Tag: new gTLDs

ICANN76, Sally Costerton, the new interim president of ICANN, makes her mark

Candidate in March 2020 and then in March 2021, the city of Cancun finally had to wait until March 2023 and the end of the COVID pandemic to see a new edition of an ICANN summit in person. 2023, a very important year for the organisation. It will indeed celebrate its 25 years of existence while it is going through a risky period with an interim presidency after the resignation of its former President on 22 December 2022.

ICANN76, Sally Costerton, the new interim president of ICANN, makes her mark

Two women at the head of ICANN

Sally Costerton from the UK, who has been Vice President of Global Stakeholder Engagement (GSE) in charge of stakeholder engagement and awareness of ICANN and its mission worldwide since 2012, has been appointed interim Chief Executive Officer of ICANN following the departure of Goran Marby at the end of 2022. She is supported by Tripti Sinha who serves as ICANN’s Board Chair. Tripti is also Associate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at the University of Maryland, in the Information Technology Division. This is the first time ICANN has had two women leaders. However, the situation echoes the creation of ICANN. As it was recalled at the opening ceremony, in 1998, when the US government gave ICANN the task of managing the DNS addressing system, a woman also held the position of Chair of the Board. This was Esther Dyson.

While leadership interims are rare at ICANN, this situation led to the organisation of a special session called “The Future of ICANN and the Next President and CEO”. A session where participants would have expected to interact with the new Board. This was not the case, as this session was like a kind of open mic without a direct interlocutor to express expectations towards the new Management of the organisation.

An interim presidency for a governance organisation also means a risky period, especially as there is no shortage of issues to address and the geopolitical context is tending towards increased fragmentation. However, although we do not know how long the interim presidency will last, Sally Costerton quickly made her mark at the start of the summit, when she declared, among other things, “I do not know everything, but I can rely on experts“. These words were reassuring and showed a pragmatic approach.

Transparency tested by experience

ICANN is a well-established organisation, as it has been holding summits for 25 years. The trend in recent years has been for the Supporting Organisations (SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs) that make up the organisation to move towards greater transparency by opening up almost all their sessions to the participants. The most significant transformation has been in the GAC, the body representing governments, whose sessions were closed for many years before being fully open to all participants. This is an opportunity to salute the work of Manal Ismail, who after nearly six years at the head of the GAC is leaving her place to the Paraguayan Nicolas Caballero. A global tendency, therefore, of a nature to generate confidence, a key value to respond to the more and more numerous detractors of the ICANN governance mode.

But this tendency was reversed during this summit because many sessions were closed, “Closed sessions” to which even some affiliated participants could not have access neither in face-to-face nor in remote. Some of the participants were very upset and did not fail to point this out during the traditional Public Forum which usually closes the week of meetings.

Progress at a forced march?

The consensual approach, typical of ICANN, is both a strength for federating players around new obligations that are adopted, but also a weakness because it considerably slows down the progress of important work.

A striking example is the DNS abuse. Malicious use is indeed a real problem given the damage suffered by the affected Internet users. The GAC did not fail to recall this once again during a session where external experts were invited, such as a representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI. The latter indicated that in the United States, in 2022, more than 800,000 domain names were the subject of complaints causing losses of more than 10 billion US dollars. While the topic of DNS abuse has been a recurring theme at every ICANN summit over the years, it is clear that the consensus has shown its limits. Stakeholders in the GNSO, the generic name policy body, have never been able to agree on a way forward, whether it be a Policy Development Process or contract negotiations to revise stakeholder contracts with ICANN. After recent consultations with stakeholders, the GNSO finally decided on the second option, and the least we can say is that at ICANN76, the will was to reach a result quickly. An amendment to the registry and registrar contracts is being drafted and is expected to be presented in June and voted on by the parties concerned in October.  

The GNSO intends to build on the momentum of another contract amendment being voted on by stakeholders: an “RDAP” amendment. RDAP is an alternative protocol to Whois that provides access to domain names registration data. The outcome of the votes and thus the adoption of these contract revisions remained uncertain at the end of the ICANN summit as different thresholds of participation and favourable votes must be reached.

Partial adoption of recommendations for future rounds of new gTLDs

Another issue that some would like to see move forward more quickly is that of future rounds of new generic extensions. Indeed, the last window for applications for generic extensions dates back to January 2012. Since then, a policy development process has been conducted since 2015 to define a set of recommendations for the holding of new application windows. The Final report of this process was submitted to the ICANN Board in February 2021. In the autumn of 2021, ICANN surprised the community by announcing a scoping phase, an ODP (Operational Design Phase), which ultimately lasted until the beginning of this year. The board had not yet decided on the Final report of recommendations, a prerequisite to be able to start the implementation work of the recommendations. So the new interim president of ICANN was also very much expected on this subject.

