On Thursday, April 30th ICA filed a comment letter with ICANN regarding the “Draft Report: Rights Protection Mechanisms Review” published earlier this year. This preliminary report paves the way for a more extensive issues report on the new gTLD RPMs that will be delivered to the GNSO Council this fall. That second report will not only inform the debate on whether …
Senate Judiciary Leaders Ask New IP Czar to Facilitate ICANN-Focused Conversations
Daniel Marti was nominated to become the new White House “IP Czar” in August 2014 to replace Victoria Espinel. His predecessor, in yet another illustration of Washington’s “revolving door” shuffling key individuals between the government and private sector, departed the post a year earlier to become head of BSA/The Software Alliance, the leading trade group for the software industry. …
Be Productive While Working on the Road
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Second Draft CWG-IANA Stewardship Proposal Out for Public Comment — April 24th Explanatory Webinar Scheduled
Late on the evening on April 22nd the CWG-Stewardship on the IANA Naming Functions issued its second Draft Proposal for a 28-day public comment period that closes on May 20th. Information about the Proposal can be found in a news announcement and at the public comment page. ICANN has scheduled a 90-minute explanatory webinar on the proposal on Friday, April …
$59 Million and Counting: ICANN Board Downgrades Community Say on Use of Last Resort Auction Proceeds
ICANN’s new gTLD program provides for last resort auctions to settle contention sets where the competing applicants are unable to reach agreement by negotiation or private auction, with the proceeds going to a segregated ICANN account. With the recent $25 million bid of Google to secure control of the .App registry the total proceeds of those ICANN auctions has swelled …
.US to Hold Inaugural Town Hall on April 22
Last fall I was appointed to the first Stakeholder Council ever established for .US, the country code top level domain (ccTLD) of the United States. Now I am happy to announce that .US will hold its inaugural Town Hall meeting on April 22nd at 1 pm Eastern time (17:00 UTC). As described by the Stakeholder Council’s Secretariat, the Town Hall …
The Modern Workspace
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Victory! Domains Stripped Out of EU “Trademark Package”
Back in January ICA joined with four other trade association in cosigning a letter communicating our joint concerns regarding a “trademark package” being considered by the Council of the European Union. Adoption of the language under consideration could have led to adverse judicial actions being brought against domain registrants of all types by aggressive trademark owners. In particular, the signatories …
ICANN CEO Responds to ICA Concerns Regarding Davos “Cybersquatting” Remarks
Early last month ICA President Jeremiah Johnston wrote to ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade to express concerns regarding remarks that he had made during an interview at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. In the course of those remarks the CEO was perceived to characterize domain portfolio owners of “hogging names”, as well as equate domain investors with “cybersquatters”. …
Estimating Trademark Claims Notice Suppression of Non-Infringing New gTLD Registrations
On February 2nd ICANN staff announced the release of a Draft Report: Rights Protection Mechanisms Review that is open for public comment until May 1st. This Draft Report is preliminary to an Issues Report requested by the GNSO Council that is due to be delivered by September 30th, and that may set the stage for a Policy Development Process (PDP) …


