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”.

Glitch redux: ICANN screws up new gTLD security again

No lessons learned from 2012? ICANN admitted this morning that a glitch in its Registry Service Provider Evaluation Program exposed the identities of more than a dozen companies to their rivals.

The Org fessed up that some companies looking to get pre-approved as RSPs were able to see “identifiable organizational information” belonging to another user when using ICANN’s technical testing system.

“A total of 14 of 26 organizations using RST OT&E were affected. All affected organizations have been notified,” ICANN said. “No personal data was exposed, with the exception of a single minor and limited instance.”

It doesn’t sound like any gTLD application intentions were revealed — that part of the program doesn’t open until next year.

There were probably not too many surprises among the leaks. The landscape of the RSP market is well understood.

The only exceptions that spring to mind would be ccTLD registries that have not yet revealed their plans for the gTLD space, and completely new market entrants that have not yet tipped their hand.

The glitch sounds remarkably familiar for ICANN watchers with long memories. A bug discovered in 2015 exposed much more data, and about applicants themselves, but it was only exploited by one person on a handful of occasions.

That “glitch” led to allegations of hacking and trade secret theft and a long-running Independent Review Process case that wasn’t resolved until October 2023.

ICANN said it has taken down its testing environment to fix the bug and has hired an outside consultant to kick the tires.

This delay means testing will be offline for around two weeks, coming back November 12 at the earliest, and the reveal date for the list of participating RSPs has been pushed back from December 9 to an unspecified future date we realistically have to assume will be in the new year.

It’s not expected to delay the April 2026 opening of the next application round.

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.

Bye-bye .boomer! Blockchain players abandon new gTLD plans

A dozen organizations that were planning to apply to ICANN for a new gTLD next year have abandoned their ambitions.

Unstoppable Domains said recently that 12 partners offering blockchain-based alt-TLDs have confirmed they no longer expect to apply for a matching gTLD when the Next Round opens next year.

The affected blockchain extensions are: .bald, .basenji (formerly .benji), .bay, .boomer, .calicoin, .caw, .cgai, .donut, .mery, .mumu, .nibi and .pendle.

Because some buyers may have hoped to grab the matching DNS domain if and when the matching gTLD got delegated, Unstoppable said it will offer refunds to anyone who registered a name in any of these extensions.

It’s also added “Applying to ICANN 2026” and “Not applying to ICANN 2026” tags to search results on its storefront.

The refunds don’t apply to alt-TLDs that could never have applied to ICANN because the string breaks the rules in some way (for example being numeric or too short).

Decades-old US registrar gets a spanking

ICANN Compliance has filed a wide-ranging breach notice against an American registrar that’s been accredited for over 20 years.

Cincinnati-based Netdorm, which does business as DnsExit.com, has been handed a long list of alleged contract violations and an October 16 deadline to fix things or risk termination.

As we’ve seen regularly recently, the registrar’s apparent failures to carry out the technical migrations from Whois to RDAP and from NCC Group to DENIC for escrow services are the biggest of ICANN’s concerns.

Netdorm is also past-due on its fees and has a long checklist of administrative and transparency failures, according to the Compliance breach notice.

Despite being accredited since 2004, the company has been chugging along with fewer than 6,000 gTLD domains under management for many years. It gives away third-level subdomains for free and claims to run over a million of them.

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.

Number of subsidized gTLD bidders far lower than thought

A huge number of organizations that started applying to ICANN for subsidized new gTLD applications have apparently pulled out of the program, judging by newly released stats.

As of September 19, 42 would-be applicants had joined the Applicant Support Program, with ICANN stats published yesterday revealing that 30 have been removed compared to last month’s stats because they are “deemed inactive, with 90 or more days of inactivity.”

Last month, there were over 70 reported applicants.

To date, only three have received provisional approval and of those only one has fully progressed through the system. Only one has formally withdrawn from the process.

ASP promises applicants — only non-profits and/or charities so far, though small businesses from the developing world can apply too — 75% to 85% off the expected $227,000 application fee when the next application opens in Q2 next year.

ICANN has faced some criticisms from governments at the lack of applicants so far from under-serviced regions such as South America.

Another registrar goes AWOL

ICANN has started takedown procedures against another registrar that appears to have disappeared from the face of the Earth.

The registrar is 0101 Internet, based in Hong Kong, not to be confused with 101 Domain, which is based in Ireland and California and a completely different company.

0101 has been around for 15 years and had a little over 1,000 domains under management at the last count, mostly .com. Its DUM peaked at over 10,000 over a decade ago but has been declining since.

Currently, its web site doesn’t reliably resolve, which may be the reason ICANN can’t find contractually required information there. Archives show the place on its site where you would usually expect to see a company name or logo, it has just said “Your Brand” for the last few years.

The main problem outlined in ICANN Compliance’s breach notice is that 0101 has not been escrowing its registrant data with DENIC, which could cause problems when its customers’ domains are migrated to a new registrar.

It also hasn’t been paying its ICANN fees, according to the notice.

0101 has until October 3 to come into compliance or risk losing its contract.

gTLD loses its second-largest registrar after breach

ICANN has terminated another registrar’s accreditation, this time putting about 10,000 domains at risk.

The registrar in question is Dubai-based Intracom Middle East, which does business at domains.gdn.

As the domain suggests, the company specialized in .gdn domain names. It had about 10,000 of them under management at the last count, sold for under a dollar each for the first year.

It was the .gdn registry’s second-biggest registrar after Dynadot.

ICANN Compliance is terminating its contract for not paying its fees, not implementing RDAP, and generally not publishing required transparency information on its web site.

As I noted in May, its web site appeared to be down, and archived versions of the site suggested it had been hacked at least once recently.

ICANN, which had been chasing Intracom for a little over a year, said it will follow the De-Accredited Registrar Transition Procedure to move the company’s remaining domain names to a new registrar.