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A letter sent earlier this month by the ICANN Board to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) should cause every new gTLD applicant's ears to prick up. Having been through every one of the applications for 1,396 different Internet extensions, the world's governments not only issued formal warnings for 199 of them, but also asked what mechanisms were in place to make sure that people did what they said they would in their applications. more
In the midst of ICANN's decision to ask the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) to create proposals on trademark protection mechanisms, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced that it will launch a fast-track UDRP process... The WIPO move is flawed and creates various problems. Here is an account. more
Since ????. (.web in Arabic and pronounced "dot shabaka") launched as the world's first new Top-Level Domain in 2014, we've faced many hurdles in growing adoption of Arabic domain names. From universal acceptance and general awareness issues to a lack of Registrars with Arabic retail interfaces -- the challenges have been numerous and varied. However, according to a new ICANN-commissioned study released this week - one of the first to investigate the Middle East DNS sector - there is much to celebrate too. more
As regular readers know, ICANN holds lengthy, in-depth discussions devoted to DNSSEC at each of its three annual meetings. The half-day session held at ICANN 43 in Costa Rica last month was particularly interesting. What became clear is that the industry is quickly moving into the end-user adoption phase of global DNSSEC deployment. more
Concerning ICANN's new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program, why is the Association of National Advertisers whose members spends 400 billion on their 10,000 brands so violently opposed? Bob Liodice President & CEO of ANA recently wrote an article "How to (Unnecessarily) Encumber The Internet And The Economy" in Forbes highly critical of ICANN but clearly missing the mark. This misunderstanding demands clarification, the fog is getting dense so let's explore some facts. more
One of many controversies surrounding the introduction of new domain names is the special protection given, though a moratorium, to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (RCRC) and International Olympic Committee (IOC). Although the RCRC and the IOC are discussed together, they are very different. more
I'm not even sure how to begin this post, but let me tell you -- my head explodes when I try to contact WHOIS "contacts" about criminal activity - FAIL. I think ICANN wants to do the right thing here, and has stated on multiple occasions that inaccurate WHOIS data is reason for registrar termination. That's a Good Thing... more
In September 2015, John Levine asked why ICANN should be considered a tax-exempt organization following the completion of the U.S. government's transition of technical management of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) determined that ICANN was an exempt organization in 2000 and, inarguably, circumstances have evolved materially since then. more
Today, anyone can use WHOIS to identify the organization or person who registered a gTLD domain name, along with their postal address, email address, and telephone number. Publishing this data has long been controversial, creating a system riddled with problems. On one hand, anonymous access to all WHOIS data enables misuse by spammers and criminals and raises concerns about personal privacy. On the other hand, incomplete or false WHOIS data prolongs Internet outages and leaves crime victims with little recourse. more
The UK IGF was held on 1st July 2014 at St. Ermin's hotel, London, England. The Nominet Chair Baroness Rennie Fritchie gave the sponsor's welcoming remarks. She said "The IGF provides an opportunity for discussion, dialogue, divergent views, and encourages people to speak-up". The event had about 50 participants. The Minister for Culture, Communication and the Creative Industries Hon. Ed Vaizey, MP gave his keynote speech and fielded questions from participants. more
"If at first you don't succeed, try and try again." A famous saying, that some within the ICANN world seem to think actually means: "if at first you don't get what you want, try and try again." The basic premise of the ICANN system is simple and fair: get all parties to work together, give everyone an equal voice, and act on whatever consensus emerges. ICANN insiders have coined this the "multi-stakeholder, bottom-up, policy development process". more
The Intellectual Property Constituency's draft report on trademark issues is now available for comment. The draft report was put together behind closed doors, which would appear to go against the normal policy development process at ICANN, which is quite worrying. Its contents, however, are even more disturbing... more
Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) might be a slightly "hot" topic at the moment following on from ICANN's launch of the IDN country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) program recently. However, IDNs are NOT a new topic. Far from it. They've been around for quite some time. Unfortunately neither The Times Online or Mashable seem to have done any homework. more
Over the past couple of years I've posted several times on the issue of "closed generics". In essence these are new TLD applications where the string is a "generic term" AND the applicant wanted to keep all domains in the registry for their own use. The baseline registry agreement with ICANN now contains language that resolves the issue, or at least it would appear to do so. more
According to ICANN’s latest budget predictions, new gTLD market will improve very slightly over the next year or so. more
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