ICANN is due to begin taking applications on 12 January for a three month period and has been under a sustained but belated attack from a consortium of marketers and advertisers, largely US-based, along with a number of US politicians, all echoing the same complaints mostly revolving around trademark and brand protection issues.

According to the .NXT report, Crocker admitted ICANN’s board will hold a special meeting in the “first week of January and that the meeting’s focus will be the launch of the new gTLD programme the following week. But that meeting will not consider either a delay or a limited rollout, he stated.”

Support to continue the plan to begin accepting TLD applications also came from regular ICANN critic Milton Mueller who wrote on the Internet Governance blog that “this long overdue implementation is the result of an open process that began in 2006. It would, in fact, be more realistic to say that the decision has been in the works 15 years; i.e., since early 1997. That is when demand for new top-level domain names, and the need for other policy decisions regarding the coordination of the domain name system, made it clear that a new institutional framework had to be created.”

Mueller believes the “result has been far from perfect, but human institutions never are.” He continues “Over the past 15 years, every stakeholder with a serious interest in the issue of top level domains has had multiple opportunities to make their voice heard and to shape the policy. The resulting new gTLD policy reflects that diversity and complexity. From our point of view, it is too regulatory, too costly, and makes too many concessions to content regulators and trademark holders. But delay is only going to make it worse. Stopping now disrupts the compromises that came out of the process which enabled movement forward after a long period of stagnation and artificial scarcity.”

Commenting on those who have belatedly come to the party demanding the new TLD programme be stopped or delayed, Mueller writes “Now there is a cynical, illegitimate last-second push by a few corporate interests in the United States to derail that process. The arguments put forward by these interests are not new; they are the same anti-new TLD arguments that have been made since 1997, and the concerns expressed are all addressed in one way or another by the policies ICANN has developed. What is new is that U.S. corporate trademark interests are openly admitting that their participation in the ICANN process has been in bad faith all along. Despite the multiple concessions and numerous re-dos that these interests managed to extract over the past 6 years, they are now demanding that everything grind to a halt because they didn’t get exactly what they demanded, as if no other interests and concerns mattered and no other stakeholders exist. What they wanted, in fact, was simply to freeze the status quo of 1996 into place forever, so that there would be no new competition, no new entrepreneurial opportunities, no linguistic diversification, nothing that would have the potential to cause them any problems.”

“That group’s demands must be rebuffed, unambiguously and finally. ICANN must start implementing the new TLD program on January 12 as scheduled. It must keep its promise to those who participated in its processes in good faith.”

Mueller credits the US Commerce Department for not caving “in to the cynical corporate obstructionism.”

“If ICANN blinks, if it deviates from or delays its agreed and hard-fought policy in the slightest way, the coup d’etat succeeds. Everyone in the world then concludes that a few corporate interests in the United States hold veto power over the policies of the Internet’s domain name system. Imagine the centrifugal forces that are unleashed as a result. Imagine the impact in Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, and even the EU, when they are told in no uncertain terms that ICANN’s policy making is hostage to the whims of a few well-placed, narrowly focused U.S. business interests; that they can invest thousands of person-hours and resources to working in that framework only to see the rug pulled out from under them by a campaign by the ANA and an editorial by the New York Times. The entire institutional infrastructure we have spent 15 years trying to build will be drained of its life.”

To download this paper from the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review in full, see:
www.mttlr.org/voleighteen/weinberg.pdf

Overall there were ten .COM sales among the top 20 and eight ccTLD sales including five .DE domains.

To read the Domain Name Journal list of top reported sales in the week to 20 November, see dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2011/20111130.htm.

To see the Domain Name Journal list of top reported sales in the week to 16 November in full, see dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2011/20111123.htm.

“We think there is some evidence to suggest they are waiting to commit fraud,” Janet Williams, the deputy assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police, told The Guardian. “These websites have been set up and are in a holding position, and we will monitor them to see if they are used for criminal purposes.”

