.ai helps UDRP cases rise in 2023, WIPO says

The number of cybersquatting cases filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization increased 7% in 2023, WIPO said this week.

The total UDRP filings, 6,192, includes national ccTLD variations that WIPO handles but not UDRP filings with other providers.

WIPO said that 82% of cases resulted in the domain being transferred to the complainant, with the complaint being denied in just 3% of cases.

The organization does not publish data on Reverse Domain Name Hijacking findings, but RDNH.com, which tracks these things, shows 31 RDNH finding at WIPO in 2023.

.com accounted for 80% of complaints. WIPO said that the most complained-about ccTLDs were .co (Colombia), .cn (China), .mx (Mexico), .au (Australia) and .ai (Anguilla).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its rapid growth in registrations, Anguilla’s .ai saw a sharp uptick in UDRP filings last year, up from just four in 2022 to 43 in 2023, according to the WIPO web site.

ICANN picks its first ever Supreme Court

After foot-dragging for a decade, ICANN has finally approved a slate of a dozen jurists to act as its de facto Supreme Court.

Its board of directors voted at the weekend to create the first-ever Independent Review Process Standing Panel, a pool of legal experts from which panels in future IRP proceedings — the final appeals process for ICANN decisions under its bylaws — will be drawn.

ICANN has not named the 12 people yet. The names are redacted from the published resolution, presumably because they haven’t signed contracts yet. ICANN said they are “well-qualified” and “represent a diverse breadth of experience and geography”.

The names were put forward by a cross-community working group called the IRP Community Representatives Group, which looked after the application and interview process. A thirteenth CRG pick was deemed “ineligible” by ICANN for undisclosed reasons.

The Standing Panel is intended to make IRPs faster and cheaper by drawing the three-person panel in each case from an established pool of experienced professionals. The panelists will be contracted for staggered terms of service.

The ICANN bylaws have called for the establishment of such a panel for over a decade, but its timely creation was another victim of the lethargy that consumed ICANN for years. The lack of a Standing Panel has been raised by claimants in multiple IRPs, some of which are ongoing.

Elsewhere in IRP policy-making, a separate staff/community working group called the IRP Implementation Oversight Team expects to shortly publish certain revisions to the IRP rules for public comment, but the fact that the legal language of the rules is to be written by the law firm Jones Day, which represents defendant ICANN in IRP cases, has raised some eyebrows.

ICANN picks the domain it will never, ever release

ICANN has picked the TLD string that it will recommend for safe use behind corporate firewalls on the basis that it will never, ever be delegated.

The string is .internal, and the choice is now open for public comment.

It’s being called a “private use” TLD. Organizations would be able to use it behind their firewalls safe in the knowledge that it will never appear in the public DNS, mitigating the risk of public/private name collisions and data leakage.

.internal beat fellow short-lister .private to ICANN’s selection because it was felt that .private might lure people into a false sense of security.

While it’s unlikely that anyone was planning to apply for .internal as a commercial or brand gTLD in future, it’s important to note that when it makes it to the ICANN reserved list all confusingly similar strings will also be banned, under the current draft of the Applicant Guidebook.

So reserving .internal also potentially bans .internat, which Google tells me is the French word for a boarding school, or .internai, which is a possible brand for an AI for interns (yes, I’m grasping here, but you get my point).

The public comment period is open now and ends March 21.

ICANN approves domain takedown rules

ICANN’s board of directors has formally approved amendments to its standard registry and registrar contracts aimed at forcing companies to take action against domains involved in DNS abuse.

At its meeting last weekend, the board passed a resolution amending the Registrar Accreditation Agreement and Base gTLD Registry Agreement to include tougher rules on tackling abuse.

Registrars must now “promptly take the appropriate mitigation action(s) that are reasonably necessary to stop, or otherwise disrupt, the Registered Name from being used for DNS Abuse” when provided with evidence of such abuse.

