Tension envelops U.S. oversight of ICANN following extension
602659
(InfoWorld) - Internet governance experts remain divided overÂ last week's decision to extend the U.S. government's oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), with some calling it appropriate and others portraying it as unwise. The strong sentiments on either side reflect a chronic, troubling tension that has enveloped ICANN since 1998, when it was formed to progressively absorb Internet management functions until then handled fully by the U.S. government. Often accused of lacking transparency in its decision-making process and of responding disproportionately to U.S. interests, ICANN carries on its shoulders the critical responsibility of ensuring the security and stability of the Internet. With so much at stake in matters of global communications and business, it's no surprise that governments and private-sector enterprises have high expectations and deep concerns about ICANN. Those supporting the continued U.S. supervision say ICANN isn't yet ready to manage the Internet's domain name system by itself, and note that ICANN, a private, nonprofit company in California, has to improve how it makes decisions and establishes policies. By contrast, the other camp argues that while ICANN is far from perfect, the U.S. involvement creates political friction with other countries and delays ICANN's development. Over the years in a series of memorandums of understanding (MOUs), the U.S. Commerce Department has been ceding tasks to ICANN, with the goal of eventually giving ICANN full autonomy. Last week, the MOU got extended for three more years, and increased ICANN's autonomy. However, the Commerce Department continues helping ICANN increase transparency and accountability and overseeing the security and operation of root name servers. "Extending the MOU was the only reasonable course of action at this point," said David McGuire, director of communications at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), in a phone interview. "ICANN has to improve its accountability and transparency and openness. ICANN needs to address that before we can have a meaningful conversation about it standing alone," McGuire said. The CDT is a Washington, D.C., nonprofit think tank focused on Internet public policy issues. The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) in Arlington, Virginia, also supported the decision, calling it, in a statement, "a necessary and important step" toward full autonomy, while noting also that ICANN must improve its transparency. Meanwhile, the Internet Society, a nonprofit education and policy group in Reston, Virginia, said in a statement that the new agreement moves beyond an oversight model, gives ICANN more flexibility and assigns the U.S. government "a more discrete role." However, some predict the continued U.S. oversight will do more harm than good. Ian Peter, senior partner at Ian Peter & Assoc. and founder of the Internet Mark 2 Project in Australia, said via e-mail that ICANN needs a healthier dose of internationalism. "The oversight role for ICANN should be global and multistakeholder -- not a single government," wrote Peter, whose Internet Mark 2 Project analyzes issues affecting Internet governance. Oscar Robles-Garay, general manager of Mexico's Internet NIC (network information center) for the .mx domain, feels pessimistic about last week's decision. "Three years from now we'll have the same problem as today, exacerbated by even more strident criticism from some governments against ICANN and the Commerce Department," Robles-Garay wrote in an e-mail interview. Milton Mueller, professor of information studies at Syracuse University in New York, agrees that international resentment will grow as a result of last week's decision. "The U.S. government is a big part of the problem with ICANN's accountability and process. U.S. government involvement sets up a privileged 'back channel' for influencing ICANN decisions so that powerful interests ... can get their way while bypassing the procedures everyone else has to use," heÂ said in anÂ e-mail. Â
381775
Government oversight? What government oversight! Internet overseeing organisation ICANN will become an autonomous body, free from any form of government control, on 1 October 2008, if plans drawn up between it and the US government go according to plan.â¦
486546
The Internet registrar is being criticized for its practice of putting holds on domain names that searchers on its site may not look for but not immediately register, although it since has backed down.
483523
VeriSign (Quote, Chart) has come out on the losing end in its breach of contract and antitrust lawsuit against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
20411
New rule creates potential security flaw for domain name transfers.
23080
&quot;The US federal court&#39;s decision serves as another important affirmation of ICANN&#39;s multistakeholder participatory model, and reaffirms the ICANN structure,&quot; stated John Jeffrey, ICANN&#39;s General Counsel.
