Category Archive

On February 11th VeriSign held its Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2015 Earnings Call with stock analysts. In the course of the call VeriSign revealed that it had reached tentative agreement with ICANN to extend the .Com Registry Agreement (RA) by ten years, with the extension’s start coinciding with the effective date of the IANA contract transition. The current .Com RA …

The domain investment community represented by the Internet Commerce Association extends a warm welcome to incoming ICANN President and CEO Göran Marby. Mr. Marby’s selection was announced by ICANN on February 8th. He presently serves as Director-General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority and has more than 20 years of experience in the Internet and technology sectors, following his …

On October 13th ICA filed a formal Reconsideration Request (RR) asking ICANN’s Board Governance Committee (BGC) to rethink The Board’s approval of the renewal registry agreements (RAs) for .Travel, .Cat and .Pro. All three renewal agreements contain Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) and other rights protection mechanisms (RPMs) drawn from the new gTLD program. Those RPMs are in the contracts largely …

Note: I first started this article in mid-September, and the opening quote from Yogi Berra was in the first draft because it seemed to fit the situation so well.. It was by sheer coincidence that it was first published on the day of his death. Consider that my unintended tribute to a great human being. Unfortunately, it’s now over for …

ICA and its members will have a major presence at The Domain Conference, a new industry gathering being held September 26-29 at the beautiful Hyatt Regency Pier 66 Hotel and Spa in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,. The four-day event will start with two days of relaxed poolside networking overlapping with three days of highly informative sessions on the business of domaining. …

Over the past week ICANN has opened dual comment periods on the interrelated proposals for transitioning oversight of the IANA root zone functions form the U.S. government to the multistakeholder ICANN community, and for significantly enhancing that community’s ability to hold ICANN’s Board and staff accountable. When the final proposals are implemented they will mark the biggest changes in ICANN’s …

On July 31st ICANN staff finally published the Report of Public Comments regarding the Proposed Renewal of .TRAVEL Sponsored TLD Registry Agreement, after missing the July 5th due date by more than three weeks. The Report accurately reflects that all but two of the many comments filed on the proposal opposed imposition of Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) by contract upon …

  ICA Counsel Philip Corwin told ICANN’s Board of Directors that they needed to take responsibility, fully review, and “own” the recent decision by Global Domains Division (GDD) staff to try to insert Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) in legacy gTLD contracts up for renewal – and that any further alterations of the URS and other rights protection mechanisms (RPMs) created …

On May 29th ICANN staff issued its Report of Public Comments on the “Draft Report: Rights Protection Mechanisms Review”. Back in May ICA advised ICANN that, “ICA would vigorously oppose any attempt to amend the URS to provide a domain transfer option as such a rapid and circumscribed process could be readily abused to further the scourge of reverse domain …

Just ten days ago we advised the domain investment community that ICANN staff was seeking to act in an unacceptably unaccountable manner that appears to violate ICANN’s own Bylaws by improperly imposing Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) and other new gTLD program Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPM) implementations on legacy gTLDs. This would have the de facto effect of converting these RPMs …