Williams’ unit has a staff of 106 and “is working with other agencies, including the government communications headquarters GCHQ, to intercept traffic that might point to an attack on London’s infrastructure.”

The latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief noted that the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for Tokelau’s ccTLD, .TK entered the top ten largest top level domain rankings as the seventh largest, moving ahead of .NL (Netherlands) which moved from seventh to eighth. It also sees .TK becoming the world’s third largest ccTLD behind .DE (Germany) and .UK (United Kingdom).

Tokelau is a small group of three atolls in the South Pacific Ocean about half way between Hawaii and New Zealand under New Zealand administration since 1925 that now has “free association with New Zealand” according to the CIA Factbook. The islands have a land area of 12 square kilometres, an estimated population of 1,384 in July 2011 and comes 234th in the world in population size.

So how does such a small group of atolls with a miniscule population become the world’s third largest ccTLD?

The domain name is free which has helped, but as a number of reports, including Government Computer News, note that “in at least one notable case, phishing spam has driven the growth.”

The ccTLD is managed by a Dutch company called Dot TK based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) released a report titled “Global Phishing Survey: Domain Name Use and Trends in 1H2011” earlier in 2011 that said there were 6,333 phishing attacks and 6,214 unique domain names using .TK phishing domain names for the first half of 2011, the highest for any TLD. The report said there were 11.9 phishing domain names per every 10,000 domains, the third highest, behind only .MA (Morocco) and .TH (Thailand), however these are very small ccTLDs. The Moroccan ccTLD was the victim of an attack by hackers while .TH has been at the top of the APWG list for three years.

According to the APWG report, “the .TK ccTLD had more phishing domains than any TLDs except .COM. The .TK ccTLD is a liberalised country code domain; the registry is a joint venture of the small Pacific nation of Tokelau and BV Dot TK, a privately held company. By offering free domain names, .TK has become the third-largest ccTLD in the world after Germany’s .DE and Great Britain’s .UK.

“The downside is that the free .TK domain names became a popular resource for phishers in 2010. Every .TK domain used for phishing in 2H2010 and 1H2011 was maliciously registered. In 1H2011, most of the .TK domains – 5,518 of the 6,333 – were used to phish Chinese institutions.

As a result of some measures to target phishing, the APWG report notes that “preliminary reports indicate that .TK phishing has dropped 40% in the third quarter of 2011.”

Raising concerns of cybersquatting, the Times says the “Web is full of sites that masquerade as legitimate companies to sell pirated goods or steal consumers’ financial information. Fraudsters avoid detection by registering their sites using proxy services and false identities. The administrators of the online address system — Icann, the registries that operate suffixes like VeriSign, and agents like GoDaddy that sell Internet addresses to the public — are doing a terrible job curbing fraud.”

The Times is also concerned that despite efforts by ICANN to combat fraud, “companies will still have to spend a lot on defense, registering domains to avoid squatting on their brands and keeping an eye out for potentially infringing Web sites across hundreds of new suffixes. And Icann’s current inability to deal with abusive domain name registrations undermines confidence in its ability to address the risks of this vast expansion.”

The Washington Post taking a similar line says “ICANN reports to no one — a decision made when the group was created during the Clinton administration to protect Internet independence. The group has made some adjustments in response to concerns, including creation of a trademark clearinghouse and a ‘rapid response’ process to allow legitimate rights holders to quickly knock out imposters. Officials have said that some nonprofits may be permitted to pay lower fees.”

The Times concludes saying the Federal Trade Commission “is rightly urging Icann to require that registries and registrars be able to verify the identity of owners of all domains that have a commercial purpose, and to impose meaningful penalties for those who break the rules. There is no pressing need to create hundreds of new suffixes next year. It would be far better for Icann to start with a pilot program to work out problems before expanding the system.”

The Washington Post concludes its editorial saying “ICANN should not approve new names until enforcement and protection issues are resolved. Even then, it should approve at most a few, to allow the marketplace to absorb and weigh the changes. ICANN would be wise to move slowly; its legitimacy and Internet efficacy are at stake.”