77635
(InfoWorld) - A VeriSign Inc. official defended its contract to operate the .com domain Monday, after Network Solutions accused the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) of not requiring adequate security safeguards in its registry agreements. Network Solutions, a domain-name registrar, released a report last week saying ICANN has "failed" to address security in its latest proposals for the .com, .biz, .info and .org top-level domains. Network Solutions officials also criticized a provision in the proposed contract renewal for the .com domain that would allow VeriSign to raise prices by 7 percent in four of the contract's six years. The current .com contract expires in late 2007. VeriSign shouldn't get near-automatic renewals of the .com contract without more security requirements, said Jonathan Nevett, Network Solutions' vice president and chief policy counsel. "We're facing a contract that provides for ... permanent monopoly, for fee increases without justification and now without adequate security protections," he said. "It's mind-boggling that the contract has gotten this far." But Ken Silva, VeriSign's chief security officer, said some price increases will be necessary to keep the .com domain secure. The contract to operate the .com domain allows ICANN to change the agreement through consensus of its two security committees, and ICANN can cancel the contract if it believes VeriSign hasn't performed adequately, Silva said. VeriSign has warded off several massive attacks on the .com domain, including attacks using more than 30,000 bot-net computers in January, Silva said. Meanwhile, the .com domain has been available 100 percent of the time for the last seven years, he said. Internet attacks continue to evolve and become larger, and it's difficult to set a security road map that stays relevant for any length of time, Silva said. He praised the proposed .com contract renewal for its pricing "flexibility." "The technology we're talking about to keep up with this kind of load is not something you just buy off the shelf," Silva said. "Let's not lose site of the fact that security continues to be the biggest threat to the growth of the Internet. Supporting that security and stability is going to involve a lot of technology, a lot of talent and a lot of equipment." The two companies held briefings about the proposed .com contract as a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has scheduled a hearing Wednesday on ICANN's future. Besides the top-level domain agreements, the subcommittee is likely to focus on the renewal of the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN, allowing the nonprofit organization to oversee the Internetâs technical infrastructure. A year ago, countries including China and Brazil proposed a new model for Internet governance, with an international body taking responsibility from the U.S. and ICANN. The U.S. government and many U.S. companies oppose such a move. Network Solutions focused on the top-level domain agreements with its report, "DNS -- A System in Crisis." Among its criticisms: the domain agreements do not allow ICANN to audit security practices of domain operators. "This is the backbone of the Internet," said report author Jerry Archer. "Without this, there are no signposts."
290504
Seizure of Indymedia's Web servers raises questions about when Internet companies can be forced to release information to authorities.
260345
ICANN has begun commercial and technical negotiations with the applicant registries, bringing the number of domains in this second stage of evaluations to four. The other two are the .post and .travel domains.
635895
Despite complaints of secrecy and biased decision making leveled against the organization that handles domain name policies, the U.S. Commerce Department says ICANN works and renews its oversight agreement.
40085
Global internet watchdog, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), at the weekend announced the commencement of its new inter-registrar domain name transfer (DNT) policy, just as it has settled over 10,000 domain name disputes
388161
This domain will self-destruct in five seconds "In the past couple of weeks, over 70% of the non-jurisdictional contacts my Office has received have concerned registerflyâ¦ In most circumstances, the matter would be refered to Mr. Mike Zupke, ICANN's Registrar Manager, and he would in turn pass along consumer concerns to the registerfly contactâ¦ If, however, Mr. Zupke determined that the matter you are complaining about is unrelated to the Registrarâs Accreditation Agreement, or any other ICANN policy, he will likely encourage you to work out the situation with the registrar..." ICANN Ombudsmanâs Blog, February 12, 2007â¦
129394
The security and stability of the internet has once again come to the forefront of the domain name space, as companies spar to get the best deals out of the Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers and the US government.
448993
Facing criticism, Network Solutions has stepped back from some elements of a new process to register Internet domain names.
