U.S. Extends ICANN Oversight
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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.
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(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."
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In a petition before US District Judge Kathleen Kollar-Kotelly, the State of California, along with five other states and the District of Columbia, said they would ask US District Judge Kollar-Kotelly to extend all the provisions of government oversight to 2012, in a status meeting scheduled for today.
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VeriSign's proposed deal with ICANN for oversight of the .com domain has received final approval from the US Commerce Department, removing the last hurdle to extending the agreement until 2012.
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NOVEMBER 12, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - A new transfer policy for inter-registrar domain names went into effect today, according to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
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A federal judge ruled on Tuesday to extend the U.S. government's antitrust oversight of Microsoft Corp  for two more years, but stopped short of granting a five-year extension sought by states accusing the company of continuing monopolistic behavior.
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ICANN, the body that oversees the core functionality of the Internet and is responsible for regulating top level domains or TLDs (such as .
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(InfoWorld) - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) met in Sao Paolo this week and made progress on a project to expand domain names to more languages and alphabets. ICANN had a "very, very busy and very productive week," ICANN Chairman Vint Cerf said during a press conference he led Friday with Chief Executive Officer and President Paul Twomey. The group made progress on technical issues related to Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). The IDN project is meant to revamp the DNS (Domain Name System) so that it supports domain names from different languages and alphabets, such as Arabic and Chinese, that can't be rendered in the ASCII character set. The nonprofit group that oversees Internet governance also signed what its officials call a "historic agreement" with 22 Internet user groups in Latin America and Caribbean. The Latin America-Caribbean Regional At-Large Organization, or RALO, has the goal of providing individual user input to ICANN. This is the first RALO agreement ICANN has reached. ICANN further announced that it approved registry agreements for the .biz, .info and .org domains, with a restriction that traffic data cannot be used to disclose domain name registrant, end-user information or other personal data. Traffic data can be used to determine problems with the Internet, including points of failure, attacks on networks, compromised networks and the like. The agreements also put a 10 percent cap on price increases charged by registry operators. ICANN members also agreed to a three-year strategic plan that calls for a focus on "organizational excellence" in operations and policy development, as well as an increase in international participation. Top priorities for action in the plan include improvement and automation of the ICANN-controlled Internet Assigned Names Authority (IANA), which manages master domain lists; deployment of the IDNs as top-level domains; and implementing best practices for "accountability, transparency and governance." Also at the meeting, ICANN signed a contract with DotAsia Organisation Ltd., in Hong Kong, to establish a .asia top-level domain. Companies and organizations in Asia looking beyond their local markets, as well as multinationals with subsidiaries that are based in one country but serve all of Asia, would benefit from the regional domain name, the company said. Working with ICANN, DotAsia plans to gradually introduce IDN services in the future. The text of resolutions adopted in Sao Paulo, along with IDN laboratory testing design plans, agreements and matters for which ICANN is seeking public comment can be found at the ICANN Web site.
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ICANN&#39;s new domain transfer policy that starts Friday is intended to provide greater security and portability to the domain transfer process and protect against &quot;domain slamming.
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The European Commission welcomed on   Monday U.S. government moves to make the company that manages   Internet domain names independent by 2009, but said it would   monitor the process carefully.
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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number, the organization named by the US government in 1998 to oversee policies over Internet addresses, gave a preliminary nod Monday to domain names targeting mobile services and the jobs
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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¦
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What about those voting rights, again? ICANN San Juan 2007 The Wednesday ICANN-arama wrapped up with a session covering ICANN's ongoing efforts to improve its management and accountability practices: the "Accountability and transparency management operating principles" workshop.â¦
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A federal judge prolongs court oversight of the software maker for a further two years. Microsoft had said an extension was unnecessary, while some states wanted Microsoft watched for another five years.
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Following an appeal from President George W. Bush on Monday, the U.S. Congress has granted a temporary extension to a controversial law that allows the government to conduct telephone surveillance on suspected terrorists.On Tuesday Congress voted to extend for 15 days The Protect America Act, which allows the U.S. National Security Agency to intercept phone calls and e-mail of suspected terrorists without first obtaining a court warrant. The act was due to expire Friday, but Bush called for its extension Monday during his final State of the Union address.The debate to extend the act was led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. His efforts to extend the act for 30 days began Monday; by late Tuesday, Congress decided on a 15-day extension by a voice vote. Some Democratic lawmakers were in favor of only a temporary extension because they wanted time to consider a more permanent measure.Bush and some Republican lawmakers were hoping for longer extension of the act, which also provides legal protection for telecommunications carriers that are cooperating with the NSA. Without protection, the carriers face privacy lawsuits from those under surveillance.The Protect America Act has been surrounded by controversy since Bush signed it in August. Congress is expected to continue debating whether to renew the act or to give carriers immunity from legal proceedings -- or compromise on some combination of both -- during the 15-day extension period.
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California asked the federal judge  overseeing Microsoft's  antitrust oversight agreement  to extend a section of it by three years to 2012.
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The U.S. government is loosening its grip on the domain name system and is edging closer to giving ICANN -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- a greater measure of autonomy in making decisions about the future of the Internet.