ICA opposes Aussie domaining ban

The Internet Commerce Association has weighed in to the debate about whether domain investing should be effectively banned in Australia’s .au ccTLD.
Naturally enough, the domainer trade group opposes the ban, saying that investment is a natural part of any market, and very probably supplying the registry with millions of dollars of revenue.
The comments came in a letter to auDA (pdf) from ICA general counsel Zak Muscovitch in response to auDA’s latest policy review proposals, which I reported on two weeks ago, that propose to further crack down on “warehousing”.
auDA wants to ban the practice of registering domains “primarily” for resale or warehousing, clarifying the current rule that prohibits registering “solely” for resale (which is easily evaded by, for example, parking).
A set of indicators would be used to zero in on offenders, such as observing the registrant’s history of selling or offering to sell domains, the existence of an auction listing for the domain, or the fact that the registrant owns more than 100 .au names.
But ICA reckons the effort is misguided and could even be damaging to auDA’s finances, pointing out that it and its registrars likely receive millions of dollars from the registration and renewal of speculative domain names.
Muscovitch’s letter goes on to question whether the policy review panel that came up with the proposals did any research into the potential economic impact of banning domain investment, pointing out that in some cases to seize domainers’ portfolios could wipe out a family’s life savings.
ICA also questions whether the panel has sufficiently thought through how enforceable its proposed rules would be, given the additional complexity introduced into the system.
The policy review paper is still open for comments, but if you want to chip in you’d better be quick. The comment period ends at 1700 AEST Friday, which is 0700 UTC.

“Just give up!” ICANN tells its most stubborn new gTLD applicant

ICANN has urged the company that wants to run .internet as new gTLD to just give up and go away.
The India-based company, Nameshop, actually applied for .idn — to stand for “internationalized domain name” — back in the 2012 application round.
It failed the Geographic Names Review portion of the application process because IDN is the International Standards Organization’s 3166-1 three-letter code for Indonesia, and those were all banned.
While one might question the logic of applying for a Latin-script string to represent IDNs, overlooking the ISO banned list was not an incredibly stupid move.
Even a company with Google’s brainpower resources overlooked this paragraph of the Applicant Guidebook and applied for three 3166-1 restricted strings: .and, .are and .est.
But rather than withdraw its .idn bid, like Google did with its failed applications, Nameshop decided to ask ICANN to change its applied-for string to .internet.
There was a small amount of precedent for this. ICANN had permitted a few applicants to correct typos in their applied-for strings, enabling DotConnectAfrica for example to correct its nutty application for “.dotafrica” to its intended “.africa”.
But swapping out .idn for .internet was obviously not a simple correction but rather looked a complete upgrade of its addressable market. Nobody else had applied for .internet, and Nameshop was well aware of this, so Nameshop’s bid would have been a shoo-in.
To allow the change would have opened the floodgates for every applicant that found itself in a tricky contention set to completely change their desired strings to something cheaper or more achievable.
But Nameshop principal Sivasubramanian Muthusamy did not take no for an answer. He’s been nagging ICANN to change its mind ever since.
There’s a lengthy, rather slick timeline of his lobbying efforts published on the Nameshop web site.
He filed a Request for Reconsideration back in 2013, which was swiftly rejected by the ICANN board of directors.
In July 2017, he wrote to ICANN to complain that Nameshop’s string change request should be treated the same as any other:

It seems that if ICANN can allow string changes from a relatively undesirable name to a more desireable name based on misspelling, then ICANN should allow a change from a desireable name in three characters(IDN) to longer name in eight characters (Internet) based on confusion with geographical names

Meetings with ICANN staff, the Ombudsman, the Governmental Advisory Committee and others to discuss his predicament several times over the last several years have proved fruitless.
Finally, today ICANN has published a letter (pdf) it sent to Muthusamy on Friday, urging him to ditch his Quixotic quest and get his money back. Christine Willett, VP of gTLD operations, wrote:

Given we are unable to take further action on Nameshop’s application, we encourage you to withdraw the application for a full refund of Nameshop’s application fee.

I doubt this is the first time ICANN has urged Nameshop to take its money and run, but it seems ICANN is now finally sick of talking about the issue.
Willett added that ICANN staff and directors “politely decline” his request for further in-person meetings to discuss the application, and encouraged him to apply for his desired string in the next application round, whenever that may be.

