While the debate continues as to whether most new gTLDs are a sound long-term investment for their registry operators, there’s no disputing that the program has been an economic boom for ICANN. The 1,930 first round applications each required an application fee of $185,000, which added up to a tidy $357 million. Even after refunds for withdrawn applications ICANN still …
In Quashing .IR Attachment Order Against ICANN DC District Court Declares That ccTLDs Are Akin to Second Level Domains
On November 10th the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted ICANN’s motion to quash a writ of attachment and a related motion for further discovery in a politically charged case in which private plaintiffs sought to seize control of Iran’s .IR country code top level domain (ccTLD). The litigation was brought under a US law that allows …
Chan Luu Case Settles/Registrants Can Still Seek Return of Domains
While we are not privy to the details, we have received word that there has been a settlement in the litigation brought by Chan Luu against Grant Shellhammer and Online Growth. As we first reported in early October, more than 5,000 domain names were said to have been transferred by VeriSign to Uniregistrar after it was served with a sealed …
ICA Counsel Appointed to Inaugural .US Stakeholder Council
ICA Counsel Philip Corwin has been appointed to the first Stakeholder Council ever established for .US, the country code top level domain (ccTLD) of the United States. The Charter of this new Council sets its Scope of Work as follows: The Council will address matters related to the operation of the usTLD in the interest of the usTLD user community. …
ICANN 51 Focus: Making ICANN Directly Accountable to the Broader Internet Community
ICANN 51 taking place in Los Angeles this week may not have its customary evening Gala, but it opened with rousing remarks by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker in the first-ever ICANN appearance of the head of the Cabinet agency from which it was born and which has exercised continuous oversight of its key IANA functions. The themes of …
ICA ADOPTS RESOLUTION CHANGING MEMBERSHIP STRUCTURE, ADDING NEW BOARD MEMBER FOR JUNIOR MEMBERSHIP CLASSES AND ESTABLISHING VOTING PROCEDURES
The attached resolution was unanimously adopted by the ICA board on October 3rd. The following email to ICA members accompanied the announcement of the resolution. Dear ICA Members, The board has adopted the attached resolution to implement the addition of a new board position and the changes to the membership levels that we announced previously. In summary, the resolution- 1. Creates a new board …
Undue Process: Nearly Five Thousand Domains Transferred Under Sealed Court Order
Noted domain investor, industry advisor, blogger, and ICA member Mike Berkens has alerted us to a very disturbing occurrence. Unfortunately for Mike, he has been directly impacted by it. According to an October 2nd blog post at The Domains, “As Many As 5K .Com’s Taken Away By Sealed Court Order By Verisign Including Some Of Mine”— Overnight I received a …
ICA Exploring Domain Theft Project to Counter a Growing Abuse
There has been a lot of domain industry press attention lately to domain thefts. We don’t know for sure if this problem is becoming more acute or is just being reported on more often. But, regardless of the level of activity, we know that there are inadequate recovery and punitive remedies available at present for domain owners who experience theft …
ICANN Staff provides Update on First Round of New gTLDs and the Path Forward to a Second Round
In late August the GNSO Council received an ICANN staff response to a Resolution on subsequent rounds of new gTLDs passed during its June meeting in London. At the time the response was issued only 373 gTLDs had been delegated out of the 1321 total applications being processed. So the first round of the program still has a long way …
ICANN’s Comment Period on Accountability Process Seeks Scope Limitations
Bowing to unprecedented community pressure in the form of a unanimous letter questioning its staff-developed Accountability Process, as well as a reconsideration request filed with the Board, on September 5th ICANN issued a notice titled “Public Comment Invited: Enhancing ICANN Accountability Process”. The notice opens a 21-day public comment period on that staff proposal. However, ICANN staff apparently cannot resist …