ICANN

ICANN’s San Francisco Meeting

I was sitting around on a Sunday afternoon catching up with a backlog of work watching the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New York Giants in an unbelievable comeback, when I visited the ICANN website and noticed the new logo for the upcoming 40th ICANN regional. ...I personally thought the original choice of the San Francisco logo looked confusingly similar to Cisco's registered trademark. more

Online Critics and Unlawful Harassment from Trademark Holders

The following is based on my experience and interpretation of the UDRP and the relevant laws of the United Kingdom and European Union. This is not legal advice but just my own experience and interpretation. How does a UK citizen create a non-commercial trademark.tld parody criticism website and avoid harassment from the trademark holder? Here are the steps... more

Out of .Africa - Process Failures Don’t Change the Facts

I've heard a lot of discussion of the .africa controversy of late -- from conspiracy theories to questions about staff competence to concerns about the role of the GAC. And it's hard not to find faults galore in the way this process and the IRP reporting has played out. But before we get too lost in the weeds of procedure or the future of ICANN, lets not lose track of what this debate was first and still is fundamentally about: a string. more

Want a New gTLD? Some Items to Consider

Over three years ago ICANN boldly announced that the top level of the domain name system would be opened up to new registry operators. As we now approach a likely spring 2011 launch, a number of key issues remain unresolved including how trademarks will be protected. more

What to Know About an ICANN Compliance Audit, and How to Handle One if You Are Selected?

Now that new gTLD registries have been operating for more than a year, a few registries have already experienced going through an audit and a few more are now receiving notifications that they are next in line. For all, the process of going through an ICANN audit is a first. Once you receive the Request for Information (RFI), you will have 15 days to respond, or seek an extension of time. Extensions may be available on a case by case basis. more

Can Plural and Singular New gTLDs Both Be Successful?

Now that ICANN has stuck to its guns and only placed 4 new gTLD's strings that look confusingly similar into contention sets, rather than those that sound identical, such as .inc and .ink or those that have the same meaning like .Law and .Lawyer or those that are singular and plurals of the same word, like .deal and .deals, we now that many new gTLD's are going to have a very a tough marketing road and face a lot of consumer confusion. more

A Visualized gTLd Sequencing Proposal

As a follow-up to our previous CircleID article "Strong Support for IDNs, GEOs and/or Communities to Go First" we have developed a flow chart which visualizes how the applications may be processed in a fair and transparent manner. The chart also shows that at the end of the day only about 1,200 new gTLDs may go online, that means that we will likely see about 730 drop outs. more

Swiss Among World Leaders in Enabling DNSSEC

SWITCH, the registry for .CH and .LI domain names, enabled DNSSEC on day two of the annual Domain Pulse conference in Luzern yesterday. SWITCH became the third ccTLD registry to enable DNSSEC giving registrants of .CH domain names added security following .SE (Sweden) and .CZ (Czech Republic). more

Who is Wagging Who? Same Dog, New Tale.

Today, my company AusRegistry International signed an open letter to the United States House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet as a show of support for ICANN and its new Top-Level Domain program. I'm disappointed by the nature of the oversight hearing the Subcommittee has called and I believe it will only be a distraction. Let's not kid ourselves; the reason for this hearing is to beat up ICANN over the new TLD program. I think this is unfair and unjustified... more

New Agreement Declares ICANN Independent

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has reached a major milestone today with a new agreement in place with the U.S. Department of Commerce allowing the organization greater independence and giving more countries oversight of the organization. more

ICANN Signs Agreement Giving UPU Managing Authority Over .Post Domain

ICANN and the Swiss-based Universal Postal Union (UPU) have signed an agreement giving the UPU managing authority over .post as a top-level domain (TLD). At the highest conceptual level, the agreement represents linking the TLD with the real-world physical networks of the postal system, with 600,000 global physical offices and proximity to most humans. To enable its customers to take advantage of the services the UPU envisions for .post, the UPU is already installing the first computers in many villages in their local post offices to provide those services, says the announcement. more

Meeting Report: ICANN’s Registration Data Request Service Requestor Experiences

During CSG Open Working Session at ICANN79, Members from the ICANN Community were invited to an open meeting to share their experiences with Registration Data Request System (RDRS) from the Requestor side. As President of the Edgemoor Research Institute (ERI), I had the honor to present the keynote address and I am pleased to be able to provide you with ERI's report of the meeting. more

The Future of Religions on the Internet

Internet is facing the biggest change in its history. New brands, ideas, groups, communities,... have now found the chance to apply for their own specific space on internet naming system through ICANN's new gTLD program. One of the most interesting points of this courageous program was the motivation it created among communities to try to represent their specific webspace on the internet by applying for their own TLD; and among them were the religious communities as well. more

In Defense of Process: Identifying the Problem Before Seeking Solutions

You don't necessarily need to walk before you can run, but you should probably look where you are going before you do either. The U.S. Government's announcement that it would transition out of its unique legacy role in ICANN set off a powder keg at ICANN, as stakeholders from every corner of the community rushed to offer their recommendations on how to fill the impending contractual vacuum with something, new, better, and appropriately reflective of the multi-stakeholder model. more

ICANN: Governance & Authority

It is almost 25 years since the Internet was privatized by the U.S. government. ICANN was formed by Esther Dyson and Jon Postel as a California-based non-profit with the responsibility to administer the Internet. However, the U.S. government retained limited control, primarily through the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). It was the revelations, in 2013, of highly classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents by Edward Snowden that sparked global concerns over the U.S. dominance of the Internet.  more