A number of Congressional Republicans today questioned National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for apparent violation of federal law in using federal funds to relinquish U.S. oversight of the Internet. more
It has been 1.5 years since I have started my journey with ICANN. Within this short journey of mine, looking back I remember a nice memory that makes me love ICANN more and forces me to get involved even deeper. I got to know about ICANN in the APNIC conferences. I didn't really get the enormity of ICANN until I attended my first ICANN meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in March 2017 as a fellow. more
"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called on Congress to stop the Obama administration from giving away control of the Internet with congressional authorization -- a move Cruz said is likely illegal," Nicholas Ballasy reporting today in PJ Media. more
Singapore's Minister of Communications and Information, Dr. Yaacob bin Ibrahim, and former Senior Advisor to President Bill Clinton, Ira Magaziner, spoke to the success of the multistakeholder model of Internet governance during the Opening Ceremony of ICANN's 52nd public meeting today... more
If it feels like the work of the latest group addressing registration data within ICANN has been going on forever, try participating in it! Since the summer of 2018, the team has regularly been meeting for several hours each week, participating in numerous face-to-face meetings and exchanging thousands of emails. Last week in Los Angeles, the team got together once again to continue our Phase 2 work creating policy that will (among other issues) govern the disclosure of non-public registration data to third parties. more
Internet Society submitted its comments today in response to the Call for Public Comment by the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group. "The Internet Society has consistently advocated for the globalization of the IANA functions, said President and CEO Kathryn Brown in a related post today. "We firmly believe that the global community is ready now to assume this important stewardship role and that a successful completion of this process is a critical step in providing additional confidence in the collaborative and multistakeholder Internet governance model." more
ICANN needs to strengthen conflict-of-interest policies for its board of directors, said Rod Beckstrom, CEO, in his opening remarks during the organizations 43rd public meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica. "It is time to further tighten up the rules that have allowed perceived conflicts to exist within our board. ... ICANN must place commercial and financial interests in their appropriate context," said Beckstrom, who plans to step down in July. "How can it do this if all top leadership is from the very domain name industry it is supposed to coordinate independently?" more
On 8 April 2014, ICANN released the "Call for Public Input: Draft Proposal, Based on Initial Community Feedback, of the Principles and Mechanisms and the Process to Develop a Proposal to Transition NTIA's Stewardship of the IANA Functions." more
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University announced today that it "will conduct an independent, exploratory study analyzing ICANN's decision-making processes and communications with stakeholders." The study is aimed at developing a framework and recommendations for understanding and improving ICANN's accountability and transparency. "The Berkman Center's final report will be made publicly available after ICANN's Accountability and Transparency Review Team has had the opportunity to utilize its findings in recommendations to the ICANN board." more
he launch of .web top-level domain is once again at risk of being delayed by baseless procedural maneuvering. On May 2, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board of Directors posted a decision on the .web matter from its April 30 meeting, which found "that NDC (Nu Dotco LLC) did not violate the Guidebook or the Auction Rules" and directed ICANN "to continue processing NDC's .web application," clearing the way for the delegation of .web. more
Observers of IANA transition may have found a remarkably interesting fact that both supporters and opponents of the transition like citing China, along with a small number of other countries, as evidence in favor of their arguments. For supporters, take Larry Strickling as an example, blocking transition benefits China in that it will "intensify their advocacy for government-led or intergovernmental management of the Internet via the United Nations." On the contrary... more
Four US states attorneys general have quietly thrown in the towel in their attempt to have the IANA transition blocked," reports Kevin Murphy this morning in Domain Incite. more
On October 20th, ICANN and Verisign renewed the agreement under which Verisign will continue to act as Root Zone Maintainer for the Domain Name System (DNS) for another 8-year term. The Root Zone sits atop the hierarchical architecture of the DNS and is essential to virtually all internet navigation, acting as the dynamic, cryptographically secure, global directory of all top-level domains that exist in the DNS. more
After years of work on a proposed standardized system of WHOIS data disclosures (referred to as SSAD), and over a year of operational assessment of the proposal by ICANN itself, the ICANN Board seems poised to reject the proposal. And rightly so. The proposed SSAD is entirely watered down, fractured, and affords no oversight powers to ICANN regarding disclosure decisions that would continue to be left to the complete discretion of individual registrars (the very parties ICANN oversees). more
Mary Iqbal writes to report that ICANN has released the second round of Initial Evaluation Results on March 29. ICANN is currently reviewing new gTLD applications at a rate of 30 applications per week and has plans to increase that to 100 per week. more