At its 32d International Junket Meeting last week, ICANN's Board approved the GNSO Council's recommendations for the eventual addition to the root of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). This means that eventually, when the staff drafts, community comments upon, and Board approves implementation processes, those with deep pockets will have the opportunity to bid for new TLD strings... more»
What could be bad about free wireless Internet access? How about censorship by federally mandated filters that make it no longer "Internet." That's the effect of the FCC's proposed service rules for Advanced Wireless Service spectrum in the 2155-2180 MHz band, as set out in a July 20 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Acting on a request of M2Z Networks, which wants to provide "free, family-friendly wireless broadband," the FCC proposes to require licensees of this spectrum band to offer free two-way wireless broadband Internet service to the public, with least 25% of their network capacity. So far so good, but on the next page, the agency guts the meaning of "broadband Internet" with a content filtering requirement. more»
Doc's post and the impending comments deadline for the next iteration of ICANN's never-ending WHOIS saga finally pushed me to write up my thoughts on the latest iteration of ICANN debate. As Doc points out, much of the current debate is very inside baseball, tied up in acronyms atop bureaucratic layers. Small wonder then that ordinary domain name registrants and Internet users haven't commented much, while the fora are dominated by INTA members turning out responses to an "urgent request" to "let ICANN know that Whois is important to the brand owners I represent"... more»
As if there weren't enough problems with lawyers sending out improper cease-and-desists, Wired News reports that a Nevada man has pleaded guilty to impersonating a lawyer to extort domain registrants to turn over their domain names. "A Nevada man pleaded guilty Thursday to his plotting to steal domain names from their legitimate owners by impersonating a California intellectual property lawyer and send threatening letters to domain name owners in hopes of convincing them to turn over the domains to him..." more»
After blogging about ICANN's new gTLD policy or lack thereof [also featured on CircleID], I've had several people ask me why I care so much about ICANN and new top-level domains. Domain names barely matter in a world of search and hyperlinks, I'm told, and new domains would amount to little more than a cash transfer to new registries from those trying to protect their names and brands. While I agree that type-in site-location is less and less relevant, and we haven't yet seen much end-user focused innovation in the use of domain names, I'm not ready to throw in the towel. I think ICANN is still in a position to do affirmative harm to Internet innovation. more»
ICANN's travelling circus is meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico this week. One of the main subjects of discussion has been the introduction of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), after a GNSO Report [PDF] proposed 19 "Recommendations" for criteria these new domain strings should meet -- including morality tests and "infringement" oppositions. ...It's important to keep ICANN from being a censor, or from straying beyond its narrow technical mandate. The thick process described in the GNSO report would be expensive, open to "hecklers' vetos," and deeply political... ICANN should aim for a "stupid core"... more»
ICANN seems to be out to re-prove Hirschman's theories of exit, voice, and loyalty by driving all of its good people to exit rather than giving them meaningful voices. Thomas Roessler, a long-time advocate of individual users' interests on the interim ALAC now suggests it's Time to Reconsider the structure of ICANN's At-Large, as he feels compelled to promise himself not to get involved with ICANN again... more»
Earlier in the Registerfly controversy, ICANN Vice President Paul Levins posted to the ICANN Blog: "ICANN is not a regulator. We rely mainly on contract law. We do not condone in any way whatsoever RegisterFly's business practice and behaviour." This is disingenuous. ICANN is the central link in a web of contracts that regulate the business of domain name allocation. ICANN has committed, as a public benefit corporation, to enforcing those contracts in the public interest. Domain name registrants, among others, rely on those contracts to establish a secure, stable environment for domain name registration and through that for online content location. more»
Google News now shows more than 300 stories about Spamhaus, most about a proposed court order following a district court default judgment. To me, the most interesting is the meta-story -- why the non-event of a proposed order has the blogs scrambling with claims of constitutional crisis and even the notoriously close-lipped ICANN issuing an announcement "in response to community interest expressed on this topic." more»
I've finally recovered from another ICANN meeting, frustrated as ever. 700 or so people flew halfway around the world to hear canned presentations, dueling-monologue public form sessions, and resolutions that left major issues unresolved, and to gripe in the hallways about how little was being done. more»
Most of us would be put off if a court issued a press release cheering the number of prisoners its judges had put behind bars or the number of tenants it had helped landlords to evict. That seems antithetical to the neutral adjudication of disputes, and ethical rules regularly decry such "appearance of bias." Yet WIPO seems to think it perfectly natural to crow about its arbitrators' favoritism for complainants against "cybersquatters" in UDRP proceedings. It issued a release that reads like a solicitation for trademark claimants' business, not a promotion of neutral arbitration services... more»
The recent ICANN meeting in Vancouver touched upon many issues important to ordinary Internet users: privacy in domain name registration; the cost and terms of .com domain names; internationalized domains; introduction of new domain suffixes. But there were few "ordinary Internet users" at the meeting. Few people can roam the globe to keep up with ICANN's travels, and not many more participate in online forums. more»
For three years, I've been a member of ICANN's "Interim" At-Large Advisory Committee, ALAC. At this Vancouver meeting, for the first time, the ICANN Board met with us, and Bret captured it on mp3 for podcast. ALAC criticized ICANN's proposed settlement with VeriSign, and then spoke about the problems with the current structure for at-large participation. more»
ICANN has launched three task forces on WHOIS restructuring...It sounds innocuous enough -- nobody likes spam -- but the restrictions being discussed reach further than marketers. Pushed by registrars who feel that WHOIS amounts to forced disclosure of their customer lists, the task force is seriously discussing closing off port 43's straightforward access to WHOIS information, replacing it with GIF-based barriers or similar access restrictions. more»
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) -- the same organization whose head recently equated intellectual property infringement with terrorism -- has been pressing ICANN to add domain name monopolies on the names of countries, and the names and acronyms of inter-governmental organizations, into the Uniform Domain Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP). Despite the fact that no-one but WIPO seems to want these new exclusions, a working group has nonetheless been convened to study their recommendations. more»
In response to ICANN's request for proposal (RFP) for the selection of new sponsored Top-Level Domains, Wendy Seltzer for the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) urges ICANN to move quickly beyond "testing" to more open addition of a full range of new gTLDs in the near future and offers some general principles to guide that expansion. more»
ICANN continues at its snail's pace on introduction of new top-level domains. At the Montreal meeting, staff sprung this RFP for new sponsored TLDs. As if "a few" and "sponsored" weren't limitation enough, it further narrowed the applicant pool to those who had applied unsuccessfully as sponsored TLDs in November 2000. more»
