ICANN investigates domain name sharp practice
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Insider dealing probe launched Internet oversight agency ICANN has launched an investigation into the possibility that insider information is being used to snap up desirable domain names before the person or organisation likely to be interested in them has had a chance to buy.â¦
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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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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has approved two new internet address types: .mobi and .jobs. This is just a preliminary approval.
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It has been quiet sometime since we heard news related to domain name issues. Microsoft recently had some with a kid named Mike Rowe who opened up a site MikeRoweSoft.
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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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Tests are carried out to see how the net's addressing system  copes with international character sets such as Chinese and Arabic.
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(InfoWorld) - A U.K. governance organization will review The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as it tries to increase transparency afterÂ criticism of its close U.S. government ties. The report from One World Trust will be made public when it's completed next year, said Paul Levins, ICANN's executive officer and vice president of corporate affairs. ICANN, a private, nonprofit organization that controls the administration of the DNS (domain name system), is reworking its accountability practices, Levins said. "Frankly, the community has told us this is an issue we need to deal with," Levins said. In October, ICANN started a consultation toÂ develop new management operating principles, Levins said. ICANN also plans to document its board meetings better and revamp its Web site to make its 12,000 pages more accessible. The organization, based in Marina del Ray, California, falls under theÂ oversight of the U.S. Commerce Department, which has led to criticism that the U.S. government wielded too much influence over the Internet's development. In September, an existing agreement between the department and ICANN was extended for three years, although the U.S. government could grant ICANN total autonomy after 18 months.
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Prized by journalists, researchers and law enforcement officials as a reliable resource for tracking down website owners, it is criticized by privacy advocates for the same reason. A proposal in front of ICANN would essentially scuttle the ship.
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(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
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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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Internet users may soon see two new domain name suffixes in their browser window: &quot;.post&quot; to identify the postal community and &quot;.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. government will remain involved with the management of the Internet's domain name system after its current agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) expires on Saturday. The decision comes despiteÂ international pressureÂ advocating for the U.S. government to bow out and make ICANN a totally autonomous entity. The U.S. Commerce Department will retain ICANN oversight for three more years, although there will be a review in 18 months of ICANN's progress toward becoming a more stable, transparent, and accountable organization, the government agency said in a statement Friday. A spokesman for ICANN said that at this 18-month review a decision could be taken to give ICANN total autonomy. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) that has been in place between ICANN and the Commerce Department since 1998 has now been modified in several ways that represent a "dramatic step" towards full autonomy, ICANN said in a separate statement. For example, the MOU had outlined the government's role as "prescriptive," but now, ICANN will determine how it works and what it works on, ICANN said. Furthermore, the requirement for ICANN to submit a progress report to the Commerce Department every six months has been lifted. Instead, ICANN will publish an annual progress report aimed at the entire Internet community, not just the Commerce Department. Duties retained by the Commerce Department include helping ICANN achieve greater transparency and accountability in how it evaluates and adopts policies, the government agency said. In addition, the Commerce Department said it will continue its oversight of the security andÂ operation of root name servers. The Commerce Department remains committed toward eventually giving ICANN full autonomy, it said. However, many observers believe that this full autonomy should have been granted already, because having the U.S. involved in DNS (domain name system) management creates political friction and ultimately slows down the international development of the Internet. On the other hand, others believe that continued U.S. government oversight of ICANN is necessary because ICANN hasn't proven it can handle the entire task of DNS management alone and that if the U.S. government withdraws, the Internet's security and stability could be compromised. ICANN is a private, nonprofit organization based in California. The Commerce Department held a hearing on the matter in July and previously called for written comments, receiving about 700 of them. On Friday, the agency said that consultation process revealed broad support for continuing the transition towards a fully autonomous ICANN but with the Commerce Department's continued involvement. ICANN and the Commerce Department will hold a press conference Friday.
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Internet addresses ending in ".pdf" or ".mp3" could appear under a new proposal, while domain name suffixes consisting entirely of numbers would likely be rejected.
