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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has appointed Kurt Erik "Kurtis" Lindqvist as its new President and CEO, effective December 5, 2024. Lindqvist, an industry veteran with over 30 years of experience in the development of Internet Service Providers and global network carriers, currently serves as the CEO of the London Internet Exchange (LINX). more
Verisign recently published a technical report on new generic top-level domain (gTLD) security and stability considerations. The initial objective of the report was to assess for Verisign's senior management our own operational preparedness for new gTLDs, as both a Registry Service Provider for approximately 200 strings, as well as a direct applicant for 14 new gTLDs... However, in cataloging internal and external risks related to the new gTLD program, we found several far-reaching and long-standing issues that need to be further explored and/or resolved with varying levels of urgency. more
The ICANN community recently gathered in Kobe, Japan for its first meeting of the year and it was certainly a busy week for attendees. Much of the meeting centered around the work of the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) to address gTLD registration data. As a member of the EPDP team, we had been hard at work since being formed in August of 2018. Just prior to the Kobe meeting, we published the phase 1 Final Report. more
Some readers may wonder why I chose to raise the issue of "trust" now or even ask what it will take for ICANN to repair it. After all, the New gTLDs have been launched; applications have started being received, and all ICANN official announcements are that all is good and going according to plan. But many other readers and astute observers of this space, domestic and international, would not confuse the public dead silence we are hearing from ICANN and its insider community or the euphoria of the long awaited application submissions we are seeing to mean that all is perfect. more
ICANN organized a meeting on 15-16 November 2012 in Los Angeles, the Trademark Clearinghouse policy negotiations... I participated on behalf of noncommercial users in the policy meeting in person in LA on 15 November, and then for part of the discussion on 16 November via telephone. Here is my personal evaluation of the meeting and my initial reactions to the output of the meeting pending further discussion with the NCSG Policy Committee. more
Earlier this year, the Obama Administration announced its plans to turn over the very heart of the Internet to the control of ICANN. On Monday, Republican leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees sent a letter asking the Government Accountability Office to study whether a Congressional vote on the transfer is required under the Constitution's Property Clause because administration of the root zone file is a government asset, created under government contract. Some will no doubt dismiss the letter as Republican obstructionism. more
ICANN has opened a comment period in relation to whois conflicts with local law / data privacy law. Of course anytime ICANN, or anyone else, tries to make any changes to whois policy there are issues. Whois is, for a variety of reasons, an emotive subject... under EU law many feel that registration details for domain name registrants need to be handled in a manner that is more compatible with the EU Directives and local law more
Why is so much fear being created in the name of protecting trademark owners? Say, if ICANN allowed some third party a generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) called .panasonic will the sky fall? No, not at all, as Panasonic, the true and rightful TM holder will hit the unauthorized gTLD with a 2x4 and no judge would oppose issuing a cease-and-desist order. Now the other question is... more
ICANN recently commissioned a report from a domain auction company to see whether it would be a good idea to auction Top-Level Domains (TLDs) that have multiple applicants. Remarkably, the domain auctioneers came to the conclusion that auctions are a great idea, which they surely are for some people. But are they a good idea for ICANN? And if ICANN admits they can't evaluate competing applications on their merits, how can they keep the process from turning into another speculative land grab? more
This post is based on the scenario that a trademark.tld domain name is registered with a UK ICANN accredited registrar, (they have an exclusive UK jurisdiction clause in their contracts), the trademark.tld criticism website located at that domain name is strictly non-commercial, the servers are located in the UK, and the registrant is a British citizen. In the above circumstances, the corporations and/or their lawyers are taking a big risk when they use the Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policies (UDRP) in order to silence criticism at trademark.tld. more
Independent Objector (IO) has lodged objections on 24 new Applied-for gTLD (name scripts) before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) on 12th March 2013. IO has exercised his important role and functionality in favor of Public interests on the grounds of Limited Public Interest and Community. New gTLD name scripts .Med, .Health, .Hospital, .Amazon, .Indians are included in the list of objections filed. more
A series of recent applications for national trademark rights in terms that correspond to likely strings for new top-level domain names, or TLDs, (e.g., ".BLOG") highlight just one way in which ICANN's new generic TLD (gTLD) application process is likely to be "gamed." But it is also a strategy to which some trademark holders may feel compelled to resort to defend their rights to that string. Unfortunately, it does not appear that ICANN is addressing these important public policy considerations. more
The key to fixing any part of the Internet infrastructure is to understand the business cases for the parties whose behavior you want to influence and design the technology accordingly. People who follow this approach (Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web) have a chance of succeeding. People who ignore it (DNSSEC, IPv6) will fail. The root problem here is that the ICANN DNS does not differentiate between the parts of the Internet that are accountable and those that are not. more
Listening today to the U.S. Congress' House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing on ICANN governance reminded me just how often Vox Populi Registry, the company bringing dotSucks names to the Internet, is a guest at parties to which it has never been invited. Sometimes, like today, we are able to view it all from a distance and mostly we have refrained from trying to correct every misstatement or argue each odd point. more
Internet public policy -- and the technical ecosystem -- is at a crossroads and the choice of CEO that ICANN's board makes now is probably the most important such choice it has ever made. Since I work in Internet policy across the Geneva institutions where more than 50% of all international Internet-related policy meetings take place, and have worked at ICANN in senior positions in the past, I thought I would suggest some qualities the next CEO should have. more
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