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On 21 August 2023, ICANN org. made its position in relation to the current state of the UN's Global Digital Compact (GDC) clear in a blog post by Sally Costerton (ICANN CEO), John Curran (ARIN), and Paul Wilson (APNIC), entitled "The Global Digital Compact: A Top-down Attempt to Minimize the Role of The Technical Community." The publication strongly criticizes the GDC's attempt at folding the technical community into the civil society umbrella under a "tripartite" approach also involving the private sector and governments, as proposed by the Secretary-General's Envoy on Technology, Amandeep Gill. more
One of the key features of the soon-to-launch iPhone is its advanced web browser capabilities. "The iPhone is the first smart phone we've tested with a real, computer-grade Web browser, a version of Apple's Safari," say the Wall Street Journal. To make the user's browsing experience even more efficient, the phone even comes with a top-level domain (TLD) button labeled ".com". Rather interesting given that today there are over two hundred TLDs in existence including .mobi... more
I just wanted to call people's attention to this International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) paper on Internet governance. I don't endorse it; haven't actually read it yet, but their say will play a big role and should be widely known: "Coming barely a month after the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, and prepared by ICC's Commmission on E-Business, IT and Telecoms, the paper divides the issue of Internet governance into three main components - technical engineering, coordination of the names and numbers system and public policy matters." more
The bitter partisan divide that characterizes so many of official Washington's current policy discussions was conspicuous in its absence at the July 8th hearing held on "Internet Governance Progress After ICANN 53" by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. In opening remarks that asked "What is the multi-stakeholder community, anyway?", Subcommittee Chairman Greg Waldren went on to declare that he and his colleagues "sought to strike the right balance between supporting the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance, while still protecting the invaluable tool of communications and commerce the Internet has become". more
Barclays Bank is a .brand pioneer, having recently announced plans to migrate its primary online presence to two new gTLDs it will operate on its own behalf. But Barclays Bank has also just plead guilty to a major financial services felony and been fined $2.4 billion for that criminal activity. While the new gTLD Registry Agreement is clear that a registry operator must remove any officer or director convicted of a felony, it is ambiguous in regard to whether the Agreement can be terminated when the operator itself has been found to have operated a criminal enterprise. more
Heads of 20 or more gTLD registries will meet privately this month to discuss various topics including the possibility of a reduction in their ICANN fees. more
In an article published over two years ago, I cited a disturbing trend of third parties seeking to obtain national trademark registrations in an apparent attempt to game ICANN's new gTLD process. While many of these applications have withered and died on the vine some have sneaked through. However, it appears that the United States Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) has issued a very well-reasoned and articulate opinion... more
When last we wrote, trademark lawyers had written an outraged letter to ICANN about the $2500 price to preregister trademark.sucks names, and ICANN, reliably panicking in the face of legal threats, wrote to the US Federal Trade Commission and Canadian Office of Consumer Affairs saying please tell us that's illegal so we can shut down this registry with whom we just signed a long-term contract. (The mysterious $1 surcharge turned out to be a weak attempt by ICANN to collect debts that affiliates of registry owner Momentous defaulted on long ago.) more
ICANN has embarked on the IDN boat at the same time it wants to introduce DNSSEC and new gTLDs. This promises lots of fun. Or grey hair, depending how you look at it. First is the issue of country code IDNs. The ISO-3166 table, based on two letter codes, is a western convention. Some cultures do not use abbreviations or acronyms. Some do not use a character-based alphabet, but a syllabic one. Hence, the next logical step would be to represent the full country name in local script, rather than a transliteration of the ISO string... Imagine the case of India, where there are 1.652 languages, of which 24 are spoken by more than one million people... more
Hon' Prime Minister, Why would India table Proposal 98 for the work of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference? Contribution 98 wants the ITU to develop an IP address plan; wants it to be a contiguous IP address platform so as to enable the Governments to map and locate every Internet user; suggests that the ITU may coordinate the distribution of IP addresses accordingly; instructs the ITU Secretary General to develop policies for... naming, numbering and addressing which are [already] systematic, equitable... more
When Bill Clinton addresses the 40th ICANN meeting in San Francisco in March 2010 he described Internet Governance as a process of "stumbling forward". Stumbling is good, he said, as long as it goes forward. Five ICANN meetings later - in the meantime ICANN adopted the new gTLD program, got nearly 2000 applications for Top Level Domains (TLDs) and has a new CEO - the "stumbling forward" goes into the next round. more
In an attempt to appease the Governmental Advisory Committee, ICANN's New gTLD Program Committee directed ICANN staff to amend the Registry Agreement so that all New gTLD Registries will be required to include a provision in its Registry-Registrar Agreement that requires Registrars to include in their Registration Agreement a provision prohibiting Registered Name Holders from distributing malware, abusively operating botnets, phishing, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement, fraudulent or deceptive practices, counterfeiting or otherwise engaging in activity contrary to applicable law, and providing (consistent with applicable law and any related procedures) consequences for such activities including suspension of the domain name. more
As faithful CircleID readers will know, iREIT (Internet REIT, Inc.), a Texas domain name portfolio investment corporation, has been sued by Verizon and by Vulcan Golf for cybersquatting. It appears iREIT is taking steps to clean up its portfolio by deleting obvious typos of famous trademarks... more
The new month visits on us a new attempt to control the Internet; the UN's specialized agency, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is holding its quadrennial plenipotentiary meeting in Guadalajara, Jalisco this week. The governments assembled there are considering a few proposals that can best be described as piquant. more
Planning for a short trip to Hong Kong tomorrow reminded me of Jonathan Shea, something I wanted to blog about but was waiting for the hype around the new generic Top-Level Domains (TLDs) to cool down. Jonathan Shea is an old friend who is in-charge of ".hk". I had the pleasure to catch up with him in Paris ICANN meeting. Before Jonathan, let me talk about something related that happened in Paris. At the Cross Constituency Meeting, there was a presentation by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). In summary, they were proposing working with registries to take down domain names that are suspected to be involved in phishing. more
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