ICANN says ODP will speed up new gTLDs in the long run

A time-consuming process to spec-out the next new gTLD application round before it is even formally approved will actually speed up the program over the long run, an ICANN veep has said.

The so-called Operational Design Phase is a bunch of planning, or issues such as cost and feasibility, that ICANN says it needs to do before the community’s policy recommendations can be put before the board of directors.

The board approved the ODP in September, giving the Org a $9 million budget and a 10-month deadline to complete the project, but the clock doesn’t start ticking until CEO Göran Marby formally starts the process.

Three months later, that still hasn’t happened. ICANN is still “organizing the resources needed and developing the roadmap for the work ahead”, according to a blog post from Karen Lentz, VP of policy research and stakeholder programs.

The Org is doing the preparation for the preparation for the preparation for the next round, in other words.

But Lentz says this will speed up the new gTLD program over the longer term.

We believe the ODP will actually streamline future work. It will have a positive impact on the duration of the implementation process by making the assumptions explicit, answering key questions, and considering how the recommendations on different topics work together in addition to providing a detailed timeline and visibility to the timing of implementation activities. If the Board approves the recommendations, the org and the Implementation Review team would be able to leverage a good amount of work already completed during the ODP. Future rounds would not be possible without the foundational work of an ODP. It’s important to note that without an ODP, this work would still be taking place, but without the structure and transparency that the ODP provides.

Another important consideration to note here is that we are not simply organizing only the next round. We are building a foundational structure for all of the work that the org, the community, and the Board will do over the coming years to continue to evolve the namespace along with the necessary procedures and tools. So the work from this ODP is not only for a single round — this is targeting a long-term plan and for multiple rounds.

If Marby were to start the ODP tomorrow, and ICANN managed to hit its deadline, October 2022 would be the absolute earliest the ICANN board would get the chance to approve the next round.

It’s possible, though not very likely given how intrinsic to ICANN’s mission the opening up of gTLD competition is, that the board could instead decide not to approve the next round.

After the next round gets the thumbs-up, there’s still a whole lot of extra work to do — the aforementioned Implementation Review, hiring contractors, a months-long marketing campaign — before companies would actually get to file their applications.

We’re still looking at 2024 at the earliest for that, in my view, but if there’s one thing we can rely on from ICANN, it’d delay.

Be the next “face” of dot-brands

The Brand Registry Group is seeking a new executive director, after incumbent Martin Sutton decided he’s to leave the group next year.

Sutton, who’s been in the role since 2015, said the BRG is looking for somebody to be the new “face of the dotBrand community”.

Arguably the group’s biggest issue right now is the next new gTLD application round, which still appears to be years away after a decade’s worth for navel-gazing by ICANN.

If BRG members are to be believed, a whole lot of companies that missed out on the 2012 round or have been founded since then are champing at the bit for the chance to get their own dot-brands.

It’s pretty clear from Sutton’s job posting that a long-time ICANN community member is being sought, and I can think of maybe two or three people who would make perfect candidates.

The BRG is not a formal ICANN structure, but it gets time on the agenda at ICANN meetings and has some political clout. Its members include the likes of Apple, Amazon, Fox, Honda and JP Morgan & Chase.

The executive director is its only full-time employee role.

Three ICANN directors wanted to go to Puerto Rico

The ICANN board of directors’ decision to scrap the in-person component of its next public meeting was not unanimous, it has emerged.

Three directors voted against the November 4 resolution, which said ICANN 73 would be ICANN’s seventh consecutive online-only gathering, according the a preliminary board report.

The plan for months was to have a “hybrid” meeting, with some face-to-face component at the convention center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as an intermediate step towards post-pandemic normality.

But at the time of the vote travel restrictions in the US were such that getting to Puerto Rico was tough even for fellow Americans, so ICANN’s meetings team had not been able to do on-site preparation.

Nine directors voted to make 73 virtual, with four absent during the vote, the preliminary report states.

Five directors have taken their seats since the coronavirus pandemic began, and have therefore never officially met with their board colleagues in person.

It’s not the first time the board has been split on this matter. Last year, directors Ron Da Silva and Ihab Osman voted to return to face-to-face for the October 2020 Hamburg meeting.

