It is three days before Comments close on ICANN’s proposal to eliminate price caps on .ORG domain names, and the community of organizations is making their voices heard! At the time of writing this post, there are over 1,867 Comments – all opposing the elimination of price caps. This is a striking number of Comments given that how rare it …
auDA Management Rejects Wrongful Attempts to Prohibit Domain Name Investment in Australia
The Internet Commerce Association (the “ICA”) Congratulates Australian Domain Investors on the rejection of certain Proposed Policy Changes in the Australian namespace which would have had a detrimental effect on domain name investors and on the Australian namespace. On April 15, 2018, auDA management responded to the Policy Review Panel’s Final Report and Recommendations (the “PRP”). The ICA had submitted …
ICA Comment Letter Regarding Proposed Renewal of the .org Registry Agreement
ICANN has recently announced that it intends to eliminate price caps on .org domains in the new registry contract. Under the new terms, the registry could increase prices on registrations to an unlimited amount, provided that they give advance notice. ICANN also preemptively added URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension) to the new contracts, despite the RPM Working Group still examining and …
ICA Recommendations to the auDA Board: Reform of Existing Policies & Implementation of Direct Registration
auDA, the Australian registry, is considering some dramatic policy changes, one of which attempts to potentially devastate domain name investing in Australia. While auDA has never had domain name investment-friendly policies, these new proposed changes make things decidedly worse and threaten the very existence of investment in Australian domain names. The ICA views this as a threat to domain investing …
UDRP Panelists: Getting the Standard Right Where No Response is Filed
Domain owners rely on the UDRP to be implemented fairly and for transfers to be ordered only when there is clear evidence that the domain owner has violated the Policy. In an article published today on CircleID, ICA’s General Counsel, Zak Muscovitch, describes a mistaken approach adopted by some panelists in cases where the domain owner did not submit a …
The Hidden Perils of Filing a Baseless UDRP Complaint
In our newest article on CircleID, Zak Muscovitch asks: Is there a downside to misusing the UDRP to attempt a domain name hijacking? Read the full article on CircleID
Letter to ICANN Re NTIA and the .COM Registry Agreement
On Friday, November 16th, ICA filed a letter addressed to Göran Marby regarding the .COM Registry Agreement, arguing that ICANN should reject any attempt by Verisign to increase its fees. Higher fees for Verisign are not justified, as demonstrated by the following four key points: a) Verisign is a provider of technical registry services, it does not own the .com …
Verisign’s Attempt to Increase its Fees Still Unjustified Despite Diversionary Tactic
The ICA released a must-read statement on the price increase of .com domains earlier today! Shortly after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)’s recent announcement allowing Verisign to pursue increased .com registry fees, Verisign published a blog post questioning the business practices of registrars and domain name investors. The ICA, on behalf of its registrar and domain name investor …
ICA Statement on U.S. Government Granting Verisign .Com Price Increase
As the domain name community knows, the ICA has been warning of an impending price hike on .com domain name registrations. We publicized the issue, launched a website to increase awareness of the issue, created a petition that attracted over 2,000 signatures, and advocated for our position directly to David Redl, the head of NTIA, as well as to the Department …
Nominations for ICA’s 2019 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award – now open!
The ICA is happy and proud to announce that we are now accepting nominations for ICA’s 2019 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award! Thanks to NamesCon’s generous support, for the 3rd year in the row, the award will be held during the conference. The Lonnie Borck Memorial Award is granted to an individual for indelible contribution to domain investor rights, and we invite you all …