ICANN

It’s Not Paranoia if They Are Really After You!

In the latest development from the World Conference on International Telecommunications, a new "compromise proposal" has been leaked to wcitleaks.org. This proposal is certainly no compromise, as it not only is a bald faced power grab by the sponsors (Russia, UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan at this point), but shows a stunning lack of comprehension of how the Internet works and how it is currently governed. It also shows that the coalition of Civil Society groups and private sector organisations that have focused on WCIT have been correct all along.

gTLD Contention Set Auctions: Private Auction Alternatives

Open ascending price or English auctions are the oldest and most common auction form. Derived from the Latin words augere and auctus, "Auction" means to 'augment' via 'increasing'. While there are many theoretical types of auctions (ascending, descending, sealed-bid, second-highest bid, etc.) in this post we will focus on the two main types of auctions provided by Right of the Dot and Cramton.

Verisign Dodges a Bullet, Gets to Keep .COM Pricing

According to a filing with the SEC, the Department of Commerce renewed the .COM agreement for six more years. The renewal was held up until the last minute (the old agreement expired yesterday) due to antitrust concerns, specifically about pricing. The main change in the new agreement is that Verisign is no longer allowed to increase the price above the existing $7.85...

Top 10 Biggest Domain Stories of 2012 and Predictions for 2013

So my prediction from last year that "ICANN will open the new gTLD application period without any glitches" could not have been more wrong. And yes - I actually used the word 'glitches'... Regardless of my crystal-ball gazing skills, it's been another incredibly eventful year, and below are the Top 10 Domain Stories from 2012.

New gTLDs, Last-Minute End-Arounds, and Fundamental Fairness

The ICANN community is ever closer to realization of its goal to bring long-overdue consumer choice and competition to Internet naming. Regrettably, but perhaps predictably, reliance on the Final Applicant Guidebook (AGB) is being challenged at the last minute by recent proposals from the Business and Intellectual Property Constituencies (BC/IPC), which demand "improvements" to the already extensive trademark protections that will be part of the new gTLD landscape.

Pot…Kettle…Black: The REAL Hypocrisy Threatening the Future of the Internet

Amongst all of the media pieces in the run up to WCIT-12 next week, few have been as counterfactual as that appearing on the website of the National Journal. The editor, Jean-Christophe Nothias clearly has very little knowledge of how Internet economics or governance works, making such uninformed statements such as "Critically, the connections between the approximately 40,000 autonomous servers at a global level are ruled by contractual agreements between operating agencies."

Africa vs. Africa: The GAC Early Warnings on New gTLD Applications Indicate an Africa Divided

Last week, the much-anticipated Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Early Warnings on new gTLD applications were finally issued. And the GAC didn't disappoint. A total of 242 warnings were issued on 163 strings (including 31 strings applied for by Radix). The GAC warnings yet again show that Africa is perfectly capable of being at the top of league tables -- for the wrong reasons.

“Objection, Your Honour!”

Big news! The official website of the ICANN Independent Objector is now online. Another piece of good news announced at the same time is that the site will also offer a French version, which was under construction at the time. More than a month later, the French version is still under construction. Do we have to wait for eternity? While this situation may not seem critically important on the surface, it must in fact be taken very seriously because it is symptomatic of a far deeper problem...

The Root Is Not a TLD

It's a simple, straightforward fact that the root is not a TLD. However, the current policy around new gTLDs treats the root like a TLD registry and as anyone who runs a TLD registry knows, they have certain inescapable characteristics that may not be the best for the root. In almost every TLD, once a domain name has been registered, the registrant can use it commercially with few restrictions...

Why Vint Cerf is Wrong

At the Internet Governance Forum in Baku, I made an intervention on behalf of NL IGF, reporting on the recommendations given by the participants of Workshop 87... I concluded that more regulatory and law enforcement bodies need to become part of the IGF discussions, as they are an integral part of governing the Internet from a safety and security perspective. Mr. Cerf responded with a one-liner: "I can't help observing, if we keep the regulatories confused, maybe they will leave us alone".