Registries have a similar obligation to take action, but the action might be to refer the abusive domain to the appropriate registrar.

The rules follow the now industry-standard definition of DNS abuse: “malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, and spam (when spam serves as a delivery mechanism for the other forms of DNS Abuse listed)”.

The changes were crafted by ICANN along with registries and registrars and voted through late last year by a hefty majority of both camps.

The two contracts are now in the hands of the ICANN CEO and her lawyers for final action before becoming enforceable.

First bits of new gTLD Applicant Guidebook expected next week

The internet community will officially get eyes on the draft Applicant Guidebook for ICANN’s next new gTLD Applicant Guidebook as early as next week.

The ICANN staff/community Implementation Review Team crafting the language of the AGB is targeting February 1, next Thursday, for opening a formal Public Comment on drafts of seven sections of the document.

These sections mostly cover some of the low-hanging fruits — explanatory text or rules that have not changed a great deal from the 2012 round. They are:

• Code of Conduct and Conflict of Interest Guidelines.
• Conflicts of Interest Process for Vendors and Subcontractors. Along with the above, these sections specify what ICANN’s vendors (such as application evaluators) must not do in order to avoid the perception of conflicts of interest, such as not accepting gifts and not entering into deals to acquire applicants.
• Applicant Freedom of Expression. This section is a single-paragraph disclaimer warning applicants to be “mindful of limitations to free expression”. In other words, if your applied-for string breaks ICANN rules, your free speech rights are forfeit.
• Universal Acceptance. A brief warning or disclaimer that even successfully applied-for gTLDs may not work everywhere on the internet due to lack of software support.
• Reserved and Blocked Names. Covers the variety of reasons why an applied-for string will be rejected or subject to additional review, including names that break technical standards, are geographic in nature, or refer to organizations in the ICANN ecosystem.
• Geographic Names. Specifies when an applied-for string is considered a Geographic Name and is therefore banned outright or requires governmental approval for the application to proceed. There’s at least one potential applicant, thinking of applying for .eth, that I predict will not be happy with one of these rules.
• Predictability Framework. This is new to the 2026 round. It’s a procedure designed to tackle unexpected changes to process or policy that are required after applicants have already paid up and submitted their paperwork. In some circumstances, it requires ICANN to consult with a community group called SPIRT to make sure applicants are not affected too adversely.

The full AGB is not expected to be completed until May 2025, with ICANN currently hoping to open the next application window in April 2026.

The public comment period on the first batch of docs is expected to run from February 1 to March 19. If you want to get the jump on what is very likely to be published, drafts can be found here.

ICANN bans closed generics for the foreseeable

There will be no applications for closed generic gTLDs in the 2026 application round, ICANN has confirmed.

While the Org has yet to publish the results of last weekend’s board meeting, chair Tripti Sinha has written to community leaders to let them know that companies won’t be able to apply for exclusive-use, non-trademark strings for the foreseeable future.

The ban follows years of talks that failed to find a consensus on whether closed generics should be permitted, and subsequent advice from the Governmental Advisory Committee, backed up by the At-Large Advisory Committee, that they should not.

Apparently quoting board output from its January 21 meeting, Sinha wrote (pdf):

the Board has considered the GAC Advice and has determined that closed generic gTLD applications will not be permitted until such time as there is an approved methodology and criteria to evaluate whether or not a proposed closed domain is in the public interest.

Closed generics were permitted — or at least not explicitly outlawed — in the 2012 application round, but were retroactively banned by ICANN following GAC advice in 2013, stymying the plans of dozens of applicants.

Ironically, it was the clumsy wording of the 2013 advice that saw the debate re-open a few years ago, with the initiation of a closed-doors, Chatham House Rules “facilitated dialogue” between the pro- and anti- camps, which also failed to reach a consensus.

By drawing a line under the issue now, ICANN has finally officially removed closed generics as a potential delaying factor on the next gTLD application round, which is already 13 years late.

DNS Women barred from ICANN funding?

