Can the UDRP be used to take away a Domain Name after 20 years? Complainants can certainly try, as we recently saw with the Queen.com case. Nevertheless, after 20 years of the UDRP it is high time for panelists to start seriously considering how severe delays in bringing a UDRP Complaint should no longer be tolerated. Many of our members have owned …
ICA Letter to ICANN Regarding the release of single-character domain for .COM
In its letter sent to ICANN before the Holidays, the ICA is asking for confirmation of a public comment period for Verisign RSEP (Registry Service Evaluation Process) for .com single character domain. The letter can be view here: Letter to ICANN re Release of single-character domain for .COM – December 22, 2017
ICA at MERGE!
The ICA is excited to be participating in THE Domain Conference, one of the sub-events at MERGE!, this October 14-18th in Orlando, Florida. The ICA will host a 45-minute session presenting an overview of our work with plenty of time for an audience Q&A. MERGE! conference is organized by industry veterans and ICA members Jothan Frakes and Howard Neu along …
Report on ICANN 59 Johannesburg
By Philip S. Corwin, ICA Counsel The 59th ICANN meeting was held in Johannesburg, South Africa from June 25th to 29th. Under ICANN’s new meeting schedule this mid-year gathering is the somewhat shorter “B” session devoted to intensive policy development work. This report details my engagement as ICA Counsel on your behalf and current and expected benefits to ICA members. …
URS is MIA in .Net Renewal RA
The Proposed Renewal of the .Net Registry Agreement (RA) was published for public comment by ICANN on April 20th. The biggest surprise about the proposed contract is how little it differs from the current one between ICANN and Verisign. Conspicuously absent from the agreement is the new gTLD rights protection mechanism (RPM) of Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS). For the past …
ICA Supports ICANN Transparency Improvements
ICA fully supported the insistence of ICANN’s community that the IANA Transition had to be accompanied by substantial improvements in ICANN Accountability. Some of those improvements were deemed to be necessary preconditions to the Transition. They included substantial revisions of ICANN’s Bylaws to reflect new community powers, such as the ability to veto budgets or remove Board members. Those were …
A Complaint about ICANN’s New Complaints Office
ICA has long been on record that it was an inappropriate usurpation of the GNSO’s policymaking role for ICANN Global Domain Division (GDD) staff to be urging legacy gTLD registry operators to adopt Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) in the course of renewal negotiations for their registry agreements (RAs). That’s because the URS was adopted as an “implementation detail” for new …
ICA Concerns Heard — Copyright UDRP on Indefinite Hold
Executive Summary: The Copyright UDRP proposal unveiled two weeks ago in the Domain Name Association’s Healthy Domains Initiative has been placed on indefinite hold and is unlikely to be revived as a DNA initiative. Public Interest Registry announced on February 23rd that it was pausing its development of the plan and will not revive it absent further notice. One day …
ICA DEEPLY CONCERNED WITH PROPOSAL TO ENABLE DOMAIN TRANSFERS BASED UPON COPYRIGHT CLAIMS
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 …