Earlier today some of the biggest names in the tech industry sent a letter to Congress in support of the IANA transition and urging Congress not to delay it. The IANA transition relies on the expiry of the contract between the US Government's Department of Commerce and ICANN which is scheduled for the end of this month. As has previously been noted, some conservative politicians, most notably Senator Ted Cruz, have been very vocal in their criticism of the move and want to block it in Congress. more
Thursday, September 8, 2016 was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for the prospects of the IANA functions transition being completed by October 1, 2016. Indeed, that same date - but in 2017 - may be the earliest that the handoff from NTIA to ICANN can be completed, given what last Thursday. The day began with the announcement that Sen. Ted Cruz would be making his first Senate floor remarks since exiting the Republican Presidential race, and that the talk's focus would be a continuation and escalation of his long-standing opposition to "Obama's Internet giveaway". Shortly after 11 am, Sen. Cruz began speaking from his Senate desk... more
Senator Cruz's against the IANA transition will continue next week with a senate hearing next week. The hearing is entitled: Protecting Internet Freedom: Implications of Ending U.S. Oversight of the Internet. While the hearing is being chaired by Cruz, no indication of who else will be speaking has been made public so far. In a press release from Cruz's offices earlier this evening, the Senator continued his almost hysterical and misleading narrative. more
Republicans gear up for fight against internet transition," Ashley Gold and Tony Romm reporting in the POLITICO today. more
On August 31st the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a response to the August 12th letter from Senator Ted Cruz and some Congressional colleagues to the head of the Antitrust Division. In that letter Cruz et al asserted that if the pending extension of the .Com registry Agreement (RA) was granted in combination with the consummation of the IANA transition, that DOJ could be prevented from having "meaningful input into the prices that Verisign charges for registering a domain name within the .com domain for an extended period". more
The US government plan to move control of the internet's naming and numbering functions to ICANN next month may not move forward, reports Kieren McCarthy more
I've mentioned the IANA transition in several posts over the last year or so. Personally I'd love to not have to mention it ever again, as it's not the kind of topic that we should be spending too much time thinking about or worrying about. There are plenty of other things out there that cause us all headaches without adding to the list. However the IANA transition is a topic that is of fundamental importance for the global internet community. more
Senator Cruz' crusade against the IANA transition is back in full swing. With the deadline for the expiry of the IANA contract approaching both he and other anti-transition types have been working hard on their campaigns to block the transition. The latest addition to the Cruz website is a special lander page featuring a countdown clock... Yes, that's an image of President Obama shaking hands with China's Xi Jiping. more
Do you have information or an idea you would like to share with members of the broader DNS / DNSSEC community? Have you developed a new tool that makes DNSSEC or DANE deployment easier? Have you performed new measurements? Would you like feedback about a new idea you have? Would you like to demonstrate a new service you have? If so, we're seeking proposals for the DNSSEC Workshop to be held at ICANN57 in Hyderabad, India, in early November 2016. more
ICANN has announced a new hire, Mark Jardina – an expert in global security and health and safety as Vice President of Security Operations. more
On Friday, ICANN informed NTIA that it has completed or will complete all the necessary tasks called for in the transition proposal by the end of the contract term. more
ICANN has announced the name of the newly incorporated organization, Public Technical Identifiers (PTI), as a nonprofit entity to begin operation as 'Post-Transition IANA'. more
"NU DOT CO LLC prevailed in the auction for the price of $135 million to operate the .WEB gTLD, announced ICANN today confirming earlier unofficial reports suggesting the amount. more
ICANN has released Draft Report of an Independent Review of the Trademark Clearinghouse. Key findings include the fact that "across eligible trademark holders, fewer than 20 percent have used the Sunrise period to date." more
This week ICANN will auction off .WEB or .WEBS. There are seven live applications for .WEB and one for .WEBS. The string contention process decided that the two names are so similar that they'll only assign one of them, so all eight applications are in one auction... There are some deep pocketed bidders in this round including Google, Donuts, web.com which owns Network Solutions and a lot of other web properties, and Schlund which owns the largest web hoster 1&1. more