ICANN boss: no plans to scrap Oman meeting

ICANN currently has no plans to cancel its 2026 Annual General Meeting, which is due to take place in Muscat, Oman, later this year, according to CEO Kurt Lindqvist.

Speaking at the public forum at ICANN 85 in Mumbai today, Lindqvist responded to a speaker who expressed concerns about the ongoing US-Israel war against Iran, which has seen Iran retaliate against neighbors including Oman.

“We’re obviously aware of the situation, and we’re monitoring it. The Oman meeting is 7 months out, so it’s still quite a long time to go, and a lot of things can change. So, at the moment, we are planning for this to go ahead,” he said.

The Muscat meeting was originally planned for October last year, but was called off due to Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, which affected flight corridors in the region.

Lindqvist added that ICANN always has contingency plans in case a venue becomes inappropriate. Last year, the Muscat meeting was rescheduled to Dublin, Ireland.

It seems likely that if the hostilities in the Middle East have not calmed down by June, ICANN could well pull the plug on Muscat for a second year, giving meeting participants about four months to plan their travel.

Previously, ICANN has relocated meetings due to be held in Puerto Rico and Panama due to hurricane damage and the Zika virus, and several were held entirely online during the Covid-19 pandemic.

ICANN maps out new gTLD timeline

ICANN’s 85th public meeting kicked off in Mumbai at the weekend, the last community face-to-face before the next round of new gTLDs kicks off, and the Org took the time to spell out exactly what is expected to happen and when.

Surprisingly, given ICANN’s track record, it will hit its target of April 2026 to open the doors to applications. Unsurprisingly, given ICANN’s track record, it’s picked April 30 — the last possible day of its promised window — to do so.

The application window will remain open for 104 days. Applicants will have until August 12 to file their paperwork. It doesn’t matter when they hit submit; it’s not first-come, first-served.

Then, the process goes into quiet mode for at least two months while ICANN filters through the applications. If there’s about the same number of applications at the 2012 round — about 2,000 — ICANN reckons Reveal Day could come before ICANN 87, which begins in Muscat October 17.

So far, the timeline closely follows the 2012 round, but this time there’s a new wrinkle — applicants can change their gTLD strings to preselected “replacement strings” if they want to.

From Reveal Day, they’ll have 14 days to swap their strings if, for example, they find themselves in a contention set they don’t like the look of or if they get the vibe that they’re probably face objections.

After those two weeks are up, its String Confirmation day, expected some time in November. From that moment, the applicants are locked into their string of choice.

That’s also the day when the timer starts on the objections period, 104 days in which companies and organizations can object to applications based on criteria such as intellectual property rights, the public interest, and community rights.

Governments can also object on essentially any basis, as long as it’s well-articulated. Unilateral GAC Early Warnings are available, but a full consensus of the Governmental Advisory Committee would be needed to stand a chance at nuking an application outright.

The objection period should end some time next February. While that’s going on, some time in December, ICANN will conduct the Prioritization Draw, a lottery to decide the order in which applications will be processed.

The 2012 draw was important because the gTLDs that were first out of the traps had a measurable first-mover advantage in terms of speculative registrations. With hundreds of gTLDs now on the market, I believe it will be less important this time around.

After the draw, applicants will have to wait half a year before they are finally notified which contention sets, if any, they fit into, after the results of the String Similarity Review have been published.

ICANN has yet to select the panel for this review or create its detailed guidelines, but it’s expect to name it chosen vendor some time in Q2.

War disrupts ICANN 85

It seems a bit tasteless to whine about disrupted flights when the Middle-East is erupting into war; nevertheless, that’s the immediate issue facing would-be attendees at this week’s public ICANN meeting.

ICANN 85 is taking place at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai, India from this coming weekend.

While Mumbai is over 2,000km from Tehran, Iran has been attacking many neighbouring nations in retaliation for the ongoing US-Israeli bombardment, which has resulted in the closure of several airports as missiles, drones and fighter planes invade their airspace.

