On Wednesday, our fellow trade association, the Domain Name Association (DNA), announced the rollout of its “Healthy Domains Initiative” (HDI). The ICA joins the DNA in seeking solutions for stopping online abuse. However, the ICA is particularly concerned about its proposed remedy to combat online copyright infringement. The HDI proposes to establish a “Copyright ADRP” with the power to order …
ICA Files .Mobi Comment that ICANN will Ignore
On February 1st the ICA filed its comment letter with ICANN opposing the inclusion of the URS in the .Mobi renewal registry agreement. Once again we were joined in this position by ICANN’s Business Constituency (BC), and opposed by the Intellectual Property Constituency and the International Trademark Association. We have seen this movie before. We took the same position on …
DNA Unveils HDI with “Copyright UDRP”
Yesterday, in an article published at CircleID.com, our fellow trade group the Domain Name Association (DNA) announced the rollout of its Healthy Domains Initiative (HDI). DNA was established concurrent with the launch of the new gTLD program, and primarily represents new gTLD registries as well as some registrars, but not registrants (including domain investors and developers). ICA and DNA share …
ICA Member Profile: Howard Neu
Howard Neu sadly passed away in February 2024. We have chosen to keep his profile here as a tribute to his memory and contributions. Howard Neu was well known within the domain industry as the co-founder of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference and a lifelong public servant who has also dabbled in motion pictures and media. Howard has been an long-term political …
ICA Session at Namescon: The Most Shocking UDRP Decisions of 2016
On Monday, January 23, 2017, at noon, the ICA will be holding a special session at NamesCon, to debate and select the most shocking UDRP decision of 2016. The three cases up for debate are Sihi.com, NutrihealthSystems.com and GreenTrust.com. Summaries of the cases are set out below. After the cases are presented and debated, the audience at the session will select the case …
ICA Member Profile: Mark Daniel
Back in 2007, Mark’s longtime childhood friend from Maryland, John Ferber, convinced him to trade in the four seasons and his suit for eternal summertime and sandals to help launch a new company. Mark, a former shopping center leasing agent, didn’t hesitate at the opportunity to relocate to Delray Beach, Florida. It was there that he learned about digital advertising …
ICA Oks Proposed .US 1&2 Character Domains and Privacy Service
As we had noted last month, the .US ccTLD, which has been operated by Neustar under an NTIA contract since 2001, had solicited comment on proposals to release one and two character domains and to begin offering a privacy service to .US registrants – as well as to re-designate certain existing domains as “premium”. After some spirited internal discussion …
Time for a Board-Imposed Moratorium? — .Mobi Trades URS for $Cash
Once again, staff of ICANN’s Global Domains Division (GDD) has used a legacy gTLD’s contract renewal process to impose Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) on that gTLD — despite the fact that the URS is not an ICANN consensus policy applicable to legacy gTLDs. And, once again, the registry operator acquiescing to URS is reaping significant financial benefits as a reward …
.US Requests Public Comment on Premium Domains and Privacy Service
It has been my honor for the past two years to have been a member of the .US TLD Stakeholder Council http://www.neustar.us/ustld-stakeholder-council and, in that capacity, to provide the perspective of domain investors and developers to the operation of the USA’s ccTLD. On Thursday, December 15th .US issued two important requests for public comment. The first relates to the potential …
Thanksgiving Day Comment Labels .XXX RA Revision a Turkey
Following up on its critical statement delivered to the ICANN Board at the recent Hyderabad public meeting, ICA submitted a Thanksgiving Day comment letter decrying the insertion of URS into the .XXX Registry Agreement (RA) via contract negotiation and declaring— “GDD staff should demonstrate their clear commitment to ICANN’s bottom-up policymaking process by ceasing and desisting from seeking top-down imposition …