“Stringent” new online censorship law could affect domain companies

Blame Zuck.
The UK government is planning to introduce what it calls “stringent” new laws to tackle abusive behavior online, and there’s a chance it could wind up capturing domain name registries and registrars in its net.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport this morning published what it calls the Online Harms White Paper, an initial 12-week consultation document that could lead to legislation being drafted at a later date.
The paper calls for the creation of a new independent regulator, charged with overseeing social media companies’ efforts to reduce the availability of content such as incitements to violence, self-harm, suicide, child abuse, “hate crime” and even “fake news”.
It basically would increase the amount of liability that companies have for user-generated content hosted on their services, even when that content is not necessarily illegal but is nevertheless considered “harmful”.
The regulator would have to create a code of conduct for companies the legislation covers to abide by.
When the code is breached, the regulator would have the authority to issue fines — possibly comparable to the 4% of profits that can be fined under GDPR — against not only the companies themselves but also their senior management.
The paper seems to most directly address ongoing tabloid scandals related to Facebook and its ilk, such as the suicide of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old who viewed material related to self-harm on Instagram before her death.
While it does not mention domain names once, the government clearly anticipates casting a wide net. The paper states:

The scope will include companies from a range of sectors, including social media companies, public discussion forums, retailers that allow users to review products online, along with non-profit organisations, file sharing sites and cloud hosting providers.

That’s a broad enough definition such that it could even cover blogs, including this one, that allow users to post comments.
The paper also discusses asking search engines to remove sites from their indexes, and compelling ISPs to block abusive sites as a “last resort” measure.
There’s a short mental hop from ISP blocking to domain name takedowns, in my view.
The paper also discusses steps the regulator could take to ensure companies with no UK legal presence are still covered by the rules.
While the paper, as I say, does not mention the domain name industry once, subsidiary services provided by registrars, such as hosting, could be directly affected.
There’s no guarantee that the paper will become a bill. There’s already a backlash from those who believe it constitutes unacceptable censorship, comparable to regimes such as in China.
There’s also no guarantee such a bill would eventually become law. The UK government is arguably currently the weakest it has ever been, with a propped-up minority in Parliament and many MPs in open revolt over Brexit.
With talk of an early general election incessant recently, it’s also possible the government may not last long enough to bring its plans to fruition.
Still, it’s probably something the domain industry, including ICANN, should probably keep an eye on.
The full 100-page white paper can be found here (pdf) and an executive summary can be read here.

ICANN waves goodbye to Adobe Connect over security, pricing

ICANN has decided to dump its longstanding web conferencing service provider, Adobe Connect, in favor of rival Zoom.
The organization reckons it could save as much as $100,000 a year, and mitigate some security fears, by making the switch.
Adobe has been the standard remote participation tool for not only ICANN’s public meetings, but also its policy-development working groups, for at least seven or eight years.
It enables video, audio, screen-sharing, public and private chat, voting and so on. ICANN says that Zoom has “nearly all of the same features”.
But some of ICANN’s more secretive bodies — including the Security and Stability Advisory Committee and Board Operations — have been using Zoom for a little over a year, after an SSAC member discovered a vulnerability in Adobe that allowed potentially sensitive information to be stolen.
A clincher appears to be Zoom’s voice over IP functionality, which ICANN says will enable it to drop Premiere Global Services Inc (PGi), its current, $500,000-a-year teleconferencing provider, which participants use if they dial in from on the road.
“Based on feedback, Zoom’s voice connectivity and overall experience seem to be superior to equivalent Adobe Connect experiences,” ICANN said.
As somebody who has lurked on more than his fair share of Adobe Connect rooms, I’ve noticed that people losing their voice connection is a very common occurrence, which can delay and break the flow of discussions, though it’s not usually clear where the blame lies.
According to a Zoom feature list (pdf) provided by ICANN, Zoom currently lacks many features on its web client, but updates are expected to bring the feature set in line with the mobile apps and PC/Mac executables by the end of the year.
ICANN expects to use Zoom exclusively by ICANN 65, in Marrakech this June. In the meantime, it will provide training to community members.
The cynic in me wants to say “expect teething troubles”, but the ICANN meetings team runs a pretty tight ship. The switch might be surprisingly smooth.

The DNS’s former overseer now has its own domain name

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which for many years was the instrument of the US government’s oversight of the DNS root zone, has got its first proper domain name.
It’s been operating at ntia.doc.gov forever, but today announced that it’s upgrading to the second-level ntia.gov.
The agency said the switch “will make NTIA’s site consistent with most other Department of Commerce websites”.
Staff there will also get new ntia.gov email addresses, starting from today. Their old addresses will continue to forward.
NTIA was part of the DNS root management triumvirate, along with ICANN/IANA and Verisign, until the IANA transition in 2016.
The agency still has a contractual relationship with Verisign concerning the operation of .com.

