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Shravanti Reddy?s recent piece draws attention to an important issue that has nagged at ICANN ever since the ill-fated at large elections, when participants from the developed world greatly outnumbered those from the developing world. This imbalance was somewhat mitigated by the regional delineation of candidates, but it nonetheless raised two important questions that have yet to be settled:
First, how can ICANN (and, more generally, Internet governance) be more inclusive of developing countries? And second (less often asked, but perhaps even more important): Why should developing countries care about ICANN -- i.e., why does the answer to the first question even matter? This article discusses some recent developments related to the first question; a later article will consider some specific reasons why ICANN matters to the developing world. more
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is spearheading an initiative to launch Virtual DNS Entrepreneurship Center of the Caribbean (VDECC). more
ICANN has announced that they will be having a Special Meeting of the ICANN Board on 19 February 2010 (3:00 UCT) to discuss the "upcoming ICANN International meeting." It is reasonable to assume that the 17 February 2010 security update will be a topic of discussion... I trust that the ICANN Board will make the right decision balancing the obligations that ICANN has to the global Internet community, with the safety and security of those ICANN stakeholders that participate in person at these ICANN events. However, the ICANN Board needs to gain the trust of the global community in connection with this and other important decisions that it will be making. more
The day after 'reveal day' two big questions will emerge; firstly was the advertising branding world so wrong or secondly, the parties behind the proposed names so invincible and can turn their $350 million dollars into many tens of billions. To be fair the jury may be out nevertheless, here are some facts... The Internet was never designed to solve the global business naming problems; it was the extension of DARPA, a failsafe military communication system later adventured into public use. more
Last week, I visited Budapest to deliver a speech at the ICANN Studienkreis, an annual conference where experts study and address some current issues relating to Internet governance. I discussed how the Internet is on a slippery slope. Starting with the legitimate concern over how to deal with cybersquatters, we have moved to an unreasonable focus on legal control of Internet content and the domain name system. more
Congratulations on your appointment as the next CEO of ICANN, and welcome to our little rogues' gallery. Some denizens of this domain (your humble author included) may strike you as a little odd at first, but we're mostly harmless. We usually steer first-timers onto the Newcomers track, but in your case, that may be... inadequate. And while we would never presume to tell you how to do your job -- which may be one of the world's hardest - we thought we might offer a few pieces of friendly advice, based on our time here. more
One would think with an annual budget in excess of 60 million dollars a year and a staff of upwards of 140 (including consultants), that someone would have figured out how to prevent the organization from repeatedly shooting itself in the foot. Unfortunately not even a year of star-fish management oversight by the likes of Rod Beckstrom seems to have done the trick. Exhibit One, earlier this week on CircleID we learned about the first Root Zone DNSSEC KSK Ceremony on Wednesday 2010-06-16 in Culpeper, VA, USA. Of course given the significance of this event one would reasonably assume that ICANN might mention this somewhere on the main page of their website? more
The modus operandi of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is achieving consensus. This also holds true for the principal rights protection mechanism that emerged from a two-year round of debates organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that ICANN implemented in 1999 as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Consensus rules; not precedent, although consensus inevitably becomes that. more
The compliance deadline for the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is nearly upon us, the unveiling of a proposed model to bring WHOIS into compliance is said to come from ICANN next week, and everyone is scrambling to understand all that's involved. Implementation of a revised WHOIS model is clearly on the horizon, but what comes after may be the real story! Specifically, if WHOIS information becomes more than nominally restricted, what's the consequence to the data controllers (ICANN and the contracted parties) who implement this revised model? more
Steeped deep in discussions around the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the past several months, it has occurred to me that I've been answering the same question for over a decade: "What happens if WHOIS data is not accessible?" One of the answers has been and remains the same: People will likely sue and serve a lot of subpoenas. This may seem extreme, and some will write this off as mere hyperbole, but the truth is that the need for WHOIS data to address domain name matters will not disappear. more
ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organisation (GNSO) has formed a working group to consider changes to the domain transfer process to enhance security and reduce hijacking. The working group consists of registrars, aftermarket players, domainers and other members of the ICANN Community. The group published its preliminary recommendations at the ICANN meeting in Brussels two weeks ago and the 20-day comment period has just begun. more
"ICANN holds .islam, .halal in limbo despite losing case," reports Kieren McCarthy in The Register. more
When Barack Obama succeeded George W Bush and became America's 44th president, it seemed he could do no wrong. But this was arguably more a consequence of the perceived inadequacies of his predecessor than a realistic reflection on his own abilities. A fact highlighted by Obama being awarded the Nobel peace prize a mere nine months after taking office, before he'd had any real chance of having an impact on America or the world. When Fadi Chehadé was formally introduced as ICANN's next CEO, at the organisation's 44th international meeting in Prague last June, there was an undeniable Obama effect... more
Over the weekend, ICANN's Board of Directors met in Norway to discuss the fate of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). As a result of the meeting, two resolutions were passed related to new gTLDs. First, the Board resolved to recommend further actions based on comments recently submitted by the Governmental Advisory Committee. The second resolution directed the ICANN CEO to incorporate a number of items into the fifth version of the Guidebook including... more
It has been my distinct pleasure to serve on ICANN's Expert Working Group on gTLD Directory Services (EWG). We put in many long months and what seemed like countless hours of research, discussion, meetings, and deliberations on how to tackle a clean-slate approach to gTLD directory services, popularly known as "WHOIS". In our Final Report, the Expert Working Group (EWG) recommended a Registration Directory Service (RDS) to replace today's WHOIS, providing a next-generation system to better meet the needs of the evolving global Internet with greater accuracy, privacy, and accountability. more
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