Da Silva is no longer on the board, but there are at least two other directors among the current line-up on the same page.

The voting breakdown will not be revealed until the board approves the November 4 minutes, which could be months if history is any guide.

ICANN abandons face-to-face plan for Puerto Rico

ICANN has canceled its plans for a “hybrid” ICANN 73, saying this morning that the meeting will go ahead as an online-only virtual meeting.

Its board of directors yesterday voted to abandon efforts to have a face-to-face component in Puerto Rico as originally planned, as I predicted a few days ago.

"Impact of COVID-19 on ICANN73". That's the same language ICANN board uses in its agenda items when it's planning for no face-to-face component. Just saying. https://t.co/TZc7lExu7N

— Kevin Murphy (@DomainIncite) November 3, 2021

ICANN of course said it’s because of the coronavirus pandemic, and more particularly the associated travel restrictions and the lack of access to vaccines in some parts of the world from which its community members hail.

The US Centers for Disease Control currently rates Puerto Rico as its second-highest risk level, meaning ICANN’s meetings staff have been unable to travel there to do on-site planning. ICANN said:

While there has been progress that might make it feasible to plan for and convene a meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico in March 2022, the current risks and uncertainties remain too high to proceed with an in-person meeting or with an in-person component.

Its board resolution stated:

Between the global inequity in vaccine availability across the world, continuing restrictions on persons from many countries or territories being allowed to enter the U.S., and backlogs in visa processing for those who are able to enter the U.S., ICANN org cannot estimate with any confidence the ability for attendees outside of the U.S. to attend ICANN73.

So 73 will be Zoom again. The time zone will remain UTC-4, Puerto Rico local time, which should make it less problematic for Europeans to attend.

The dates are still slated for March 5 to March 10 next year, but it seems likely that we’ll be looking at a March 7 kick-off, as March 5 is a Saturday and people don’t like working weekends if not somewhere they can also work on their tans.

ICANN said it “affirmed its intent” to attempt the hybrid model again for the mid-year ICANN 74 meeting, which is due to take place in The Hague, Netherlands, next June.

It’s bad news for ICANN participation, which has been declining in the new era of virtual meetings, but good news for its bank account. Virtual meetings cost a few million dollars less than in-person ones.

ICANN teases prices for private Whois lookups

ICANN has started to put some flesh on the bones of the forthcoming (?) SSAD system for accessing private Whois records, including teasing some baseline pricing.

During a session at ICANN 72 last week, staffers said responses to recent requests for information put the cost of having an identity verified as an SSAD user at about $10 to $20.

Those are vendor wholesale prices, however, covering the cost of looking at a government-issue ID and making sure it’s legit, and do not include the extra administration and cost-recovery charges that ICANN plans to place on top.

The verification fee would have to be renewed every two years under ICANN’s proposal, though the verification vendors are apparently pushing for annual renewals.

The fee also would not include the likely per-query charge that users will have to pay to request the true personal data behind a redacted Whois record.

It’s not currently anticipated that any money would flow to registrars, CEO Göran Marby said.

SSAD, the Standardized System for Access and Disclosure, is currently undergoing Operational Design Phase work in ICANN, with monthly webinar updates for the community.

ICANN expects to reveal more pricing details on the December webinar, staffers said.

ICANN adds another six months to Whois reform roadmap

ICANN says that its preparatory work for possible Whois reforms will take another six months.

The Operational Design Phase for the System for Standardized Access and Disclosure will now conclude “by the end of February 2022”, ICANN said this week.

That’s after the Org missed its original September deadline after six months of work.

ICANN program manager Diana Middleton said at ICANN 72 last week that ODP had been delayed by various factors including surveys taking longer than expected and throwing up more questions than they answered.

A survey of Governmental Advisory Committee members due September 17 was extended until the end of October.

But she added that ICANN intends to throw its first draft of the output — an Operational Design Assessment — at its technical writers by the end of the month, with a document going before the board of directors in early February.

SSAD is the proposed system that would funnel requests for private Whois data through ICANN, with a new veneer of red tape for those wishing to access such data.

