A Short-Term Suspension of GDPR Enforcement on WHOIS May Be Necessary, Says U.S. Government

Implementation of European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, is a major concern of our government, said David Redl during a meeting held on Thursday in Washington DC. more

Accountability, Transparency, and… Consistency?

ICANN Compliance now has two conflicting answers on record concerning the enforceability of RAA 378 on WHOIS inaccuracy. This is a topic of extreme importance and one we are trying to get to the bottom of. ...inconsistency needs to be resolved as it directly impacts the current RAA negotiations and certainly before new gTLDs are deployed. more

Petya Ransomware Spreading Rapidly Worldwide, Effecting Banks, Telecom, Businesses, Power Companies

A large scale ransomware attack today is spreading rapidly worldwide, shutting down computers at corporates, power supplies, and banks across Russia, Ukraine, Spain, France, UK, India, and Europe and demanding $300 in bitcoins. more

Less is More – The Sales Boom in Short Character Domain Names

Much of the domain industry has seen a huge surge in sales of 2, 3 & 4 character sales. More specifically numeric domain sales are ever increasing mostly driven by Chinese buyers. As such domain marketplaces are utilizing and developing stronger connections in China to foster this growth even further while creating awareness for why this is occurring. When talk turns to economic and trade growth, China is never left out of the conversation. This talk extends to the domain market as well. more

UN’s Global Digital Compact: A Fork in the Road for Internet Governance?

As the United Nations' Global Digital Compact (GDC) approaches its expected adoption, a growing chorus of critics warns that it threatens the very foundations of multistakeholderism in Internet governance. While the GDC aims to foster global cooperation and advance shared objectives for digital transformation, it not only centralizes power within the UN but also sidelines the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) - a platform that has, for years, been instrumental in amplifying diverse voices, especially from marginalized communities and the private sector. more

ICANN Asked to Delay New gTLD Expansion at the House of Representatives Committee Hearing

ICANN's expansion of top-level domain program faced a second hearing today (see last week's Senate Committee hearing here), this time by the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. During the hearing critics once again warned that ICANN's January roll-out of the program is not adequately developed and it should be delayed. "I don't think this is ready for prime time," said Representative Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. more

Is It Time for a Registration Operations Industry Association? (Part 3)

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series of blog posts I described the need for a registration operations industry association. At the end of Part 2, I wrote that Part 3 will describe "an opportunity for everyone that's interested in discussing this topic in a live environment." The large number of people attending ICANN 51 in Los Angeles presents the best chance of discussion with many potential participants being in the same place at the same time. Let's take advantage of that proximity. more

The Latest DNS Threat Landscape: Why CISOs Must Rethink Blocking Strategies

Cybercriminals live by the tenet "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." They'll use the same tactics repeatedly until they no longer work, then switch things up. That's why CISOs and their security teams maintain constant vigilance. Underscoring this, recent analysis of global DNS activity found that new domains continue to be a major tactic for bad actors. more

Susan Crawford, Kevin Werbach Named Obama’s FCC Review Team Leads

We'd like to congratulate our long time CircleID participants, Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach for being named today as Obama-Biden FCC Transition Team Leads. Susan Crawford, is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School who recently ended her term as a member of the Board of Directors of ICANN and is the founder of OneWebDay. Kevin Werbach, is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is also the founder of the Supernova Group and the organizer of Supernova, a leading executive technology conference. more

Testing IDNs

Internationalized (non-ascii) domain names (IDN) are a key issue for ICANN. Yesterday, the Board completed two days of workshop presentations about various matters (IANA, security, GAC relationships), and we were briefed on the IDN testing that is planned. I thought it might be useful to make clear the distinction between the tests (which are testing mechanisms for IDNs) and the very difficult policy questions that confront ICANN. As several people explained to me yesterday, they're different. more

IPv4 Market Heats Up While Supply Dwindles

Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Dyn reports that while the available supply of IPv4 addresses is in sharp decline, the market for these virtual commodities is heating up. In recent months, the pace of the address transfers has greatly accelerated as evidenced by RIPE's table of IPv4 transfers, as well as the increasing number of IPv4 brokers facilitating the exchange of IPv4 address space. more

ICANN Board Appoints 2015 NomCom Chair

During its September 9, 2014 meeting, the ICANN Board selected the Chair of the 2015 Nominating Committee (NomCom). The 2015 NomCom will begin its work In Los Angeles, immediately after the close of ICANN's 51st International Meeting due to be held in mid-October. ICANN's Nominating Committee is charged with identifying, recruiting and selecting nominees of the highest possible quality for key leadership positions at ICANN. more

1.3 Tbps DDoS Attack Against GitHub is Largest Attack Seen to Date, Says Akamai

According to Akamai, the incident was the largest attack seen to date, "more than twice the size of the September 2016 attacks that announced the Mirai botnet and possibly the largest DDoS attack publicly disclosed." more

XXX Litigation Looms

The XXX drama isn't over. Today ICM Registry announced that it would file a reconsideration request with ICANN and a judicial appeal to challenge redactions and omissions from the internal US government documents released to it under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. These could prove to be opening moves in a more extended round of litigation. In connection with its judicial appeal, ICM Registry released 88 pages of internal US Commerce Department documents obtained under the FOIA showing how the U.S. handled its application. more

Internet Governance and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Part 6: Articles 18-19

Internet Governance, like all governance, needs guiding principles from which policy making, and acceptable behavior, are derived. Identifying the fundamental principles to guide Internet ecosystem policy making around digital citizenship, and around the integrity of digital practices and behavior, can and should start with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (UDHR). more