On October 3, 2017 the ICA filed a comment letter with ICANN regarding the proposed revisions to the renewal Registry Agreement (RA) for the .Museum gTLD. As with other legacy gTLDs that have renewed over the past two years, the new RA proposes to adopt Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS). ICA once again protests this de facto creation of Consensus Policy …
ICA Requests that NAFTA Renegotiation Address Protectionist .CA “Presence Requirements”
On September 11, 2017 the ICA sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer requesting that the ongoing renegotiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) address protectionist restrictions so that U.S. entities and organizations wishing to register a .CA domain face no greater requirements than their Canadian counterparts face in registering a .US domain. As noted in …
URS is MIA in .Net Renewal RA
The Proposed Renewal of the .Net Registry Agreement (RA) was published for public comment by ICANN on April 20th. The biggest surprise about the proposed contract is how little it differs from the current one between ICANN and Verisign. Conspicuously absent from the agreement is the new gTLD rights protection mechanism (RPM) of Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS). For the past …
ICA Supports ICANN Transparency Improvements
ICA fully supported the insistence of ICANN’s community that the IANA Transition had to be accompanied by substantial improvements in ICANN Accountability. Some of those improvements were deemed to be necessary preconditions to the Transition. They included substantial revisions of ICANN’s Bylaws to reflect new community powers, such as the ability to veto budgets or remove Board members. Those were …
A Complaint about ICANN’s New Complaints Office
ICA has long been on record that it was an inappropriate usurpation of the GNSO’s policymaking role for ICANN Global Domain Division (GDD) staff to be urging legacy gTLD registry operators to adopt Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) in the course of renewal negotiations for their registry agreements (RAs). That’s because the URS was adopted as an “implementation detail” for new …
ICA Concerns Heard — Copyright UDRP on Indefinite Hold
Executive Summary: The Copyright UDRP proposal unveiled two weeks ago in the Domain Name Association’s Healthy Domains Initiative has been placed on indefinite hold and is unlikely to be revived as a DNA initiative. Public Interest Registry announced on February 23rd that it was pausing its development of the plan and will not revive it absent further notice. One day …
DNA Unveils HDI with “Copyright UDRP”
Yesterday, in an article published at CircleID.com, our fellow trade group the Domain Name Association (DNA) announced the rollout of its Healthy Domains Initiative (HDI). DNA was established concurrent with the launch of the new gTLD program, and primarily represents new gTLD registries as well as some registrars, but not registrants (including domain investors and developers). ICA and DNA share …
ICA Oks Proposed .US 1&2 Character Domains and Privacy Service
As we had noted last month, the .US ccTLD, which has been operated by Neustar under an NTIA contract since 2001, had solicited comment on proposals to release one and two character domains and to begin offering a privacy service to .US registrants – as well as to re-designate certain existing domains as “premium”. After some spirited internal discussion …
Time for a Board-Imposed Moratorium? — .Mobi Trades URS for $Cash
Once again, staff of ICANN’s Global Domains Division (GDD) has used a legacy gTLD’s contract renewal process to impose Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) on that gTLD — despite the fact that the URS is not an ICANN consensus policy applicable to legacy gTLDs. And, once again, the registry operator acquiescing to URS is reaping significant financial benefits as a reward …
.US Requests Public Comment on Premium Domains and Privacy Service
It has been my honor for the past two years to have been a member of the .US TLD Stakeholder Council http://www.neustar.us/ustld-stakeholder-council and, in that capacity, to provide the perspective of domain investors and developers to the operation of the USA’s ccTLD. On Thursday, December 15th .US issued two important requests for public comment. The first relates to the potential …