The ODP is ICANN’s brand-new process for deciding how it could be implemented, how much it would cost, and indeed whether it’s worthwhile implementing it at all.

It’s also being used to prepare for the next round of new gTLDs, with a 13-month initial deadline.

The longer the current ODP runs, the greater the cost to the eventual SSAD user.

ICANN domains revenue ahead of estimates again

ICANN made a few million dollars more than expected in the third calendar quarter, according to its latest financials.

Overall revenue for the three months ended September 30, ICANN’s first fiscal quarter, was $38 million, ahead of the budgeted $35 million and the $36 million in the year-ago quarter.

Expenses were $27 million against a $32 million budget, due again to the lack of travel because of the pandemic. ICANN meetings are costing around $500,000 a pop right now, mostly spent on interpreters and translation, a few million bucks less that it normally spends.

The Org was running at an excess (profit) of $10 million for the quarter, compared to a $3 million budget.

ICANN said (pdf) that registry and registrar transaction fees, a good indicator of sales in the domain name industry, came in at $15 million and $10 million respectively, both $1 million better than the budget.

Other registrar fees, which includes fixed accreditation fees, were also $1 million over budget, at $4 million, perhaps due to the fact that not as many registrars de-accredited as expected.

If you guessed Facebook’s “Meta” rebrand, you’re probably still a cybersquatter

Guessing that Facebook was about to rebrand its corporate parent “Meta” and registering some domain names before the name was officially announced does not mean you’re not a cybersquatter.

Donuts this week reported that its top-trending keyword across its portfolio of hundreds of TLDs was “meta” in October. The word was a new entry on its monthly league table.

We’re almost certainly going to see the same thing when Verisign next reports its monthly .com keyword trends.

The sudden interest in the term comes due to Facebook’s October 28 announcement that it was calling its company Meta as part of a new focus on “metaverse” initiatives.

The announcement was heavily trailed following an October 19 scoop in The Verge, with lots of speculation about what the name change could be.

Many guessed correctly, no doubt leading to the surge in related domain name registrations.

Unfortunately for these registrants, Facebook is one of the most aggressive enforcers of its trademark out there, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that Meta-related UDRP cases will start to appear before long.

While Facebook’s “Meta” trademark was only applied for in the US on October 28, the same date as the branding announcement, the company is still on pretty safe ground, according to UDRP precedent, regardless of whether the domain was registered before Facebook officially announced the switch.

WIPO guidelines dating back to 2005 make it clear that panelist can find that a domain was registered in bad faith. The latest version of the guidelines, from 2017, read:

in certain limited circumstances where the facts of the case establish that the respondent’s intent in registering the domain name was to unfairly capitalize on the complainant’s nascent (typically as yet unregistered) trademark rights, panels have been prepared to find that the respondent has acted in bad faith.

Such scenarios include registration of a domain name: (i) shortly before or after announcement of a corporate merger, (ii) further to the respondent’s insider knowledge (e.g., a former employee), (iii) further to significant media attention (e.g., in connection with a product launch or prominent event), or (iv) following the complainant’s filing of a trademark application.

Precedent for this cited by WIPO dates back to 2002.

So, if you’re somebody who registered a “meta” name after October 19, the lawyers have had your number for the better part of two decades, and Facebook has a pretty good case against you. If your name contains strings such as “login” or similar, Facebook’s case for bad faith is even stronger.

Of course, “meta” is a dictionary word, and “metaverse” is a term Facebook stole from science fiction author Neal Stephenson, so there are likely thousands of non-infringing domains, dating back decades, containing the string.

That doesn’t mean Facebook won’t sic the lawyers on them anyway, but at least they’ll have a defense.

ICANN 72 has lowest turnout since records began

Last week’s public ICANN meeting saw the fewest attendees since the Org started compiling and publishing statistics over five years ago.

According to a new blog post from meetings veep Nick Tomasso, there were 1,305 attendees at ICANN 72, which was the sixth consecutive public meeting to take place on Zoom due to the pandemic.

That’s smaller than the 1,330 who showed up virtually for the mid-year meeting, which typically have fewer attendees than the end-of-year AGM.

