ICANN

ICANN and the GAC - Lessons Learned Since Cartagena

Experience is the best teacher. In the interest of capturing lessons learned (and avoiding the repetition of hard experiences needlessly), it is worth highlighting what the interactions between the ICANN Board and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) since Cartagena have taught. more

A Bend in the River: ICANN Should Prepare for a 2 °C World

Toward the end of last week, the world waited with bated breath for the outcome of the 21st annual meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). The meeting, commonly called COP 21, was held in Le Bourget, Paris, from November 30 to December 12; a bit too soon after the terrorists attacks on Paris earlier in November. COP 21 was important because COP 15 in Copenhagen (2009) failed to arrive at a global consensus... more

U.S. Government Announces Intent to Transition DNS Functions to Global Community

U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) took a historic step today announcing "its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community." more

ICANN, Ukraine and Leveraging Internet Identifiers

Ukraine's representative to ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) has sent a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to remove Russian-administered top level domains (.RU, .SU and .рф) from the DNS root zone. In a separate letter, Ukraine's representative also asked RIPE NCC to withdraw the right to use all IPv4 and IPv6 addresses by all Russian members of the regional IP registry for the European region. more

Wither WHOIS!: A New Look At An Old System

No, that title is not a typo. The WHOIS service and the underlying protocol are a relic of another Internet age and need to be replaced. At the recent ICANN 43 conference in Costa Rica, WHOIS was on just about every meeting agenda because of two reasons. First, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee put out SAC 051 which called for a replacement WHOIS protocol and at ICANN 43, there was a panel discussion on such a replacement. The second reason was the draft report from the WHOIS Policy Review Team. more

An ITU Cut and Paste Job for New TLDs Could Cost $150k

It was with great interest that I read a recent announcement about a plan by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to publish template answers on a wiki for the 22 questions relating to registry technical operations contained within ICANN's new Top-Level Domain Applicant Guidebook. As someone who has spent the best part of six years following the development of the program (witnessing first-hand each evolution of the Applicant Guidebook) my first thought was one of bemusement... more

Navigating the .brand Delegation Process

Today marks a major milestone for .brand Top-Level Domain applicants, as we pass the deadline set by ICANN for them to sign their Registry Agreement (RA). For those who have knuckled down over the last few weeks and months to meet this deadline, congratulations -- for many, this was no mean feat and the effort should be acknowledged. more

Dot GCC Applicant Fights for Survival

Much has been said about the advice ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee submitted to the Board of directors at the close of last April's Beijing International Meeting. The recommendations given by governments will probably be the subject of much more discussion in the weeks ahead and the run-up to ICANN's next meeting in Durban (South Africa) in July. Especially now that the comment period opened after Beijing on GAC Advice has closed, and that ICANN has published its summary of the comments received. more

Consistency, Urgency, and Transparency Needed for Registrant Data Requests

As we reported in our Post-GDPR Compliance Rate retrospective in January 2020, registrar compliance rates in response to verified requests for redacted registrant information using the Appdetex WHOIS Requestor System was 25 percent. Our most recent report shows the compliance rate has increased to 27 percent, based upon a total of 243 requests for redacted WHOIS information sent to 68 registrars over the period starting January 1, 2020, through February 24, 2020. more

IANA Contract Extended by One Year, Announces Department of Commerce

United States Department of Commerce on Monday announced the official date for privatization of the DNS to be September 30, 2016 -- formerly set to expire on September 30, 2015. more

A Civil Society Perspective on NETmundial Final Outcome: A Remarkable Achievement Despite Losses

few 'big picture' thoughts on the Netmundial meeting in Brazil this week and its final outcome document, adopted by its high level committee. Overall, there are some truly amazing and forward-looking principles supported in the "Netmundial Multi-Stakeholder Statement" that we as civil society should be proud of, and especially our civil society representatives who worked tirelessly for this achievement. more

ICANN Launches $10 Million Grant Program to Boost Global Internet Growth

ICANN, the organization overseeing the Domain Name System, has announced a $10 million grant initiative to propel projects supporting "the growth of a single, open and globally interoperable Internet." The first application cycle for grants is set to open in March 2024. more

What to Say About the Treaty on the ITRs: Crib Notes

Look past the panic over December's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT); it's unlikely to be a catastrophe for several practical reasons: (1) the negotiation lasts ten days, so there is not enough time for 193 countries to agree on how to phrase catastrophe (2) large multilateral events tend to converge, like so many voters, on the centre, and (3) the putative chairman of the event is a seasoned grown-up, and will not allow the treaty to break the global information grid. more

Dot Gay Alliance Announces Plans for .GAY TLD, Profits to Fund LGBT Civil Rights

The Dot Gay Alliance has announced plans to create the .GAY top-level domain (TLD) that also aims to become a source of funding for the LGBT civil rights groups in the US and abroad. The Dot Gay Alliance is led by Founder & Executive Director Joe Dolce, whose media strategy firm, DolceGoldin, provides communications services for the Alliance, according to the announcement released today. Dot Gay Alliance supporters include, New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Sunil Babu Pant, the first openly gay member of the Nepal Parliament. more

Over 100 gTLD Applications Committed in Aug. 13 Applicant Auction

In early June, the first Applicant Auction resolved contention for 6 contested gTLDs. The successful outcome of that auction has generated a great deal of interest from other applicants, and Innovative Auctions is expecting a big turnout in our next auction, to be held on August 13th. For more than half of the contested applications, at least one applicant is ready to resolve contention via our auction. more