Some ICANN travellers, mainly those traveling west-to-east, will find that hub airports in Dubai or Bahrain are in their connections itinerary. Those flying Emirates will be particularly affected.

ICANN said in a statement at the weekend that 85 “will proceed as planned” and that would-be attendees feeling uncomfortable traveling can take advantage of online participation if they prefer.

The Org and its travel agent are together responsible for funding and arranging the travel of hundreds of participants, and ICANN said they were working to route travellers around the affected airspace.

Two former ICANN directors want back in

Gluttons for punishment? ICANN’s At-Large Community has named the first four candidates standing to join the Org’s board of directors, and two of them have form.

Sébastien Bachollet, Justine Chew, Maureen Hilyard and Lito Ibarra have all put themselves forward to replace term-limited León Sánchez, who is due to leave seat 15 of ICANN’s board in October after nine years’ service.

Bachollet and Ibarra are both former ICANN directors. Bachollet served as an At-Large appointee for four years from 2010. Ibarra served six years as a Nominating Committee appointee from 2015.

France-based Bachollet is the former chair of EURALO, the Regional At-Large Organization for Europe, and a former director of Afnic, the French ccTLD registry.

Malaysia-based lawyer Chew has extensive experience both on the At-Large Advisory Committee and the GNSO, as ALAC Liaison, and policy-making groups. She also has sat on the boards of Malaysian non-profits.

Hilyard, from the Cook Islands, is a former ALAC chair who has held senior board or advisory positions with Public Interest Registry and DotAsia and ISOC. The NGO she leads, the Cook Islands Internet Action Group, plans to apply for a new gTLD this year.

Ibarra has been in charge of the El Salvador ccTLD registry for over 30 years and has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. He has sat on the boards of LACNIC and LACTLD.

At-Large has a complex structure and its electoral system reflects that, but essentially the nominees were self-selected and confirmed by a committee. The ALAC will vote with a view to announcing the successful candidate before April 22.

UK launches “police.ai”, but does it own the domain?

The UK’s increasingly authoritarian government this afternoon announced extensive policing reforms, including what it called “Police.ai”.

Home secretary Shabana Mahmood, speaking in Parliament in the last couple of hours, announced a new National Police Service and a substantial ramping up of live facial recognition technology for law enforcement in England and Wales.

“At the same time, we will launch Police.ai, investing a record £115 million in AI and automation to make policing more effective and efficient, stripping admin away to ensure officer time can be devoted to the human factor,” she added.

Police.ai appears to be the brand for a new “National Centre for AI in Policing”. But does the UK government actually own the domain police.ai? It appears not.

The domain NX’s for me, and registry Whois reveals it is registered to blockeddomains@gov.ai — that is, the Government of Anguilla, which still owns the .ai ccTLD even if Identity Digital manages it.

Anguilla is a British Overseas Territory, so it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that the UK government could obtain the domain, but it seems that so far it has not.

Announcing a broad, expensive, liberties-threatening, technology-driven program of policing reform while making such a basic branding error looks at face value like a worrying lack of technical nous.

The police press release announcing the project appears to have been yanked, but a Home Office white paper (pdf) goes into more detail about the plan.

Rubens Kühl has died

Rubens Kühl, a mainstay of the ICANN community and prolific commentator on the domain name industry, has died tragically young.

According to Brazilian ccTLD registry NIC.br, Rubens died November 3 at the age of 55, survived by his wife and two children.

Rubens was at NIC.br for 16 years, mostly at the registrar arm Registro.br, where he was product marketing manager.

He was a regular presence at ICANN meetings and served on the GNSO Council for a term from 2016.

“Rubens was a kind person, a brilliant technical guy, always open to sharing his extensive knowledge with anyone,” one Brazilian friend wrote on social media. “He will be missed not only here but by the whole Internet community around the world.”

“We will remember Rubens as an exceptional professional and a generous colleague who greatly contributed to our community,” said LACTLD, the regional ccTLD registry association.

