The 2013 RAA was approved by ICANN's board of directors less than a week ago. The new contract introduces a number of new obligations on ICANN accredited registrars, among them are several related to data validation, verification and retention. The Article 29 Working Party, however, has written to ICANN and made it very clear that it views these requirements to be … [Read more...] about Article 29 Working Party To ICANN – EU Registrars Exempt From Data Retention Requirements
policy
Nominet Puts Draft Registrar Agreement Out For Consultation
Nominet, the .uk domain name registry, has published a draft registrar contract for consultation. The registry had been planning a revision of its contracts for some time. Full details of the consultation, as well as the related documents, may be found here. Nominet are currently planning two public sessions to discuss the contract in July, one in London and one in … [Read more...] about Nominet Puts Draft Registrar Agreement Out For Consultation
Latin American Countries Reject .Amazon & .Patagonia
While the ICANN 46 meeting in Beijing was warming up on the other side of the globe the "Cuarta Conferencia Ministerial sobre la Sociedad de la Información de América Latina y el Caribe" (4th ministerial conference on information society of Latin America and Caribbean) was taking place in Montevideo. The "Montevideo Declaration" (PDF) runs to 4 pages, but there's an … [Read more...] about Latin American Countries Reject .Amazon & .Patagonia
Google Bows To Pressure On Closed Generics
The debate surrounding "closed generics", which we've covered several times in the past, has attracted a lot of attention in recent weeks. At the centre of the debate were a number of new TLD applications from large companies including Google, Amazon and others. Google had stated that they planned to establish a number of domain extensions and operate them as "walled … [Read more...] about Google Bows To Pressure On Closed Generics
5 Reasons Why Closed Generic New gTLDs Should Be Opposed
I'm on the record multiple times over the last few months for my opinions on "closed generics". I first posted about it here back in June of last year: Big Brands Trying To Corner Generic Namespaces? Since then I've sent several letters to ICANN (supported by many others) and have been quoted and referenced in several articles on the subject including Politico.com: … [Read more...] about 5 Reasons Why Closed Generic New gTLDs Should Be Opposed
.Cat Registry Whois Now Respects EU Privacy Laws
The .cat domain registry has changed their whois policy and output so that it is compliant with Spanish and EU privacy laws. As of January 7th private individuals who register (and use) .cat domain names can opt to have their details removed from public whois. Law enforcement and other concerned parties can still gain access to the underlying whois data, but full public … [Read more...] about .Cat Registry Whois Now Respects EU Privacy Laws
Transparency Fail – Nominet’s Registrar Meeting On Direct UK
Today Nominet held their annual registrar conference. Unlike other year's there was only one topic on the agenda: The Direct UK Consultation. I wrote about my issues with the proposal a while back and Edwin Hayward has collected pretty much all references to it in both blogs and mainstream media here. While I was not able to attend in person I was trying to follow the … [Read more...] about Transparency Fail – Nominet’s Registrar Meeting On Direct UK
Nominet Sucking Up To Law Enforcement With New Proposals?
Nominet, the registry for *.uk, has opened a public consultation on the re-introduction of .uk domain names ie. domains directly under .uk such as businessname.uk The proposals from the registry, however, sound like they're heavily influenced by the law enforcement "asks" during the current RAA negotiations. They also ignore the recent Article 29 Working Party letter … [Read more...] about Nominet Sucking Up To Law Enforcement With New Proposals?
Article 29 Working Party Deem RAA Asks In Violation of EU Law
The Article 29 Working Party has written to ICANN to express their concerns about some of the "asks" being tabled by law enforcement in the RAA negotiations. They focus on two areas of contention: Annual re-verification of contact details Data retention In both instances they find that the "asks" are in violation of EU law. They've also given ICANN a standing … [Read more...] about Article 29 Working Party Deem RAA Asks In Violation of EU Law
ICANN Announce TLD Application Change Request Process and Criteria
Shortly after ICANN announced the new TLD applications list it became evident that some applicants may have made mistakes in their applications. For the last couple of months there has been a lot of chatter in the ICANN community about how ICANN would handle changes to the submitted applications. Finally this morning ICANN has announced the criteria that they will use to … [Read more...] about ICANN Announce TLD Application Change Request Process and Criteria