The world’s largest registrar has joined companies such as Google in opposing the legislation. However it was initially among a list of 142 companies supporting the legislation. But its support was quickly reversed when there were calls for a boycott of the registrar by, among others, Reddit users on Thursday.

One of the first to call for the boycott was Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh who said the company would be moving their array of over 1000 domains away from Go Daddy unless the registrar recants their support of the act, reported TechCrunch.

Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales also called for a boycott and said announced via Twitter that he was “proud to announce that the Wikipedia domain names will move away from GoDaddy. Their position on SOPA is unacceptable to us.”

Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, say they have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago. Jones has fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill by proposing changes to key defined terms, limitations on DNS filtering to ensure the integrity of the Internet, more significant consequences for frivolous claims, and specific provisions to protect free speech.

“As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy,” said Adelman.

In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet. In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.

“Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future,” Jones said.

Several community members and prospective applicants asked ICANN for further guidelines regarding the calculation of these estimated costs. After analyzing the costs provided from several potential providers who responded to the recent EBERO-RFI (Emergency Back End Registry Operator – Request for Information) (see: www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-14sep11-en.htm), ICANN is providing the cost guidance in the table below.

The numbers provided are based on data gleaned from the proposals received, and are for guidance only. None of the costs in the table are identical to the estimates provided by the potential providers. All applicants are expected to complete calculations according to their particular circumstances, and to provide rationale for their cost estimates commensurate with the technical, operational, and financial approach described in the application.

Also note that these are costs only for providing the five critical registry functions identified in this process. These cost guidelines are not representative of the costs needed for running all of the services associated with operating a gTLD.

Applicants should ensure that the financial instrument will cover the costs for the five critical registry functions for a period of three years using the applicant’s projections of domain registrations under management.

Continued Operations Instrument guidance:

Note: The minimum COI for any new gTLD should be US $18,000. The Maximum COI for any new gTLD need not be more than US $300,000.

Bank rating guidance

The financial instrument must be issued/held by a financial institution rated “A” or above (or the equivalent) by any of the following rating agencies: A.M. Best, Dominion Bond Rating Service, Egan-Jones, Fitch Ratings, Kroll Bond Rating Agency, Moody’s, Morningstar, Standard & Poors, and Japan Credit Rating Agency.

If applicant cannot access an “A” rated financial institution, but a branch or subsidiary exists in the applicant’s local jurisdiction then applicant may use any local institution with a similar or higher rating.

As a last resort applicants may use the highest-rated financial institution in their national jurisdiction, if accepted by ICANN.

Note: For any financial instruments that contemplate ICANN being a party, upon the written request of the applicant, ICANN may (but is not obligated to) execute such agreement prior to submission of the applicant’s application if the agreement is on terms acceptable to ICANN. ICANN encourages applicant to deliver a written copy of any such agreement (only if it requires ICANN’s signature) to ICANN as soon as possible to facilitate ICANN’s review. If the financial instrument requires ICANN’s signature, then the applicant will only receive 3 points for question 50 (for the instrument being “secured and in place”) if ICANN executes the agreement prior to submission of the application. ICANN will determine, in its sole discretion, whether to execute and become a party to a financial instrument.

Why is the Continued Operations Instrument important?

As registrant protection is critical, new gTLD applications are required to provide evidence that the critical registry functions will continue to be performed even if the registry operator fails. The critical functions of a registry which must be supported even if an applicant’s business and/or funding fails are: (1) DNS resolution for registered domain names; (2) operation of the Shared Registration System; (3) provision of Whois service; (4) registry data escrow deposits; and (5) maintenance of a properly signed zone in accordance with DNSSEC requirements. This provides an opportunity for existing registrants in the TLD to maintain existing services dependent on registered domain names, and creates the ability for these registrants to plan for an extended transition where necessary.

ICANN’s core values and bylaws states that preserving and enhancing the operational stability, reliability, security, and global interoperability of the Internet should guide ICANN’s decisions and actions. The Continued Operations Instrument requirements are in pursuit of this principle and as a result of the development of ICANN’s Registry Continuity Framework.

