to policy actions that contradict policy rhetoric. Discrepancies disclose the delusion. Here's ICANN "core value" from Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 6 (amended April, 2013): "Introducing and promoting competition in the registration of domain names where practicable and beneficial in the public interest."

The Mosque and the Bazaar: Islam, ICANN, and the New gTLD Program

The launch of the new gTLD program in January, 2012 was undoubtedly one of the finest moments for ICANN; and rightly so. The launch was a culmination of thousands of hours of hard work by thousands of people from various countries, interests, and walks of life. In the end, a 338-page Applicant Guidebook with details about how the new gTLD program was to be implemented was produced. Thus was set the stage for the greatest cyberland rush in history.

2013 Domain Name Year in Review

Well folks, it's that time of year again. It's time for our countdown of the top 10 biggest domain stories for 2013. And while my predictions from last year were accurate, in that we did see a record number of registry and registrar breaches, I had no idea that this year's biggest story would even appear on the list. So with that said, let's get started.

First Geographic NewgTLD, .RUHR, Now Delegated

Each week ICANN has been delegating more new generic top-level domains (newgTLDs) and it's been somewhat entertaining to watch the list of delegated strings to see what new TLDs will enter the domain name space starting sometime in early 2014 when they become generally available for people to register new domains under.

ICANN 48 in Buenos Aires: What Happened and What’s Next?

Last month, some of my colleagues at MarkMonitor and I traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina for ICANN 48. With the recent delegation and launch of the first new gTLDs, the atmosphere had an air of both excitement and anxiety. In my opinion, there is much to be done before brand owners should begin to feel comfortable in the post-new gTLD Internet environment, which brings a host of new challenges, as companies attempt to scale monitoring and enforcement to the new (huge) domain name space.

Brand TLDs Become Official

It seems that pigs can, after all, fly. From the start of its new gTLD program, ICANN ignored what was obvious to pretty much everyone else: corporations might wish to apply for their brands and run them as closed ecosystem TLDs servicing only the brands in question. No longer. By releasing a proposed addendum to its registry contract, called Specification 13, ICANN has done two things it has always said it would never do: acknowledged that "brand TLDs" should be considered in the new gTLD program, and created a new category of TLD for this specific class of application.

Rewiring Internet Governance: Choice and Control (Part 2)

It is tempting to write off ICANN as a U.S. foreign policy lackey and that's all there is to say about ICANN. However, if the mantra for rewiring governance means "lets get ICANN" we risk missing forest for trees. ICANN is merely the symptom of a dysfunctional governance predicament that somehow (despite best efforts) skews oversight. Shapiro, for example, regards oversight as a "game" (1994). His "delegation dilemma" or "agency problem" stems from two options, neither of which are attractive vis-á-vis governance.

The Grapes of Wrath? An Insight Into .WINE, the Most Hotly Debated TLD in Government Circles

Everybody agrees, all .WINE applicants want to find where the buck is going to stop, as far as the strange stalemate we have been in for so many months. Situation? "What situation?" I hear you asking. In July 2012, when applications and the name of their applicants were released to the public, it appeared that 3 applicants had the same idea, when they applied for a .WINE Top-Level Domain.

What Is “1net” to Me

APNIC is a signatory to the Montevideo Statement, a declaration from members of the Internet technical community about the current state of Internet technical coordination, cooperation and governance. The statement conveys in particular an agreement on "the need for ongoing effort to address Internet Governance challenges", and a commitment to "catalyze community-wide efforts towards the evolution of global multi-stakeholder Internet cooperation". Last week during ICANN 48 in Buenos Aires, there were numerous discussions about the Montevideo Statement...