UDRP complaints hit new high at WIPO

The World Intellectual Property Organization handled 3,447 UDRP cases in 2018, a new high for the 20-year-old anti-cybersquatting policy.
The filings represent an increase of over 12% compared to the 3,074 UDRP cases filed with WIPO in 2017. There were 3,036 cases in 2016
But the number of unique domains complained about decreased over the same period, from 6,370 in 2017 to 5,655 domains in 2018, WIPO said today.
The numbers cover only cases handled by WIPO, which is one of several UDRP providers. They may represent increases or decreases in cybersquatting, or simply WIPO’s market share fluctuating.
The numbers seem to indicate that the new policy of redacting Whois information due to GDPR, which came into effect mid-year, has had little impact on trademark owners’ ability to file UDRP claims.
UPDATE: This post was updated a few hours after publication to remove references to the respective shares of the UDRP caseload of .com compared to new gTLDs. WIPO appears to have published some wonky math, as OnlineDomain noticed.

Andruff escalates Disspain feud, asks ICANN to ban him from chair

Domain consultant and former registry boss Ron Andruff has asked ICANN’s board of directors to ban Chris Disspain from becoming chair at the end of the year.
Writing on CircleID today, Andruff’s anti-Disspain message is veiled, but only thinly.
While not naming Disspain directly, Andruff wrote: “I call on the Chair and ICANN Board to ensure that no candidate who may be standing under a cloud of any type be considered for the highest position and authority within ICANN.”
Current chair Cherine Chalaby is out in October, when his nine-year term on the board comes to its bylaws-mandated end.
Disspain, who is currently vice chair and has always struck me as an obvious choice for the top job, has another year left on his term.
The “cloud” Andruff believes Disspain is standing under relates to longstanding allegations of “financial irregularities” at Australian ccTLD registry auDA, during the period Disspain was CEO.
It’s known that an unpublished audit of auDA by PPB Advisory in 2016 makes claims about some sloppy financial management, but there have never been any published allegations of wrongdoing by Disspain himself.
Andruff has been fighting for years with the Australian Information Commissioner to get this report, and other documents he believes might cast Disspain in a bad light, released under Aussie freedom of information law.
He was initially rebuffed, in November 2017, but appealed. After much back-and-forth, he was told two weeks ago that the Department of Communications and the Arts’ refusal to hand over the documents was in part “incorrect”. The Department is due to respond to that finding tomorrow.
It’s not at all clear what information, if any, the Department is going to release.
Andruff also notes that there’s an “ongoing police investigation” into the same “irregularities”.
The only such investigation I’m aware of involved “several” former auDA directors being referred to Victoria Police by auDA’s new management last April. There were 48 former directors at the time, and the names of those referred were not released.
Andruff is known to have beef with Disspain, who he holds responsible for his being passed over for the job as chair of the Nominating Committee in 2015.
ICANN typically does not name its new chairs until much later in the year, so it’s quite possible this is a storm that will have blown over by the time the board comes to picking Chalaby’s replacement.

ICANN plays tough over Amazon dot-brands

ICANN has given Amazon and the governments of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization less than a month to sort out their long-running dispute over the .amazon gTLD.
The organization’s board of directors voted on Sunday to give ACTO and the e-commerce leviathan until April 7 to get their shit together or risk not getting what they want.
But both parties are going to have to come to an agreement without ICANN’s help, with the board noting that it “does not think that any further facilitation efforts by ICANN org will be fruitful”.
Attempts by ICANN to meet with ACTO over the last several months have been agreed to and then cancelled by ACTO on at least two separate occasions.
The eight ACTO governments think the string “Amazon” more rightfully belongs to them, due to it being the English name for the rain forest region they share.
Amazon the company has promised to safeguard culturally sensitive terms in .amazon, to assist with future efforts to secure .amazonas or similar for the Amazonian peoples, and to donate services and devices to the nations concerned.
Now, the two parties are going to have to bilaterally decide whether this deal is enough, whether it should be sweetened or rejected outright.
If they can’t come to a deal by ICANN’s deadline (which could be extended if Amazon and ACTO both ask for more time), ICANN will base its decision on whether to approve .amazon based on how Amazon unilaterally proposes to address ACTO’s concerns.
While a rejection of the .amazon application is still on the table, my read is that this is a bigger win for Amazon than it is for ACTO.

