ICANN

UDRP Review Is a Test of the MSM

As ICANN confronts a harsher geopolitical era, its long-delayed review of the UDRP has become a defining test of whether the multistakeholder model can still deliver legitimate, effective Internet governance and sustain confidence in its future.

Fake Domains, Real Harm: The Data Behind India’s DNS Abuse Crisis

New data on DNS abuse reveals most malicious domains remain active beyond 24 hours, while a handful of registrars host the bulk of infrastructure, leaving India's population of first-generation internet users uniquely exposed to fraud.

dotBrand Domains as Trust Infrastructure in the Age of AI

As AI agents automate phishing, impersonation and domain abuse at machine scale, the Brand Registry Group argues that dotBrand domains are evolving from marketing assets into trust infrastructure underpinning cybersecurity, identity and interactions across the internet.

The Cavalry Has Finally Arrived: ICANN Enters the Courtroom to Defend the RIR System

ICANN's court intervention in AFRINIC's winding-up case widens a local corporate dispute into a global Internet governance test, exposing weaknesses in RIR protections and strengthening calls for ICP-2 reforms to safeguard registry continuity.

Facilitation Without Responsibility: ICANN and the Missing Warning Question - Part 3 of 3

ICANN's AFRINIC episode shows how support can harden into perceived authority. A standing RIR Boundary Protocol would force early warnings, role disclosure and procedural safeguards before regional engagement drifts into governance redesign.

Facilitation Without Responsibility: ICANN and the Missing Warning Question - Part 2 of 3

ICANN's Smart Africa engagement shows how proposals can gain authority without formal endorsement, raising harder questions about CAIGA, ICP-2 and whether regional partnerships need earlier safeguards when RIR governance begins to shift under institutional cover.

Facilitation Without Responsibility: ICANN and the Missing Warning Question - Part 1 of 3

An ICANN-backed African internet-governance initiative exposed a deeper institutional problem: whether global coordinators must warn when regional policy processes drift into RIR governance, before facilitation, silence and funding harden into implied legitimacy for contested reforms.

Universal Acceptance Day and the Long Arc of Multilingualism

Universal Acceptance Day 2026 marks progress toward a multilingual internet, as UNESCO and ICANN deepen cooperation. Yet unresolved implementation failures and weak registry stewardship still hinder truly inclusive digital access worldwide.

DNS Abuse Is Stealing India’s Youth: Fake Domains and the Job-Seeking Trap

Fake recruitment websites exploiting India's young job seekers are proliferating, exposing millions to identity theft, financial fraud and malware while regulators, registrars and digital literacy programs struggle to keep pace with a growing labor market.

Authority Formation and Legitimacy in Parallel Governance Tracks

Africa's internet governance faces parallel tracks as AFRINIC's community-led reforms unfold alongside a continent-wide blueprint, raising questions over whether legitimacy will stem from participatory processes or increasingly coordinated external alignment.

The Historical Mandate of the RIR System

The history of the Regional Internet Registry system shows it was designed as a community-governed framework, not a passive ledger, with legitimacy rooted in delegated authority, open policy development, and multistakeholder coordination from its inception.

China and the Geopolitics of Africa’s 6.2 Million IPv4 Addresses

AFRINIC's fight over 6.2 million IPv4 addresses exposes how legal pressure, offshore vehicles and scarcity economics can strip Africa of leverage, turning a technical dispute into a test of sovereignty, institutional resilience and Internet governance.

Mandate Laundering: From RIR Fantasy to Transition Architecture

Private internet registries have inflated narrow technical roles into quasi-sovereign authority, laundering mandate through ritual and rhetoric; a fragile system now faces legal, economic and political reckoning, prompting calls for coordinated transition urgent global reform.

The Internet That Works for Some: Universal Acceptance Failures Across Asia Pacific

Across Asia Pacific, millions are excluded from digital services because systems fail to recognise non Latin scripts, exposing how flawed design assumptions about internet users entrench inequality across the region in welfare, finance and education.

Moving Beyond Associated Domain Checks: The Urgent Need to Ban Short-Term Domain Leasing

ICANN's new DNS abuse rules mark progress, yet short-term domain leasing enables fleeting, hard-to-detect attacks. A proposed 30-day minimum lease could curb cybercrime by undermining the economics of weaponised parked domains.