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ICANN looking at new bulk reg rules

Kevin Murphy, August 11, 2025, Domain Policy

ICANN seems set to start creating more rules governing DNS abuse, including limits on bulk registrations and more tracking of registrants.

A small team of GNSO volunteers have put together a list (pdf) of dozens of proposed policy change areas, covering everything from registrant data accuracy to pricing to API access to getting ICANN Compliance to be more proactive.

While most of the ideas in the team’s analysis received a broad range of views, it settles on three areas, all related to bulk registration of abusive domains, that it thinks are ripest for further policy work.

The first is “Associated Domain Checks”. The small team think it’s worth looking into whether registrars should have to investigate proactively domains registered by known abusive registrants.

The group also thinks it’s worth looking into better industry information-sharing about domain generation algorithms, which bad actors use to create vast numbers of gibberish names that can be used in spam runs, phishing attacks, or botnets.

Finally, the group thinks rules around API access to registrar platforms should be looked at, given that bulk-registered abusive domains often seem to use APIs to programmatically obtain thousands of throwaway domains in seconds.

The small team thinks a Policy Development Process looking at just these three issues could be completed relatively quickly and the community could address the remaining issues later.

Whether the recommendations go to a PDP is now up to the GNSO Council, which will vote on the matter this Thursday. Assuming the vote passes, which seems likely, ICANN staff would then have to prepare a formal Issue Report, setting out the scope of future work, if any.

A PDP would likely take years to complete.

The three priority topic areas reflect closely the Governmental Advisory Committee advice coming out of June’s ICANN 83 public meeting. Both small team and GAC heavily source ICANN’s INFERMAL research and a recent NetBeacon white paper as their inspirations.

ICANN to mull bulk registration ban

Kevin Murphy, October 12, 2022, Domain Policy

ICANN policymakers are to take a look at banning bulk domain registrations in ongoing efforts to combat DNS abuse.

While in the very early stages of discussion, the GNSO Council is being urged to start gathering data “to further explore the role that bulk registrations play in DNS Abuse” and “to consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary”

The recommendation is among several in a newly published report of a cross-constituency GNSO “small team”, which may lead to “tightly focused and scoped policy development”.

While acknowledging “there are also examples in which bulk registrations are used for legitimate purposes”, the report states:

The small team recommends that the GNSO Council requests the Registrar Stakeholder Group and others (for example, ICANN org, the RySG and the DNSAI) to further explore the role that bulk registrations play in DNS Abuse as well as measures that Registrars may have already put in place to address this vector. Based on the feedback received, the GNSO Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary.

The report is to be considered later this month at the GNSO Council’s monthly meeting. Any actual policy outcome, if any, will be years away.