New TLDs

Whither WGIG?

Now, I don't like the word "whither" any more than you do. But this Reuters article was circulating yesterday and it seemed to call for a "whither." It's a short story, so let's do a close reading. "A U.N.-sponsored panel aims to settle a long-running tug of war for control of the Internet by July and propose solutions to problems such as cyber crime and email spam, panel leaders said on Monday." We're going to decide what "internet governance" is by July?  more

Privacy Alert: Watch Out For FOISA

This morning, at 10 am in 2141 Rayburn, the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property is holding a hearing on "Internet Domain Name Fraud -- New Criminal and Civil Enforcement Tools." At that hearing, the Subcommittee will be considering a new Whois bill creating new penalties for people who provide false data when registering a domain name. We need to raise our collective eyebrows at this bill (which was suddenly dropped the evening before this hearing). The title of the bill is the "Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act." (FOISA) more

The Net-Net on Dot Net

ICANN has posted its suggested .net agreement [PDF]. The new draft puts the ICANN Board and the Names Council firmly in control of the registry's future, and represents a substantial change to the existing registry contracts. No one gave ICANN the power to do this, and it is strange that no approval by anyone -- including the US Dept of Commerce -- is being sought to make this happen. ICANN is taking the occasion of the .net rebid to restructure its entire relationship to the world. more

CENTR Statement on IDN Homograph Attacks

Recently a proof of concept attack was announced on the Internet that demonstrated how a web address could be constructed that looked in some web browsers identical to that of a well known website. This technique could be used to trick a user into going to a website that they did not plan on visiting, and possibly provide sensitive information to a third party. As a result of this demonstration, there has been a number of voices calling for web browsers to disable or remove support for IDNs by default. ...CENTR, a group of many of the world's domain registries - representing over 98% of domain registrations worldwide - believes such strong reactions are heavily detrimental... more

Domain Name Dispute Cases Increased by 6.6% in 2004

In its February 18, 2005 press release, WIPO has reported filing an average of 3.4 UDRP and UDRP-based cases per calendar day in 2004, bringing the total number of cases received in 2004 to 1,179 -- an increase of 79 cases (or 6.6%) as compared to 2003. Also mentioned in the report is a 37 percent increase in ccTLDs cases over the previous year. Listed below are a number of additional facts and figures reported... more

Looking at .Net Bids

ICANN is now seeking public comments regarding the .net bids. Unlike before, I am not going to offend one friend or another by siding with one proposal over another. They are all qualified and experienced registry operators. Instead, I will make some general observations. 1. None of the Revenue and Pricing Model (i.e. Section 4) about the bids are available to public... more

The .net Top Level Domain and Cross-Coupled Failures

The .net Top Level Domain (TLD) contains the names of the main group of DNS root servers as well as the names of the servers for several other large TLDs, such as .com, .org, .arpa and .mil. Most of the focus about the .net redelegation has concerned the quality of the registration systems. But that is a minor matter next to the quality of the name server operation.  more

.NET Bid Contenders

Yesterday was the deadline for the submissions of responses to the .NET re-bid RFP. As of my last count, there are five companies that I am aware of that submitted proposals for the .NET rebid. Three of these were quite publicly announced, Afilias, Denic, and Verisign. The other two bidders are Multi-Stakeholder groups. Sentan and Core++. Sentan appears to be a Joint Venture between .jp and Neulevel, and Core++ is ISC, Telfonica, and .br, with participation from Core, Nida (.kr), and .zaDNA (.za). more

Closer Look at Domain Name Transfer Policy and the Hijacking of Panix.com

Given the recent panix.com hijacking, I will give an outline of the current ICANN transfers process for gtlds. In the case of panix.com, evidence so far indicates that a third party that holds an account with a reseller of Melbourne IT, fraudulently initiated the transfer. The third party appears to have used stolen credit cards to establish this account and pay for the transfer. That reseller is analyzing its logs and cooperating with law enforcement. more

Where Did the .ORG Money Go?

A friend pointed me to the latest Internet Society budget for 2005 :- ISOC is expecting PIR (ie, .ORG) to contribute 3.4M to the society! Wow, thats 2-3x as much as what Internet Society gets from its membership! I think that's pretty neat because ISOC has been in the red for many years and could certainly use some help financially. After all, it is hosting IETF and also paying for the IANA registry and RFC-Editors, all of which is critical to the Internet standardization process... more

Reforming Whois

Now that we're into the New Year and deadline for public comment on the proposed new .CA whois policy nears and now that my term as a CIRA Director enters its home stretch, I wanted to take some time to elaborate further on my Unsanctioned Whois Concepts post from long ago and revise it somewhat. more

Engineers on TLDs: Do You Want Me With Fries?

During ICANN's public forum in Cape Town, an interesting conflict accidentally came up, even if somewhat concealed by the usual exchange of well-known views on whether ICANN should finally allow the world to get more new Top Level Domains (TLDs) on a regular basis. I know I am oversimplifying thoughts and positions, but basically the discussion was between a couple of 30-year-old engineers from the floor asking to be given the opportunity to try new things, and a couple of 60-year-old engineers from the podium putting up any kind of unproven excuses... more

Reaction to New Top Level Domains

ICANN's latest announcement of preliminary approval for two new top level domains (.mobi and .jobs) and it's recently ended meetings in Cape Town, South Africa, have sparked off renewed discussions for the introduction of new TLDs -- more specifically, the expansion of sponsored and generic top level domains (TLDs). The following is a collection of recent commentaries made by both technical and non-technical members of the community with regards to the expansion of the domain name space. To add your comments to this collection, please use the comment entry form at the bottom of the page... more

Third-Level Domain Name Hijacking

A new type of domain-name hijacking is being carried out unnoticed. It involves third-level domain-names associated with affiliate programs. If you had been an online affiliate of, say, company xyz.com, your affiliate Internet address could have looked like YourCompanyName.xyz.com. more

Are We Attending the Right ICANN Meeting?

I have no idea who wrote that wonderful piece, Time for Reformation of the Internet, posted by Susan Crawford. (It wasn't me - I never use the word "netizen".) Elliot Noss of Tucows wrote a partial rebuttal, I must be attending the wrong ICANN meetings. Elliot's company, Tucows, has been a leader in registrar innovation and competition. And Tucows has constantly been among the most imaginative, progressive, responsible, and socially engaged companies engaged in these debates. ...But the points made by Time for Reformation of the Internet go far beyond registries and registrars. more