ICANN budgets for 2,000 new gTLDs

ICANN could net $150 million from a 2,000-application new gTLD round.
That’s according to a proposed budget published for comment last night, which for the first time contemplates more than 500 new generic top-level domain applications.
The budget also contains budgets for 500-application and 1,000-application rounds.
But with ICANN revealing this week that it has 1,268 registered users of its TLD Application System, 2,000 applications is beginning to look extremely plausible.
ICANN would receive $368 million in fees from a 2,000-app round, according to the budget, of which an estimated $33 million would be returned in refunds when applicants withdraw.
But the operating cost of the program would only come in at $156 million – slightly cheaper on a per-application basis than a 500-app round due to volume discounts from its contractors.
What happens to the rest of the money?
About $30 million is returned to the ICANN contingency fund to recoup program development costs. A $31 million surplus could be considered “profit” – it’s budgeted as an increase in net assets.
But the majority – $120 million – is budgeted to the amorphous “risk costs” line item.
The risk fund – sometimes flippantly referred to as the legal war chest – was budgeted to cover unanticipated costs such as delays and litigation.
ICANN evidently does not anticipate any economies of scale here. The $120 million in the budget is a simple multiple of the $30 million it said it needed to cover risk in a 500-application round.
It’s quite possible that ICANN won’t even need to dip into the risk fund, or that it might only need to withdraw a small amount, which would leave it sitting on an embarrassingly large wedge of cash.
The organization has yet to decide how its surplus would be deployed, but it’s going to be kept in a separate bank account and accounted for separately.

5 Comments Tagged: budget, icann. new gtlds

ICANN cancels Fridays. Bad for transparency.

ICANN’s next public meeting, and all its public meetings thereafter, will be a day shorter than usual, following a decision to cancel the regular Friday morning program.
No Friday means no public meeting of the board of directors.
While the move is being characterized as an effort to enhance the effectiveness of ICANN’s board – a particular concern, frequently voiced, of chairman Steve Crocker – it’s also a perplexing shift away from ICANN’s core tenet of transparency.
One of the effects could be to mask dissent on the board.
From now on, it appears that all of ICANN’s top-level decision-making will happen in private.
Instead of wrapping up each public meeting with a board session at which resolutions get voted on, each meeting will instead be book-ended by less formal “community sessions”.
During these sessions, the board will apparently report to attendees about what it has been doing since the last meeting and what it plans to do before the next meeting.
Crocker said in a statement:

We believe that the removal of the Friday public Board meeting and its replacement with two Board community sessions will improve the effectiveness of both the Board and the staff and increase the time that the Board has to interact with the community.

That may well be true — time will tell — but let’s look at what the ICANN community is almost certainly losing.
First, there will be no more transcripts of board meetings at all.
Today, only the public meetings have published recordings and transcripts. Intersessional meetings are minuted, but not transcribed. If recordings are made, they are not published.
Killing off transcripts completely is a pretty obvious step backwards for an organization committed by its bylaws to “operate to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner”.
Second, if there is dissent on the board, it will be essentially shielded from the community’s view for some time after the fact.
Take, for example, the approval of the new gTLD program or the approval of ICM Registry’s .xxx contract – the two most controversial decisions ICANN made in 2011.
In both cases, certain directors read prepared statements into the record harshly criticizing the majority view.
In March 2011, for example, George Sadowsky stated that ICM’s purported community support for .xxx was “illusory” and that approving the TLD could lead to DNS Balkanization.
And with new gTLDs last June, Mike Silber abstained in the belief that the program was incomplete and that the vote had been scheduled “based on artificial and ego-driven deadlines”.
In both cases, the ICANN community heard the dissenting views – in person, webcast, recorded and transcribed – moments before the vote actually took place.
With no public board meetings, it seems likely that in future that we’re going to have to wait a week to read the voting record for any given resolution and a month or more to read directors’ statements.
Under ICANN’s bylaws, the voting record, which breaks down who voted for and against resolutions, is contained in a preliminary report that is not published for seven days after the vote.
Also under the bylaws, directors’ voting statements are not published until the minutes of the meeting are approved at the board’s next meeting, typically one to two months later.
If the new procedures had been in effect last year, the statements of Sadowsky and Silber would not have been published for over a month after they were made.
With that in mind, it’s clear that killing off the public board meetings could in no way be seen as a positive step for transparency at ICANN.
It’s true that these meetings have for several years been pure theater, but it was theater with value.