ICANNWiki notes that he was known by some as “Mestre dos Magos” or “Dungeon Master”, due to his “vast knowledge, sharpness, and dry humor.”

I really liked Rubens. We only met in person a handful of times but he was by far the most prolific commenter on this blog and I always enjoyed reading what he had to say, even when we disagreed. This is the first time I’ve had to write an obituary with tears in my eyes.

Sinha angry with Chapman’s firing as ICANN vice chair

ICANN chair Tripti Sinha appears to be a little pissed off that one of her fellow directors was essentially fired by the Nominating Committee, sparking a public confrontation with NomCom’s current chair.

Chris Chapman was replaced by the independent NomCom at the conclusion of his first three-year term earlier this year, which seems have prompted Sinha to voice her frustration.

Over the course of the week at ICANN 84 in Dublin, Sinha and Chapman himself have made a number of disparaging remarks about NomCom’s work, referring to it variously as “not impressive”, “disruptive” and “unpleasant”.

It has also transpired that Sinha and Chapman both abstained in protest at the October 14 board resolution that confirmed NomCom’s leadership for the 2026 round of selections.

Sinha made her first terse remark about Chapman’s departure on the stage at the welcoming ceremony at on Monday, calling it “premature”, but expanded on her comments during a meeting with the ccNSO on Tuesday and today’s open-mic public forum.

Saying she was reading out her abstention statement — censored so far by ICANN from its web site — she told the ccNSO that she was “disappointed” that the NomCom had not returned her vice chair for the second year in a row.

She said NomCom should put “board leadership experience, longevity, and continuity” as strong enough criteria when weighing its director options. She accused NomCom of “disregarding” the board’s guidance in this regard.

She alluded to her last vice chair Danko Jevtović, who was replaced in 2024 by that year’s iteration of NomCom after six years on the board.

“I abstain in protest to these decisions in back-to-back years, and implore that the NomCom re-evaluate its criteria for returning seasoned board leaders,” she concluded.

She repeated some of her comments at today’s public forum session, and backed up by former director Edmon Chung, who lost his seat after three years in 2024 due to NomCom’s selections.

But they were challenged by Tom Barrett, who was chair-elect of NomCom when Chapman was fired and was named chair earlier this month and who pointed out that the committee is independent and suggested ICANN should keep its nose out.

“I’m not going to discuss how the 2025 NomCom made its decisions, but without knowing why and how I think it is inappropriate for any board member, especially the chair, to question its due diligence or the fact that they have chosen incorrectly,” he said.

NomCom gives the board’s guidance an “enormous amount of weight”, he said, “but it is not exclusive.”

“No one that applies to the NomCom gets a golden ticket,” he said. “Reapplying candidates do not get a golden ticket, even if they have been appointed by two previous NomComs. Board leadership does not get a golden ticket even if they have been chair or vice chair.”

As for Chapman, he gave a bitter but detail-light recounting of his NomCom experience at a session with Asia-Pacific community members on Tuesday, bemoaning the fact that he wasn’t even picked for the back-up list.

“I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the accountability for NomCom,” he said, describing the circumstances surrounding his non-selection this year as “very odd” and that his interaction with NomCom “wasn’t pleasant”.

Lindqvist shuffles the exec deck

I’ve never really understood the logic of ICANN having contractual compliance and government relations under the same roof, but it’s an organizational strategy it’s doubled down on in its latest rejigger.

CEO Kurt Lindqvist said that he’s given Jamie Hedlund a new title and new department. He’s now senior VP of global government engagement and contractual compliance, which expands on his previous US-only remit.

The Org has hired long-time community participant Janis Karklins as head of government engagement, replacing interim head Veni Markovski. He will report to Hedlund.

Karklins’ biggest contribution in recent years was arguably chairing the group that advanced post-GDRP Whois policy, but he has also acted in multiple ambassadorial roles for Latvia.