Data beats Merdinger to head universal acceptance group

Email entrepreneur and internationalized domain name expert Ajay Data has been named as the new chair of the group that is struggling to promote the universal acceptance of top-level domains across the internet.
Data, who replaces Afilias COO Ram Mohan after a four-year term, beat GoDaddy’s VP of domains Rich Merdinger in a secret ballot of the Universal Acceptance Steering Group this week.
The number of votes each candidate received were not disclosed.
India-based Data is founder and CEO of Xgenplus, a developer of enterprise email servers with a focus on support for non-Latin scripts and internationalized domain names.
He’s been intimately involved in all things IDN for many years.
The UASG is an independent group, which receives funding from ICANN, dedicated to reaching out to software and web site developers to ensure their systems can support domain names in all scripts, including IDNs, as well as raise awareness of new gTLDs.

Trademark posse fails to block Whois privacy policy

The ICANN community’s move to enshrine Whois privacy into formal consensus policy is moving forward, despite votes to block it by intellectual property interests.
During a special meeting yesterday, the GNSO Council voted to approve a set of recommendations that would (probably) bring ICANN’s Whois policy into compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation.
But four councilors — Paul McGrady and Flip Petillion of the Intellectual Property Constituency and Marie Pattullo and Scott McCormick of the Business Constituency — voted against the compromise deal.
Their downvotes were not enough to block it from passing, however. It has now been opened for a month of public comments before being handed to the ICANN board of directors for final approval, whereupon it will become ICANN’s newest consensus policy and binding on all contracted parties.
McGrady, an lawyer with Winston Strawn, claimed that the Expedited Policy Development Process working group that came up with the recommendations failed to reach the level of consensus that it had claimed.
“The consensus call was broken,” he said, adding that the EPDP’s final report “reflects consensus where there really wasn’t any.”
The GNSO was due to vote 10 days ago, but deferred the vote at the request of the IPC and BC. McGrady said that both groups had tried to muster up support in their communities for a “yes” vote in the meantime, but “just couldn’t get there”.
Speaking for the BC from a prepared statement, Pattullo (who works for European brand protection group AIM) told the Council:

The report is a step backwards for BC members’ interests compared to the Temp Spec, especially as the legitimate purposes for collecting and processing data are insufficiently precise, and do not include consumer protection, cybercrime, DNS abuse and IP protection.

The Temp Spec is the Temporary Specification currently governing how registries and registrars collect and publish Whois data. It was created as an emergency measure by the ICANN board and is due to expire in May, where it will very probably be replaced by something based on the EPDP recommendations.
In response to the IPC/BC votes, Michele Neylon of the Registrars Constituency and Ayden Férdeline of the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group read statements claiming that trademark interests had been given substantial concessions during the EPDP talks.
Neylon in particular had some harsh words for the holdout constituencies, accusing them of “bad faith” and pointing out that the EPDP spent thousands of hours discussing its recommendations.
“Our members would want any number of obligations this report contains to be removed, but despite the objections we voiced our support for the final product as a sign of compromise and support for the entire multistakeholder model,” he said.
“Given the objections of certain parts of the community it’s unclear how we can ask this group to carry on with the next phase of its work at the same pace,” he said. “Given the unwillingness of others to participate and negotiate in good faith, how can we ask our reps to spend hours compromising on this work when it’s clear others will simply wait until the last minute and withdraw their consent for hard-fought compromise.”
The EPDP had a hard deadline due to the imminent expiration of the Temp Spec, but that’s not true of its “phase two” work, which will explore possible ways trademark enforcers could get access to redacted private Whois data.
Unfortunately for the IP lobby, there’s a very good chance that this work is going to proceed at a much slower pace than phase one, which wrapped up in basically six months.
During yesterday’s Council call, both Neylon and NCSG rep Tatiana Tropina said that the dedication required of volunteers in phase one — four to five hours of teleconferences a week and intensive mailing list discussions — will not be sustainable over phase two.
They simply won’t be able to round up enough people with enough time to spare, they said.
Coincidentally, neither the registrars nor the non-coms have any strong desire to see a unified access solution developed any time soon, so a more leisurely pace suits them politically too.
It will be up to the EPDP working group, and whoever turns out to be its new chair, to figure out the timetable for the phase two work.