2 Comments Tagged: board, ICANN, prague, toronto, transparency

Beckstrom breaks TAS bug silence, says Big Reveal could be as late as Prague

ICANN may not reveal its list of new generic top-level domain applications until as late as the last week of June, according to CEO Rod Beckstrom.
In his first interview since ICANN took its TLD Application System offline due to a security bug, Beckstrom told DI that he “hopes” to host the Big Reveal before he steps down as ICANN’s CEO.
He said he expects to have the new gTLD program back on track before he hands the reins to the organization over to his successor at the end of the ICANN 44 meeting in Prague, June 29:

I’d like to see us obviously get the technical issues resolved, notify applicants, reopen the window and publish the strings before I pass the baton in Prague. That’s not a commitment at this point in time, it’s an indication as CEO that it’s absolutely my intention to push for a timely resolution of this issue… If we can get things done sooner, then the sooner the better.

That’s two months away, a full month later than anyone was expecting.
The Big Reveal was originally scheduled for today. However, the TAS delays made this impossible. Following an ICANN update on Friday, a late-May date for the Big Reveal was looking more probable.
But Beckstrom would not commit even to the Prague date. He said:

That’s my hope as a CEO, to get these issues resolved by that time-frame and have the string reveal in that time-frame. I haven’t committed the organization, I’m indicating to you volitionally my desire as CEO and the person who’s running the organization.

He framed the issue as a blip on a nine-year process (six years of policy development, one year of outreach and application filing, and up to two years of evaluation). He said:

In the context of nine-year program, a delay of between here and Prague of a few months is undesirable, it’s not what we want to have happen, but the quality of this program is more important to everyone involved than the specific date and time. We’re all focused on quality here and not just doing things in a hurry. This program is too important.

He said he is “sympathetic” to applicants that are burning through start-up funding waiting for ICANN to sort this out, but he noted that the same concerns have been raised over the years whenever the program has previously missed a launch deadline.

We know that some parties have been very patient and we know it’s got to be frustrating right now to see any delay in the program. At the same time, I’m sure that those parties are very concerned that this be done well and that the program be reopened and administered successfully.

Beckstrom reaffirmed ICANN’s promise to notify all applicants whether or not they were affected by the TAS bug – which revealed user names and file names to other TAS users – by May 8.
But TAS will not, it seems, reopen immediately after the notifications have been sent. As well as the log audit, ICANN is also working on performance upgrades.
While Beckstrom confirmed that the plan is to open TAS for five business days, to give applicants a chance to finish uploading their applications and confirm that their data has not been corrupted, he would not say when this window is due to open.

We’re going to share more precise dates when we have them. What I can tell you precisely right now is that the key thing we’re working on is combing through this large data set we have so that the parties that were affected are notified within the seven days. When we have clarity on the next milestone in the process we’ll communicate that openly.
…
We’re still doing system testing, we’re still looking at some of the performance issues. We have a whole set of things to do and feel comfortable that we’re ready and have full internal sign off. We’ll notify you and other parties when we have that clarity. Right now we have the clarity that we’re going to get the notification done in seven days – that’s the key dating item at this time.
…
We have very strong reason to believe we understand the bug and we’ve fixed the bug, but every day that we continue to test we gain a higher level of confidence in the system that this specific issue will not reappear.

While the first report of the bug was received March 19, it was not until April 12 that ICANN managed to “connect the dots” and figure out that the problem was serious and recurring, Beckstrom said.
ICANN saw the bug show up again repeatedly on April 12, as many TAS users logged in to finish off their applications, which was why it chose to take the system down with just 12 hours to go before the filing deadline.
ICANN is currently analyzing a 500GB log containing a record of every data packet that went into and out of the TAS between January 12 and April 12, to reconstruct every user session and determine who could see what and when, Beckstrom said.
He refused to comment on whether this analysis has revealed any attempts by TAS users to deliberately exploit the bug for competitive intelligence on other applicants.
He also declined to comment on whether ICANN has discovered instances of data leakage between two applicants for the same gTLD string.
The full packet capture system was introduced following a third-party security audit of the system conducted late last year, he said.
That audit, of course, did not reveal the data leakage vulnerability that continues to delayed the program.
When I put it to him that this is precisely the kind of problem ICANN wanted to avoid, due to the confidentiality of the applications, Beckstrom played down the seriousness of the bug.