Separately, Andre Abed has been promoted to CIO, a role he held on an interim basis since Ashwin Rangan quit almost two years ago. He will report to CTO John Crain.

Bogus harassment complaints could get you an ICANN ban

ICANN has made it a lot easier for its community members to file spurious harassment complaints against each other, but has also made it clear it will not put up with such complaints.

A new version of the Community Anti-Harassment Policy has been approved and is now in effect, with some new text arguably creating a chilling social minefield where a simple cultural faux pas could lead to formal disciplinary action.

But it also warns against “submitting vexatious and/or spurious complaints”, saying such complainants could wind up with the same penalties as those found to have actually engaged in harassment.

Punishments include everything from a demand for a verbal apology to a lifetime ban from the ICANN community.

The core definition of harassment has been updated to add the word “discriminatory”. It is now: “Harassment is unwelcome, non-consensual, hostile, discriminatory, and/or intimidating conduct.”

The policy continues to state, unchanged: “Conduct does not have to intend to harm, be directed at a specific target, or involve repeated incidents in order for it to be deemed harassment.”

The list of examples of prohibited conduct has been clarified and updated, with some surprising changes.

The new policy (pdf), an update to the original 2017 policy (pdf) prohibits “physical assault, or threats” for — bafflingly — the first time. It gives the Ombuds the ability help the recipient of any criminal action coordinate with local police if necessary.

It also now bans “offensive comments”, with “offensive” defined as “any language, actions, or imagery that cause hurt, discomfort, or distress to an individual or group, particularly when demeaning, disrespectful, or discriminatory”.

The new policy also makes it clear that its jurisdiction extends outside the windowless walls of ICANN meeting venues, in particular to “dinners or social gatherings in connection with an ICANN Public Meeting”.

It now also bans “micro-aggressive or passive-aggressive remarks that reinforce stereotypes”. This could be worrying, given that ICANN, in typically humorless Californian fashion, considers things like weak handshakes or smiles “microaggressions”.

But the new policy does have a safeguard against overzealous culture warriors filing nonsense complaints for nefarious reasons. It says:

this Policy is not itself to be used for the purposes of retaliation. Persons who abuse this Policy by submitting vexatious and/or spurious complaints or reports shall be dealt with in an appropriate fashion…

A vexatious complaint is one made maliciously, knowingly false, or with the intent to harass, intimidate, or retaliate against another individual.

In all cases, complaints under the policy are handled by the Ombuds, who will attempt to resolve the situation informally between the parties concerned before escalating to any formal punitive actions.

Confidentiality is expected at all stages, but the policy says ICANN Org will be informed if ICANN staff are involved.

ICANN slaps open-mic ban on conflicted lawyers

Lawyers who refuse to disclose the identities of their clients should no longer be able to take the mic at ICANN’s regular Public Forum sessions, under a new ban.

The Org’s board has approved a new code of conduct covering people who get involved in policy-making processes or contribute to public discussions, which essentially tells them to reveal their paymasters or go away.

The new code says that “withholding relevant information about the interests involved” could “impair the legitimacy of ICANN’s processes” and that when “disclosure cannot be made, the participant must not participate in ICANN processes or make interventions at ICANN sessions on that issue.”

The new rules mean that if a lawyer working on new gTLD policy is secretly on the payroll of a potential new gTLD applicant, or if a client is working on a patent that could be affected by policy, they should either disclose that relationship or recuse themselves.

The policy has been under development for about a year and a half, following advice from ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee. It was open for public discussion and comment and some suggested changes have been adopted.

Opponents said that sometimes lawyers in private practice are ethically prohibited from revealing their clients’ names, but this was pooh-poohed by others who pointed out that jurisdictions such as the US require similar disclosures from lobbyists.

ICANN already had a code of conduct for volunteers, but it included a carve-out for people claiming professional ethical immunity.

Anyone found to have violated the new code of conduct could find themselves banned from participating in ICANN policy-making processes.