The JPA is dead. Long live the AOC. The Joint Project Agreement (JPA) which has defined the relationship between ICANN and the United States government for the past three years expired on September 30th, and that same day an Agreement of Commitments (AOC – see http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-30sep09-en.htm for text) was unveiled by these same parties to govern their relationship for the …

Domain investors can breathe at least a temporary sigh of relief following Wednesday’s revelation that the much feared and reviled Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) policy will not be included in the third version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG) for new gTLDs to be released by ICANN in the first week of October. The disclosure came in the course of …

A diverse group has just sent a letter (http://www.icann.org/correspondence/van-couvering-to-beckstrom-21sep09-en.pdf) to ICANN’s top executives and Board in which they “urge you to direct ICANN staff to implement ICANN’s plan to introduce new top-level domains without further delay”. ICA Counsel Philip Corwin had received a request from Jothan Frakes, COO of new gTLD adviser and investor Mind and Machines (http://www.mindsandmachines.com/)  requesting endorsement …

On September 15th two senior Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith and Howard Coble, dispatched a letter to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom. The letter (text here) starts with a hearty congratulation, but by the second paragraph it is raising concerns over the proposed rollout of new gTLDs and the potential expiration of its Joint Project Agreement with …

While the comment period on Version 2 of the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG) on new gTLDs officially closed on April 13th (see article for ICA’s comments) ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) weighed in with a 7-page letter dated August 18th (available at http://www.icann.org/correspondence/karklins-to-dengate-thrush-18aug09-en.pdf). Despite its tardy submission, ICANN is unlikely to disregard this consensus statement by national governments and intergovernmental …

ICA members and others familiar with our work know that we have no hesitancy taking ICANN to task when we have serious problems with its policy or procedures. That’s part of our job of being a vigorous advocate for the domain name investment and development industry given the huge impact that ICANN decisions can have on the fundamentals of its …

The dog days of August are providing a welcome respite from what has been an incredibly busy year at ICANN and in Washington, as well as a chance to catch up and attend to things we’ve been meaning to get to as soon as soon as the crisis de jour was dealt with. One of those is to provide ICA …

On August 12 the ICA filed a comment letter with ICANN endorsing a proposal from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to move to an almost entirely paperless UDRP, also known as eUDRP. The majority of UDRP complainants and respondents already use electronic means for all of their filings. ICA’s endorsement of the proposal was contingent upon retention of the …

In a stunning rebuke of ICANN’s assertion that it had achieved sufficient accountability and professional stature to justify termination of its unique relationship with the U.S. government, the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce as well as the Chairman of its Internet Subcommittee, along with eight other Committee members, dispatched a joint letter on August 4th to …

The ICA was quoted this week on the importance of law enforcement taking domain thefts seriously. In a situation unfortunately unique for the forward thinking shown by state police, the New Jersey State Police have pursued their case against Daniel Goncalves, 25, of Union, New Jersey for hacking into an online account belonging to one of the owners of the …