ICANN

ICANN and Your Internet Abuse

In spite of the material we were presented with in Durban something has gone very wrong inside of ICANN Compliance. KnujOn has published a report which demonstrates that ICANN Compliance appears to completely collapse between September 2012 and December 2012. Following December 2012, ICANN seems to stop responding to or processing any complaints. It is around this time certain compliance employees start disappearing. This was not limited to the Sydney office as some would have us believe... more

ICANN Opens GNSO Whois Study on Privacy/Proxy Abuse for Comment

ICANN has opened the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Whois study on privacy/proxy abuse for public comment. Performed by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), this study is one of many commissioned by the GNSO to examine the current, disparate, and often maligned registration directory service, and aims to measure the hypothesis that "a significant percentage of the domain names used to conduct illegal or harmful Internet activities are registered via privacy and proxy services to obscure the perpetrator's identity." more

New gTLDs Are Like Derivatives on Wall Street With No Value, Says Esther Dyson

In a story ran by the New York Times over the weekend, the viability of introducing hundreds of new top-level domains in the market has been criticized by individuals including Esther Dyson, a technology investor who served as the founding chairwoman of ICANN. Dyson likens ICANN's plan for the introduction of new gTLDs to creating derivative-like businesses on Wall Street that have no value. "You can charge people for it, but you are contributing nothing to the happiness of humanity." more

Who Are the True Multi-Stakeholders in ICANN?

During ICANN Durban, I attended the Country Code Names Supporting Organisation (ccNSO) 10 year anniversary celebrations. ICANN Chairman, Dr Steve Crocker, was on hand to congratulate the ccNSO on their 10 years and revered them as the "true multi-stakeholders in ICANN". Post Durban, I was reviewing notes and I came across a similar statement made during a ccNSO session that country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) "represent the best functioning multi-stakeholder model" in the ICANN ecosystem. Is this entirely accurate? more

You Just Signed a Registry Contract With ICANN. What Are Your Plans?

Back on February 4, 2013, I wrote a CircleID post entitled 'How the registrar Cash Flow Model Could Collapse with New ICANN gTLDs.' My key point back then was this: new gTLD applicants need to be mindful of how the cash flow policies of their registry (and of their back-end service provider) could impact whether their TLD is actively promoted by ICANN registrars... registries have historically assumed near-zero risk. This is going to change. more

Wow. That’s a Lot of Reserved Names

ICANN recently updated the list of reserved second level domain names. Those are names that you won't be able to register in any of the 1500 or so new domains they're planning to add. There's rather a lot of them, currently 629. The names are in three groups, the ICRC (the Red Cross), the IOC (the Olympic games) and everyone else. Several years ago the Red Cross and later the Olympics came to ICANN and insisted that they make a special list of forbidden names, separate from the various trademark registries. more

Key Steps for Operational Readiness and Successful Launch of a New gTLD

31 August 2013 marked a historic day for Internet users worldwide. It marked a very key day in the introduction of new gTLDs. On that day ICANN, who oversees the gTLD programme, six years in the making, announced the completion of gTLD Initial Evaluation (IE) results based applicant's ability to demonstrate their financial, technical and operational capability to operate and manage a TLD Registry. more

The Discrepancy in Confusion and Similarity Decisions of New gTLDs

After more than half of the new gTLD String Confusion Objection determinations that have been published we have updated our popular chart which compares the Visual Similarity (determined by the SWORD tool) with the results of the String Confusion Objections. We found that there is a huge discrepancy in what has been expected in the ICANN community and what the "Experts" have be decided. more

Reflections on EUI’s New Community Priority Evaluation Guidelines for New gTLDs

The new Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) guidelines prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), and published by ICANN are now past their feedback period. We, at Radix, believe that ICANN has received feedback from approximately 10 stakeholders, and I for one, am looking forward to those being published. In light of the fact that none of the comments that ICANN received have been made public yet, I decided to blog about my multiple concerns with the new guidelines. Sparing a thought for the not-so-involved reader, I have limited my rant to some of the more important issues. more

Hints and Solution for the Protection of Wine Geographical Indications in the ICANN New gTLD Program

This article is a copy of a letter sent today, 3 of April 2013, to the attention of Mr Fadi Chehadé, CEO of ICANN and other members of the ICANN board. Protecting wine Geographical Indications in the new gTLD program is a problem. This letter is also an article providing hints for the protection of Wine Geographical Indications in the ICANN new gTLD program. more

Trademarks for TLDs

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently circulated proposed examination guidelines to allow the USPTO to begin providing Trademark Protection for Top Level Domains (TLDs). This is an important new development. TLDs today are currently ineligible for Trademark protection on the basis that they do not constitute a source-identifying mark. The USPTO is currently in the process of rectifying this situation by extending Trademark protection to Registry Service providers and has released its proposed examination procedures for that purpose. However, there are some very concerning elements to their proposed examination guidelines. more

What New gTLD’s Can Learn From Namejet .PW Auctions & Godaddy’s .LA Auction This Week

Over this past week both Namejet.com and Godaddy.com ran auctions of re-branded ccTLD's and I think the results are a preview of what's to come for new gTLD's that attempt the same strategy. Namejet.com ran an auction of .PW single character domain names; single letter domains and single numbered domain names. Arguably single letter and single numbered domains such as; o.co, 8.asia, and z.com, are some of the most valuable inventory any registry will ever have, especially in the new gTLD world when two letter domains are going to require ICANN approval. more

ICANN Must Now Decide String Similarity Question

Yesterday, a decision on a string confusion objection was reached by a dispute resolution provider that resulted in a scenario that ICANN and the Applicant Guidebook had not addressed - conflicting opinions have been rendered by expert panelists ruling on the exact same pair of strings. One of our applications now hangs in the balance. The expert panelist for the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) assigned to decide the string confusion objection filed by VeriSign against United TLD's .CAM application, issued a decision sustaining VeriSign's objection that .CAM and .COM are confusingly similar. more

Name Collision: Why ICANN Is Looking at It the Wrong Way (Part 1)

ICANN has, once again opened up a veritable can of worms, with their latest decision on the 'horrors' of Name Collision. While we are sure that ICANN and the Interisle Consulting Group have very good reason to make the decision that they have - delaying the delegation of several TLDs - we believe that the findings contained in Interisle's report do not give sufficient cause to delay the new gTLD program in the manner proposed by ICANN staff. more

I Had a Dream: ICANN Has 2 Billion Reasons to Support Developing Countries

Last week, the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech was marked with much fanfare. Well, I too had a dream the other day, almost two weeks ago. I dreamt I was in a conference. Which is no news. The conference was an ICANN-sponsored conference. No news there either; I've been to many ICANN meetings. And it was on food security! An ICANN-sponsored conference on food security? more