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A proposal by the overseer of the Internet&#39;s addressing system could make it a lot easier for people to reserve the domain name they want for their Web site.The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is considering keeping the annual fee it charges registries for a registered domain name, even if the domain name is forfeited during the five-day Add Grace Period. ICANN currently charges $0.20 per domain per year.The move is intended to stop &quot;domain tasting,&quot; a practice where thousands of domain names are purchased at a time and monitored to see which get the most traffic during the grace period, said Jason Keenan, media advisor for ICANN.The grace period is intended to let people get a refund if they make a spelling mistake while registering a domain. But rogue registrars have been abusing the grace period by setting up thousands of Web sites stuffed with advertising links on newly registered domains.The domain tasters then keep the ones that generate the most click-through advertising revenue and forfeit the unprofitable domains for a refund before the grace period expires. Some registrars have been known to repeatedly register and unregister domain names as the five-day grace period expires, essentially never paying for use of a domain.Domain tasting is a problem for users since it means a domain they want to purchase may be temporarily or permanently unavailable. It also means more low-quality Web pages on the Internet that are designed only for generating advertising revenue.The imposition of a fee would make it a lot more expensive for domain tasters, Keenan said.&quot;Right now you can go and register a million different names for five days and the cost is zero,&quot; Keenan said. &quot;If this [proposal] comes through, the cost is $1 for five [domains]. It really changes the fiscal model of tasting.&quot;A study released earlier this month by ICANN shows how bad the problem has become over the last two years. In January 2005, there were 1.7 million .com and .net domains registered. Of those, 700,000, or 41 percent, were deleted during the grace period, for a total net increase of 1 million domains.During January 2007, 51 million domains were registered, but 48 million were deleted, or about 94 percent. &quot;There was a net increase of 3 million names but most of the rest were just being &#39;tasted&#39;,&quot; the report said.The fee is also expected to put the brakes on another practice, known as &quot;front running.&quot; Some ISPs and registries sell records of what domain names people have searched for, and those domains will end up being &quot;tasted,&quot; said Susan Wade, spokeswoman for Network Solutions, a registry.Often the tasters will try to sell those domains at inflated prices, she said.&#160;Network Solutions has tried to stop the behavior&#160;by registering a domain name for four day after someone conducts a search for one on its Web site.Critics have decried the approach, saying that it forces customers to pay Network Solutions for a domain or face further competition when the domain goes back on the market. Wade countered that Network Solutions doesn&#39;t charge any more for the domain, and it prevents the domain from being immediately scooped up by a taster.However, Wade said Network Solutions will stop the practice if ICANN imposes a fee.&quot;At that point, we believe that our customers would no longer need protection from front running,&quot; Wade said in an e-mail.The fee proposal is contained within ICANN&#39;s 2009 fiscal budget, which will be discussed in Paris in June, Keenan said. It must be approved by ICANN&#39;s board as part of the budget.It must also be approved by registrars that comprise two-thirds of the revenue ICANN receives from domain registrations, Keenan said. There are about 900 or so registrars for the seven generic Top Level Domains (TLDs) that have the Add Grace Period: com .net .org .info .name .pro and .biz, he said.Registrars have been complaining to ICANN about domain tasting for some time and appear ready to support the plan. Some registrars, such as GoDaddy.com, have dissuaded tasters from using their registration services by reserving the right to charge a fee even for domains that are returned within the five-day period.Network Solutions also deflects tasters by not issuing bulk refunds for registrations before the five-day grace period expires, Wade said.However, most tasters end up become registrars themselves, said Warren Adelman, GoDaddy&#39;s president and chief operating officer. &quot;We hope that we are really beginning to see the end of an era of what&#39;s been negative behavior,&quot; he said.The only other option to stopping tasting would be to get rid of the grace period, which would hurt users, said John Levine, an author and technology consultant. The fee is the easiest route, he said.&quot;It will definitely stop domain tasting,&quot; Levine said. &quot;It&#39;s clear they [tasters] have to register several hundred domains to find one that will pay off. It&#39;s pretty hard to find a hither-to-unknown domain to find $50 of revenue.&quot;&#160;
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The nonprofit organization that manages the Internet's domain-name system is set to vote Wednesday on changes to the Web site registration process that would make it easier for people to shield their identities online and, indirectly, cut spammers off from an easy-to-mine database of legitimate e...
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Who's the front runner here? Is Network Solutions attempting to reinvent reality? ICANN's looking into it.â¦
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Over the past few years, the Internet has seen new domain names such as '.eu' for Europe and '.travel' for the travel industry.Comment