Recent Posts
- ICANN publishes its Woke Manifesto. Here’s my hot take
- Alibaba, Name.com among new RDRS opt-ins
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- Epik gets acquired again! The plot thickens…
- Airline gTLD crashes and burns
- First chunks of new gTLD Applicant Guidebook drop
- Epik to reveal its owners soon
- Another crypto firm to apply for a new gTLD
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- ICANN picks its first ever Supreme Court
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- First bits of new gTLD Applicant Guidebook expected next week
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- ICANN threatens to regulate your speech [RANT]
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- ICANN begs people to use its new Whois service
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- ICANN predicts flattish 2025 for domain industry
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- Internet Naming Co acquires five more gTLDs
.africa could go live after court refuses injunction
DotConnectAfrica’s attempt to have ICANN legally blocked from delegating the .africa gTLD to rival applicant ZACR has been denied.
The ruling by a Los Angeles court, following a December 22 hearing, means ICANN could put .africa in the root, under ZACR’s control, even before the case comes to trial.
A court document (pdf) states:
The plaintiff is seeking to enjoin defendant Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from issuing the .Africa generic top level domain (gTLD) until this case has been resolved…
The plaintiff’s motion for the imposition of a Preliminary Injunction is denied, based on the reasoning expressed in the oral and written arguments of defense counsel.
ICANN was just days away from delegating .africa last April when it was hit by a shock preliminary injunction by a California judge who later admitted he hadn’t fully understood the case.
My understanding is that the latest ruling means ICANN may no longer be subject to that injunction, but ICANN was off for the Christmas holidays last week and unable to comment.
“Sanity prevails and dotAfrica is now one (big) step closer to becoming a reality!” ZACR executive director Neil Dundas wrote on Facebook. He declined to comment further.
Even if ICANN no longer has its hands tied legally, it may decide to wait until the trial is over before delegating .africa anyway.
But its lawyers had argued that there was no need for an injunction, saying that .africa could be re-delegated to DCA should ICANN lose at trial.
DCA case centers on its claims that ICANN treated it unfairly, breaking the terms of the Applicant Guidebook, by awarding .africa to ZACR.
ZACR has support from African governments, as required by the Guidebook, whereas DCA does not.
But DCA argues that a long-since revoked support letter from the African Union should still count, based on the well-known principle of jurisprudence the playground “no take-backs”.
The parties are due to return to court January 23 to agree upon dates for the trial.
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