Where can I find more information?

The current model proposed by ICANN is outlined in the Applicant Guidebook newgtlds.icann.org/applicants/agb), in particular please refer to question 50 in the Evaluation Questions and Criteria set forth in Module 2, and Specification 8 of the Registry Agreement.

In April 2009, ICANN published the ICANN gTLD Registry Continuity Plan – www.icann.org/en/registries/continuity/. This document depicts a gTLD Registry Continuity Framework developed in collaboration with experienced gTLD, ccTLD registries and members of the technical community.

In May 2010 ICANN published a New Top-Level Domain Explanatory Memorandum “gTLD Registry Transition Processes Model” (RyTP) – www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/registry-transition-processes-clean-30may11-en.pdf [PDF, 747 KB]. This document further elaborates on the concept of critical functions required for maintaining Top-Level Domain services and discusses the types of transitions between one Registry Operator and another.

Links to Relevant Information:

• New gTLD Program: www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-program.htm
• gTLD Registry Continuity Document Archive: www.icann.org/en/registries/continuity/archive-en.htm

Section I: Description, Explanation, and Purpose

On 20 April 2011, ICANN announced the IDN Variant Issues Project to explore the benefits and risks associated with the potential inclusion of IDN variant TLDs in the DNS root zone. This project was initiated in response to a 2010 ICANN Board of Directors resolution.

ICANN is publishing today for public comment the draft Integrated Issues Report [PDF, 1.1 MB], a study of the issues that this project has identified in relation to the management of IDN variant TLDs. It represents the result of the completion of the second phase of the project.

The first phase involved the formation of six case study teams for the Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek and Latin scripts. These teams were comprised of community experts with support by ICANN and worked on identifying issues related to IDN variant TLDs for each particular script, resulting in the publication in October of six individual reports detailing their findings.

The second phase focused on integrating those six case study reports into the Integrated Issues Report. To complete this phase, ICANN formed a coordination team comprised of experts from each of the case study teams. The coordination team advised ICANN in completing the Integrated Issues Report, which summarizes and categorizes the various issues related to the identification and management of IDN variant TLDs.

ICANN is now seeking community input on the issues discussed in this draft report. The report will be updated to reflect community feedback and the final Integrated Issues Report will be presented to the ICANN Board of Directors during their meeting at the ICANN public meeting in Costa Rica in March 2012.

Following publication of the final Integrated Issues Report, ICANN will facilitate work toward determining the conditions under which certain types of variant TLDs could be implemented.  Future work may also involve developing tools, processes, and protocols to support specific solutions, in cooperation with the appropriate experts.  For the purpose of arriving at a determination on whether variant TLDs can be delegated, it is expected that the required work can be completed in calendar year 2012.

Section II: Background

On 25 September 2010 the Board of Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) directed the CEO “to develop an issues report identifying what needs to be done with the evaluation, possible delegation, allocation and operation of gTLDs containing variant characters IDNs as part of the new gTLD process in order to facilitate the development of workable approaches to the deployment of gTLDs containing variant characters IDNs.” (www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-25sep10-en.htm-2.5)

In response, ICANN conducted six case studies of individual scripts to investigate any issues associated with delegating and using IDN variant TLDs that need to be resolved to facilitate a good user experience.

The next phase focused on integrating those six case study reports into the draft Integrated Issues Report, which is being posted here for public comment.

Section III: Document and Resource Links

Documents posted for comment

• The IDN Variant Issues Project: A Study of Issues Related to the Management of IDN Variant TLDs [PDF, 1.1 MB]

Additional Resources

• The original Variant Issues Project proposal [PDF, 195 KB] 20 April 2011.

Comment Period Deadlines

• Open Date: 23 December 2011
• Close Date: 30 January 2012

Important Information Links

• Public Comment Box
• To Submit Your Comments (Forum)
• View Comments Submitted

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-23dec11-en.htm