Blog

ICANN’s announcement that it “reached a proposed agreement” with Verisign to amend the .com registry agreement raises serious concerns and questions. The Internet Commerce Association will be closely studying the proposed changes and will deliver its comments to ICANN in due course. Amongst the preliminary concerns and questions that ICANN’s announcement raises are the following…

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NTEN is organizing a call this Thursday, December 5th, at 12 PM PST, 3 PM EST. They will be joined by Electronic Frontier Foundation, The National Council of Nonprofits, and Internet Society chapter leaders, as well as Jon Nevett from Public Interest Registry, and Erik Brooks and Nora Abusitta from Ethos Capital. Andrew Sullivan from…

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The original justification for awarding the .Org registry contract to ISOC was its public interest focus and commitments. If ISOC is no longer associated with the .Org registry, that justification for awarding the Registry Agreement no longer exists.  Therefore, it would be reasonable for you to withhold your approval of the assignment to a private…

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Zak Muscovitch, General Counsel of the ICA, was invited by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to present at its symposium on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the UDRP held in Geneva on October 21, 2019.  This invitation was a rare opportunity to share the perspective of domain name investors to an audience…

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We’re happy and proud to announce that nominations for ICA’s 2020 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award are now open! With NamesCon’s generous support, for the 4th year in a row we’ll be holding the award ceremony during the conference. This year we have refocused the award. The Lonnie Borck Memorial Award was originally conceived to honor those whose work has protected…

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During ICANN’s public comment period on lifting price caps on .org domains, over 3200 people submitted comments, overwhelmingly opposing price cap removals. ICANN however, seemingly ignoring these comments, has granted PIR the right to raise prices on .org domains. In response, NameCheap, a well-known domain registrar, has submitted a Request for Reconsideration to ICANN. Yesterday, ICANN’s…

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ICA’s recommendation is that while IGOs and INGOs should have effective access to rights protection mechanisms which reasonably meet their unique requirements not to submit to national courts, no new procedure is required because they can use the UDRP. Read the full letter: Letter to Mary Wong re GNSO Policy Development Process on IGO-INGO Access…

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ICA will be holding a public webcast, with Michael Palage and Frank Cona, developers of the “WIPO Model” for post-GDPR access to non-public Whois data. Michael and Frank will present the model and answer your questions on WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, at 1 pm EST. Registration is now open. The webinar is open to anyone interested in…

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ICANN’s decision to execute the new .org Registry Agreement despite overwhelming public opposition is greatly concerning to stakeholders and raises serious questions about the so-called “bottom-up multi-stakeholder model”. We have some questions. We put the questions into the attached letter to Cyrus Namazi, Vice-President of the Global Domains Division, the group at ICANN responsible for…

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The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) is profoundly disturbed by ICANN’s decision to remove price caps on .org domain names despite the groundswell of opposition from stakeholders. On June 30, 2019, ICANN advised that it had executed a renewal agreement with Public Interest Registry and the renewal agreement. This was despite a nearly unprecedented public outcry…

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