Let’s be clear here: some user names and file names were visible, not the contents of applications and not the contents of those files. I think that if that had occurred it would be an even more undesirable situation and we have no indication that that occurred.
I wouldn’t call this a security issue, I’d call this… every major software system we use has bugs in it or bugs that are discovered over time. Whether that’s our operating systems or desktop applications or specific applications, you conduct the best tests you can. You assemble a testing suite, you assemble testers, you take various methods, but there’s never a guarantee that software is bug-free. The issue is that if and when bugs are encountered you deal with them appropriately, and that’s what we’re doing right now.

But Beckstrom admitted that the problem is embarrassing for ICANN, adding that sorting out the mess is currently the top priority.

Obviously any time you have a software problem or technical problem with any program you come under enhanced scrutiny and criticism, and I think that’s understandable, that’s fair. What we’re focused on is resolving this successfully and I think ICANN has dealt with many challenges in its past successfully and we’re committed to resolve this issue professionally.
…
I should tell you that this is our top priority right now internally right now. The resolution of this issue is our number one priority, the number one issue for me as CEO, number one for most members of the executive management team and for a large part of the organization. We’re extremely focused on this.

ICANN plans to reveal how many applicants were affected by the bug at the same time as it notifies applicants, Beckstrom said. It will not publish information about who could see what, he said.
Unfortunately for applicants, it seems they will have to wait well into next week before they have any more clarity on the timetable for TAS coming back online and the application window finally closing.
With Prague now emerged as a potential deadline for the reveal, the delays could in fact be much worse than anyone was expecting.
DI PRO subscribers can read a full transcript of the 30-minute interview.

6 Comments Tagged: data leakage, ICANN, icann 44, new gTLDs, prague, security, tas, tld application system, vulnerability

ICANN expects at least 1,268 new gTLD applications

ICANN is expecting at least 1,268 applications for new generic top-level domains, according to CEO Rod Beckstrom.
Speaking to DI at the weekend, Beckstrom said that the TLD Application System had 1,268 user accounts when registration closed March 29.
That represents a spike of over 50% from the 839 registered TAS accounts that ICANN had reported just four days earlier, March 25.
As before, there is not a one-to-one correlation between the number of TAS accounts and the number of applications. Each TAS account can be used to file up to 50 applications.
However, with each TAS slot costing $5,000, 1,268 now seems to be the minimum number of new gTLD applications we’re likely to see.
“It’s unlikely to be lower than that number,” Beckstrom said.
Read more of our interview with Beckstrom.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs, tas, tld application system

The funniest ICANN new gTLDs video yet

No comment. Just watch.

The video was uploaded by YouTube user Bob Recstrum.

10 Comments

Five registrars on the ICANN naughty step

ICANN has sent breach notices to five domain name registrars, including two owned by Epik and DomainTools, for failing to cooperate with a Whois accuracy audit.
InTrust Domains, Planet Online, Server Plan, Infocom Network and DomainAllies.com did not respond to ICANN’s 2011 Whois Data Reminder Policy audit, according to ICANN.
The WDRP is the longstanding policy that requires all ICANN-accredited registrars to remind their customers to keep their Whois records up to date once a year.
The annual WDRP audit asks registrars to state how many reminders they sent out and how many Whois records were updated as a result, among other things.
The non-compliant registrars, with the exception of Server Plan, are also evidently past due paying their ICANN accreditation fees, according to the breach notices.
All five registrars have been given 15 days to rectify the problems or risk losing their accreditations.
Given that the audit is, I believe, a simple web-based form, I don’t think anyone is going to go out of business as a result of these breaches.
It’s interesting to dig a little bit into who owns these registrars.
DomainAllies.com belongs to DomainTools parent Thought Convergence.
InTrust, which has come in for criticism for shady marketing practices under its previous management, was acquired by Epik last July.
Planet Online, meanwhile, is one of those odd registrars that hides its own contact information behind a Whois privacy service (though its web site does carry a physical address).