395644
(InfoWorld) - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers opened a week-long meeting on Monday where it will address critical issues like new generic top level domains, internationalized domain names and the organization's efforts to become more accountable and transparent. The international public meeting, the second of three of its kind ICANN has planned for this year, will also include discussions about a major expansion of available Internet Protocol addresses, as well as about the process for accrediting registrars. Taking advantage of the meeting's venue in San Juan, Puerto Rico , the agenda also includes the first General Assembly of the Latin American and Caribbean Regional At Large Organization, formed in March. "We're very pleased to be in Puerto Rico," said Paul Twomey, ICANN's president and CEO, during a press conference at the Caribe Hilton hotel, adding that the meeting's agenda is full of significant issues and efforts. ICANN oversees the Internet's address system and as such carries the critical responsibility of ensuring the overall security and stability of the Internet. A key effort ICANN is involved with is improving the transparency of its operations and the accountability of its decisions, areas critics regularly complain about. "We must ensure we're in the leading edge of transparency and accountability," Twomey said. ICANN commissioned an independent study about its transparency and accountability in December from London's One World Trust, which reported its findings in March. It concluded that ICANN is a very transparent organization but that it can improve certain areas, including explaining better how it uses input from stakeholders when making decisions. ICANN has been taking steps to address these issues and, earlier this month, issued a response to the report. On Saturday, ICANN released for discussion at the San Juan meeting online a set of draft principles and frameworks for accountability . ICANN wants to improve making it easier for people to find the vast amount of information on its Web site, Twomey said. ICANN also wants to be faster in posting information online about its meetings and initiatives, he said. However, the transparency and accountability issue will likely remain on the table until ICANN removes its special ties to the U.S. government. Since its creation in 1998 to progressively absorb Internet management functions until then handled fully by the U.S. government, ICANN has been criticized for lacking transparency in its decision-making process and for responding disproportionately to U.S. interests. In September, the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. Commerce Department and ICANN was renewed for three additional years, a disappointment for those who had hoped for ICANN's full autonomy. Also in this week's agenda is the Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) initiative, which aims to revamp the DNS (domain name system) so that it can support domain names in a broad range of languages and alphabets that can't be represented via the ASCII character set. "You'd think this would be simple. It has turned out to be really hard, technically," said Vint Cerf, ICANN's chairman. Another initiative on deck for discussion is the drafting of a policy to introduce new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to add to the well-known ones like .com and .net. Like the IDN effort, this gTLD project has run into technical challenges. The meeting will also feature a tutorial on the IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) effort to expand significantly the amount of IP addresses, because of the expected shortage under the current IPv4, Cerf said. The San Juan meeting, ICANN's 29th International Public Meeting, ends Friday and will feature more than 30 sessions and workshops.
220090
In the beginning was the...uh... ICANN San Juan 2007 After a crazed American federal prosecutor wreaked havoc on the Puerto Rican roads by wiping out on his motorcycle at 3am doing 105 mph, immobilizing traffic for ten hours on a major highway, I walked four miles on Thursday morning along the beach to the site of the ICANN meeting. I made it just in time to the Caribe Hilton for the internet governance workshop.â¦
70935
(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has approved an agreement for VeriSign Inc. to continue to operate the .com domain for six more years,Â despite objections about pricing and security. TheÂ department has approved the .com agreement submitted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that oversees the Internetâs technical infrastructure, VeriSign announced Thursday. The current .com contract expires in late 2007. The approval comes even though domain-name registrarÂ GoDaddy.com criticized the dealÂ in September, saying it should include infrastructure build-out requirements and make the company justify built-in price increases. Also in September, registrar Network Solutions releasedÂ a report saying ICANN has failed to address securityÂ in its latest proposals for the .com, .biz, .info and .org top-level domains. But VeriSign officials noted that the .com domain has never crashed under its control during the last seven years. The ICANN agreement "strengthens the security and stability of the Internet relied on by hundreds of millions of people around the globe," Mark McLaughlin, executive vice president and general manager for VeriSign Information Services, said in a statement. The agreement "holds operators accountable for their performance [and] promotes the continued investment of tens of millions of dollars in the infrastructure." A Network Solutions official said the company was disappointed that the DOC approved the agreement "in the face of widespread opposition." "Unfortunately, the Commerce Department has endorsed an agreement that creates a perpetual de facto monopoly, fails to provide sufficient checks and balances through competition and adequate oversight, and is fundamentally flawed from a national cyber-security perspective," Jon Nevett, the company's vice president for policy, said in a statement. ICANN approved the agreement in February. But GoDaddy.com and Network Solutions criticized the deal for allowing VeriSign to raise prices by 7 percent in four of the contract's six years. The deal also doesn't include enough infrastructure build-out and security requirements, the two companies said. Other critics called for the .com contract to be put up for competitive bids, but VeriSign and ICANN officials argued no other company was in a position to take over the massive .com domain. NetChoice, a coalition of trade associations and e-Commerce businesses, praised the DOC's approval of the contract extension. The approval shows the DOC respects ICANN's decisions even as other countries have criticized the U.S. control of ICANN, said NetChoice, with members including VeriSign itself as well as eBay Inc. and Yahoo Inc. Combined with a September agreement that moves ICANN to independence in three years, the .com approval "should also quell international criticism of the U.S for its oversight role over ICANN," Steve DelBianco, NetChoice's executive director, said in an e-mail. The agreement will also "ensure the long-term availability and integrity of the Internet," he said.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.