A networking group set up to support women in the domain name industry, especially in the developing world, may be banned from applying for ICANN funding under rules published earlier this week.

Concerns have been raised that DNS Women may be excluded from the $10 million in non-profit Grant Program funding ICANN is making available this year because its CEO participated in the program’s community rule-making process.

ICANN’s rules, written by Org staff based on the recommendations of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP), ban anyone from applying for grants — set at between $50,000 and $500,000 — if they have potential conflicts of interest.

Participation in the CCWG-AP is listed as one such conflict:

No person that participated as a member (including temporary member appointments) of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP) is eligible to apply for or be included within funded proposal activities as principals, advisors, or in other roles. Grants may not be awarded to businesses and organizations owned in whole or in part by the CCWG-AP members or their family members. Grant funding may not be used to pay compensation to CCWG-AP members or their family members.

DNS Women is currently led by Vanda Scartezini, who was a member of CCWG-AP representing the At-Large Advisory Committee. She’s written to ICANN to express surprise to find herself suddenly unable to apply for funding. ICANN has responded with a pointer to the CCWG-AP’s recommendations, where the language closely mirrors that found in the new application rules as implemented.

But if Scartezini has shot herself in the foot, she may not be alone. According to the CCWG-AP’s final report, there may have been almost enough foot-shooting to create a Paralympic football team.

Of the 22 people who participated as full members of the group — and would be therefore barred from financially benefiting from grants — 10 people answered “yes” or “maybe” when asked to disclose whether they or their employer expected to apply for funding (almost all, including Scartezini, were “maybes”).

The $10 million tranche available this year comes from a $217 million fund ICANN raised auctioning off contested gTLDs following the 2012 application round.

$10 million of ICANN cash up for grabs

ICANN has officially launched its Grant Program, making $10 million available to not-for-profit projects this year.

The Org expects to start accepting applications for between $50,000 and $500,000 between March 25 and May 24 and start handing out the cash early next year.

It’s the first phase of a program that currently sees ICANN sitting on a distributable cash pile of $217 million that it raised by auctioning off contested new gTLD registry contracts under the 2012 gTLD application round.

The money is only available to registered charities that in some way support ICANN’s mission in terms of developing internet interoperability or capacity building.

Organizations worldwide will be able to apply, but it seems unlikely anyone from a country currently subject to US government sanctions will be successful. Conflicted organizations — such as those led by somebody involved with the program — are also barred.

Applications for grants will be assessed by ICANN staff, a yet-to-be-named Independent Application Assessment Panel comprising “a diverse collective of subject matter experts”, and ultimately the ICANN board of directors.

More information and the application form can be found here.

ICANN threatens to regulate your speech [RANT]

ICANN wants to know if it’s okay if it regulates your speech, even when you’re not doing ICANN stuff.

Acting CEO Sally Costerton has floated the idea of extending ICANN’s Expected Standards of Behavior into things people say in their everyday lives.

The notion came up in ICANN’s response (pdf) to consultant Jeff Neuman, who recently complained to the Org about a TV interview given by Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, a prominent member of the intellectual property community in the Middle-East.

In the interview on Jordanian TV last October, Abu-Ghazaleh made some outrageously anti-Semitic remarks and appeared to suggest the Holocaust was a good thing.

His TAG-Org business has at least three ties to ICANN. It’s an accredited registrar, it’s involved in an approved UDRP provider, and it hosts an instance of ICANN’s L-root DNS root server.

Neuman said that ICANN should not associate with racists and should remove TAG-Org’s L-root instance and relocate it to another organization in Jordan or elsewhere the Middle-East.

It took a few months to get a response, but now Costerton has written back to Neuman “to make it absolutely clear that hate speech has no place in ICANN’s multistakeholder process”:

She said that ICANN has “reached out directly to inform Talal Abu Ghazaleh and TAG-Org that their hate speech violates ICANN’s Expected Standards of Behavior” and “referred this matter to the Office of the Ombuds to investigate and make further recommendations.”

