Protecting Domain Investors & The Domain Name Industry
It was an omen of things to come. Just over an hour out from Hong Kong the pilot of my 777 en route from San Francisco came on the intercom. Hong Kong was temporarily closed due to torrential rain and we would need to land in Taipei to refuel before proceeding. When we finally arrived in HKG my journey from …
Several days ago I posted an article – “ICANN is Missing in Action on .XYZ” – expressing my personal views regarding Network Solutions’ involuntary opt-out registration of .XYZ domains for its existing customers. It was posted, as many of my opinion pieces are, at both the website of the Internet Commerce Association, which I have served as Counsel since its …
The Senate Appropriations Committee just reported out on June 5th its version of the Commerce-Justice-State Departments Appropriations bill for FY 15. In the course of its deliberations it added a consensus amendment on the IANA transition offered by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE). The amendment reads: 1. Amendment proposed by Senator Johanns On page 24 of the report, in the …
The House of Representatives has passed another measure related to the proposed IANA functions transition, and has again attached it to “must pass” legislation. This move ups the ante and may well be the final straw that compels the Senate Commerce Committee to hold its own oversight hearing on the IANA transition proposal. On May 30th the House adopted the …
The Shimkus Amendment to the $601 billion National Defense Authorization Act (HR 4435) passed the House of Representatives yesterday on a mostly partisan vote of 245 – 177. While all 228 Republicans present and voting supported the amendment only 17 Democrats voted “aye”, with 177 in opposition. Final passage on the entire bill was a bipartisan vote of 325-98. The …
In an unanticipated move a third Committee of the US House of Representatives has weighed in with concerns regarding the NTIA’s proposed transition of the US role as counterparty to ICANN’s IANA functions contract to one with the “global multistakeholder community”. On May 13th the House Armed Services Committee Report for HR 4435, the Defense Authorization bill, was released. It …
We have finally had a chance to review the transcript of the Public Forum with the ICANN Board held on March 27th in Singapore. ICA generally takes advantage of those opportunities for interaction to acquaint the Board with matters of concern to the domain investment community. Two issues were addressed in our Singapore statement. The first was the attempt by …
On April 24th the NETmundial “Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance” concluded with the issuance of an eight-page statement. This non-binding document is hardly the “Magna Carta for the Internet” called for in an opening statement delivered by Tim Berners Lee, but it does set the stage for the other two major 2014 events that will affect …
The NETmundial meeting in Sao Paulo kicked off on the morning of April 23rd and one of the speakers at its Opening Ceremony proclaimed that the Internet was a curious type of “Public Commons” in which private domain registrants should be obligated to pay a fee to fund access, capacity-building, and general bridging of the Internet gap between the developing …
For the third time in six months, ICA has told ICANN that the legally questionable and largely unnecessary attempts of International Governmental Agencies (IGOs) and International Nongovernmental Agencies (INGOs) to secure extraordinary protections for their organizational acronyms at second level domains should be met with a firm and resounding “no”. (Letter available below and at http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-igo-ingo-crp-prelim-10mar14/msg00006.html )