4 Comments Tagged: compliance, domainallies, DomainTools, epik, ICANN, infocom network, intrust, planet online, server plan, thought convergence

New gTLDs now a month behind schedule

ICANN has announced yet another delay in its new generic top-level domains program.
Last night’s much-anticipated update on its efforts to deal with the fallout of the TLD Application System security bug merely deferred resolution of the problem for a week. Again.
The whole program is now essentially a month behind schedule.
Chief operating office Akram Atallah said in a statement:

ICANN will notify all applicants within the next seven business days whether our analysis shows they were affected by the technical glitch in the TLD application system.
…
Shortly after the notification process has been completed, we will announce the schedule for reopening the application system and completing the application period. We are mindful of the need to allow sufficient time during the reopening period for applicants to confirm the completeness of their submissions.

The seven business days for applicant notifications takes us to May 8.
It’s not clear whether TAS would reopen immediately after this, but I suspect we’re probably looking at a buffer of at least a day or two between the end of notifications and TAS coming back online.
ICANN has previously said that TAS will be open for five business days, to enable applicants to finish off their applications. This brings us to, at the very earliest, May 15.
The Big Reveal of the list of applications, I estimate, will come one to two weeks after that.
We’re essentially looking at a late May or early June finish to a process that should have ended in late April.
As a result, the entire timetable for evaluating, approving and delegating new gTLDs will likely also be pushed out by a month.
For applicants, the anticipated November 12 date for the completion of the first-batch Initial Evaluation phase is now likely to come some time in mid-December instead.
Unhelpfully, the deadlines for filing objections and requesting Extended Evaluation for first-batch applicants is now likely to fall around about January 1, 2013.
That’s assuming we do not see any more delays, of course, which I think would be optimistic.

4 Comments Tagged: batching, delays, digital archery, ICANN, new gTLDs, security, tas, vulnerability

Verisign selected for 220 new gTLDs

Verisign is the appointed back-end registry operator for 220 new generic top-level domain applications, according to the company.
Verisign itself has applied to ICANN for 14 new gTLDs, 12 of which are transliterations — ie, internationalized domain names — of .com and .net.
During its first-quarter 2012 earnings conference call, ongoing right now, CEO Jim Bidzos disclosed the numbers, saying:

VeriSign applied directly for 14 new gTLDs. Twelve of these 14 are transliterations of .com and .net. Also, applicants for approximately 220 new gTLDs selected Verisign to provide back-end registry services.

Many of these are dot-brands, Bidzos said.
Neustar, which also reported earnings yesterday, did not disclose how many applications it is involved in, other than to say that it has not applied for any as a front-end operator.

Comment Tagged: .com, .net, ICANN, new gTLDs, verisign

Newbie domain registrant discovers Whois, has Twitter meltdown

The need for the domain name industry to enforce accurate Whois is often cited by law enforcement and intellectual property interests as a consumer protection measure.
But most regular internet users haven’t got a clue that Whois even exists, let alone what data it contains or how to use it.
A study (pdf) carried out for ICANN’s Whois Review Team last year found that only 24% of consumers know what Whois is.
This stream of tweets I chanced across this afternoon, from what appears to be a first-time domain registrant, is probably more representative of consumer attitudes to Whois.
UPDATE (April 27): I’ve removed the tweets per the request of the Twitter user in question.

17 Comments Tagged: DomainTools, privacy, uk2, whois

Cops seize 36 carder domains

The FBI and UK Serious Organised Crime Agency have seized 36 domain names that were allegedly being used to sell compromised credit card information.
As well as seizing the domains and a number of computers, SOCA said it has arrested two men “suspected of making large scale purchases of compromised data” from the sites.
The sites all used what SOCA calls “automated vending cart” software to process the sale of credit card information. Judging by the video below, some of the operations were fairly professional.
One of the seized domains was cvvplaza.com. SOCA provided the following video which really has to be seen to be believed.

I wonder if the spokesmodel had any idea what she was getting into when she accepted this gig.
While the full list of domains was not released, a SOCA spokesperson said the breakdown by TLD was as follows:

.name – 2
.net – 11
.biz – 4
.us – 5
.com – 11
.org – 3

These are all TLDs whose registries are based in the United States, so I’m guessing the US authorities did the actual seizing.

1 Comment Tagged: cvvplaza.com, fbi, security, seizures, soca