Costerton concludes:

Although your letters are specifically about TAG-Org, they also point to a larger question that has not yet been addressed by the ICANN community. Specifically what role, if any, should ICANN have in addressing egregious conduct that violates the Expected Standards of Behavior to the extent that it could cause significant reputational harm to ICANN and the multistakeholder model if left unaddressed? This is an area for which there is currently no policy or community guidance. In its absence, it is difficult to know how to weigh potentially competing issues. For example, your letters reference free speech questions. This incident has made it clear that as a community we need to discuss this further in the coming weeks and months.

This brief reference to the “free speech” implications of taking action may be a clue that ICANN is actually just trying to preemptively weasel out of actually doing anything about TAG-Org. Neuman seems to think that’s a possibility.

But let’s take Costerton’s letter at face value. ICANN is now talking about extending its Expected Standards of Behavior to things people say when they’re not doing ICANN community stuff.

The ESB is ICANN’s take on codified politeness, banning all the -isms and -phobias from ICANN community conduct. It’s supplemented by the Community Anti-Harassment Policy, which is referenced in Costerton’s letter (pdf) to TAG-Org and which among many other things bans swearing.

Participants are reminded of applicability of these policies whenever they walk into an ICANN conference center or log in to a Zoom call.

That, as far as I’m concerned, is where it should begin and end — when you’re in an ICANN meeting or participating on a mailing list, play nice. ICANN’s house, ICANN’s rules.

Abu-Ghazaleh spouted some pretty incredibly racist stuff, but he did so in a media appearance. He wasn’t on TV to discuss ICANN, or domain names, or intellectual property. He was talking about the attacks in Israel and Gaza.

ICANN’s Expected Standards of Behavior have no jurisdiction over Jordanian TV. Or, indeed, any news media.

ICANN as a private organization would of course be well within its rights to just unilaterally remove the Amman L-root. It refuses to take money from alt-roots. It refuses to work with convicted pirates. Surely refusing to work with a Holocaust supporter isn’t too much of a stretch.

But the idea that ICANN’s rules on personal conduct should extend outside the grey, windowless walls of an ICANN convention center, or that ICANN employees should be the judges of whether something is or isn’t offensive… nah.

Remember, a lot of these people are Californians.

ICANN predicts flattish 2025 for domain industry

The gTLD domain industry will be pretty much flat in terms of sales next year, according to the predictions in ICANN’s latest budget.

The bean counters reckon the Org will make $89 million from transactions in legacy gTLDs (mainly .com) in its fiscal 2025, up from the $88.9 million it expects to make in fiscal 2024, which ends next June 30.

Meanwhile, it expects transactions in new gTLDs to bring in $10.1 million, up from the $9.9 million it expects in FY24.

Both of the updated FY24 estimates are actually a bit ahead of ICANN’s current budget, written in April and approved in May, which predicted $87.1 million from legacy and $9.2 million from new.

ICANN expects to lose 22 registries (presumably unused dot-brands, of which there are still plenty, with a couple hundred contracts up for renewal in 2025) and gain 40 new registrars.

This will lead to revenue from registry fixed fees to dip to $27.6 million from a predicted $28.1 million, and registrar fixed fees going up from $10.4 million from a predicted $10.1 million.

The FY24 registrar numbers are a little healthier than ICANN predicted back in April, when it expected 2,447 accredited registrars at the end of the financial year versus the 2,575 it’s expecting now. Gname’s decision to buy 150 new accreditations will have played a big role in moving this number up. ICANN expects 2,615 registrars at the end of FY25.

But ICANN is losing registries faster than it predicted back in April. Then, it had expected to end FY24 with 1,127 registries; now it thinks it will have 1,118. It expects that to drop to 1,089 by the end of June 2025.

Overall, ICANN is budgeting for funding of $148 million and the same level of expenses in FY25, the same as FY24.