In fact, it’s the lowest number of documented attendees since ICANN first started regularly publishing the stats, with ICANN 55 in March 2016. That meeting was in Morocco, was hit by fears of terrorism, and still managed 2,273 attendees.

Even the 2017 meeting in Johannesburg, a long-haul flight for most ICANNers, attracted more people.

Last week’s meeting took place on Seattle time. This was fine for ICANN’s west coast staff, but meant sessions kicked off towards the end of business hours in Europe and in the middle of the night in east Asia.

But Tomasso reports that 22.1% of “real time” attendees were from Asia-Pac, with 20.8% coming from Europe. North Americans accounted for 35% of participants.

Participating in ICANN 72 was free, only requiring an account on ICANN’s web site. But there were no free flights or hotels, and the only thing in the virtual schwag bag was an origami fish or something.

ICANN boss warns over existential “threat” from Russia

The Cthulian threat of an intergovernmental takeover of ICANN has reared its head again, but this time a resurgent, interventionist Russia is behind it and ICANN’s CEO is worried.

Speaking at ICANN 72, the Org’s virtual annual general meeting this week, Göran Marby highlighted recent moves by Russia in the UN-backed International Telecommunications Union as a “threat” to ICANN’s existence and the current internet governance status quo in general.

Speaking at a constituency meeting on Monday, Marby said:

We see a threat to the multistakeholder model and ICANN’s role in the Internet ecosystem. And anyone in this call are well aware about this threat: Russia in their attempt to be the next secretary-general of the ITU. Their platform is about having a government running not only ICANN but also the RIRs, the IETF and the root server system.

Marby is referring to two things here: Russia’s month-old policy document calling for the exploration of ways to centralize control over many of the internet’s functions under governments, and its attempt to have one of its former ministers installed as the next head of the ITU at next year’s election.

Secretary-general Houlin Zhao’s second and last four-year term is up next year, and Russia is aggressively promoting its own Rashid Ismailov as his successor. American ITU lifer Doreen Bogdan-Martin is considered the main competition and equally aggressively promoted by the US government.

Marby’s clearly concerned that a Russian secretary-general would give more weight to Russia’s current position on internet governance, which is very much about reducing US influence, doing away with ICANN, and bringing internet infrastructure under intergovernmental control.

At a separate session on Tuesday, Marby referred to this state of affairs as a “threat against the interoperability of the internet, not only ICANN as an institution”.

Such threats from the ITU are certainly nothing new — I’ve been reporting on them for almost as long as I’ve been covering ICANN — but Marby seems to think it’s different this time. He said during the ICANN 72 session:

Some of you would say: oh, we heard that before. But this time I would say it’s a little bit different because I think that some of the positions we see there are more mainstream than they were only five years ago.

Russian-born cybersecurity policy expert Tatiana Tropina concurred, calling Marby’s concerns “very valid” and telling the same ICANN session:

The points Russia makes at the ITU are scary because they can speak to many governments. They are quite moderate — or, rather, midstream — now, but they do refer to issues of power and control.

Russia’s positions were spelled out in a recent ITU policy document, a “risk analysis of the existing internet governance and operational model”.

According to Russia, ICANN poses a risk because it’s based in the US and therefore subject to the US judicial and legislative systems, as well as the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which restricts American companies’ ability to deal with organizations or states deemed to support “terrorism” and is unpopular in the Middle East:

Critical infrastructure operators/ organizations (ICANN, PTI, RIRs, etc.) may be forced to comply with sanctions of a national administration under which jurisdiction they are located. A number of operational organizations performing supranational functions in the Internet governance are registered in the USA, and they must comply with all laws, rules and regulations of the US judicial authorities as well as of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)

It also thinks there’s a risk of the current model favoring big business over the public interest, harming “the preservation of national and cultural heritage, identity of the territory and language”, and it points to ICANN’s decision to award the .amazon gTLD to Amazon over the objections of the eight governments of the Amazonia region.

It’s also worried about the hypothetical ability of ICANN to disconnect ccTLDs from the rest of the world, due to its influence over the DNS root server system, perhaps at the demand or request of the US government.

You can download the Russian document, which covers a broader range of issues, from here as a Word file, but be warned: if you’re not using Microsoft software you may not be able to open it. Because interoperability, yeah?