And she quickly warned that the time was also for action on this subject: “You will see that things will be clarified” (editor’s note: on the next series of generic extensions), she declared during a session during the week. At the end of the week, at a Board meeting, 98 recommendations from the policy development process were adopted, with a further 38 put on hold as requiring further information. An implementation plan is also expected with a deadline set to 1st of August with a focus on internationalized domain names and extensions that ICANN organisation wants to focus on in future rounds and the need to clarify whether closed generic extensions will be offered.

Comments from NAMESHIELD

We can regret a return to a certain opacity in the decision making during ICANN76 where no less than 25 closed sessions were held. Nevertheless, this is perhaps where the progress made on subjects that were not progressing well came from, such as DNS abuse, a very important subject for NAMESHIELD, which offers several solutions to defend your online assets, and the holding of a forthcoming series of new generic extensions, where NAMESHIELD experts can also accompany you.

The other question was how the new interim ICANN President Sally Costerton, would handle her new role in a risky period for ICANN whose model is also increasingly challenged by States, international organisations and even technological alternatives. On this point, the new president appeared to be proactive, joining words to deeds, as on the subject of further series of new generic extensions. Sally Costerton seems to have already started to trace her way towards a full term CEO role for the organisation.

Image source : ICANN’s website

ICANN72, between prioritisation needs and fragmentation risks

ICANN72, between prioritisation needs and fragmentation risks

At the end of October, the 72nd ICANN summit was held, devoted to the development of policies that impact the domain name system (DNS) and the global Internet community. As already announced during the past summer, this latest annual meeting was to be held by videoconference in the time zone of Seattle in the United States. “Sleepless” were therefore not in Seattle but rather in Europe.

ICANN72, between prioritisation needs and fragmentation risks

The thorn in the side of the next round of new generic extensions

A month before this summit, ICANN announced the schedule for the Operational Design Phase (ODP) for one of the most anticipated topics by the contracting parties: the organisation of a future round of applications for new generic extensions. The ODP is a new mechanism now linked to the policy development process (PDP). It is similar to a project scoping exercise as it aims to identify the steps, risks, costs and resources to be allocated to implement a project, in this case a new round of generic extensions. The PDP was conducted between 2015 and 2020, with the submission of a final recommendations report to the ICANN Board in March of this year. However, it is not until February 2023, almost two years later, that the Board should consider these recommendations, the time to let the ODP conduct. Indeed, ICANN confirmed before the opening of ICANN72 that this scoping phase should last sixteen months in its entirety, including ten months for the conduct of the ODP, three months upstream to initiate the latter and in particular to constitute the teams that will conduct it and three months downstream to conclude the work. This timetable surprised many of the contracting parties and gave rise to much discontent. These discontents were particularly expressed through the Brand Registry Group that represents and promotes the interests of its members, dotBrand owners. For most members, things are not moving fast enough and the ODP would even be partly useless since some aspects overlap with the work already conducted during the previous PDP. Another aspect pointed out was the cost of the ODP estimated to $9 million, which is not a small amount.

The clouds are gathering as are the processes underway

As the other sessions scheduled during the week-long summit progressed, it was clear that the clouds continued to gather in the weather of ICANN’s policies. For example, the announcement of the launch of an expedited policy development process (ePDP) to review the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), which allows for the recovery of disputed domain names, caused a great deal of misunderstanding, given that a review of all rights protection mechanisms (RPMs) has already been conducted between 2016 and 2020 and its final recommendations have not yet been examined by the ICANN Board. Now this review to validate the recommendations is scheduled to take place at best in the summer of 2022, by which time the aforementioned ePDP should be finalised. This example illustrated the gap that is being created between the community’s expectations for decisions and ICANN’s decision-making bodies, which seem to be overwhelmed by the policy negotiation processes that are piling up and stretching out over time, risking rendering decisions obsolete if they are made too late. According to some participants, this even affects ICANN’s ability to continue to carry out its mission as set out in its founding documents: To preserve and enhance the operational stability, reliability, security and global interoperability of the Internet.

“Prioritisation”, the word is out

On the first day of the sessions, ICANN CEO Goran Marby defended himself against the idea that the Board was slow to make decisions. He pointed out that the Board had recently examined 228 recommendations from the Competion Consumer Choice & Consumer Trust (CCT), which had just conducted a review to assess the extent to which the expansion of generic TLDs, gTLDs, had promoted competition, consumer confidence and consumer choice. 166 have been approved to date, 44 placed on hold and 18 rejected. Many of these measures are correlated with research and data collection to better understand market trends for new gTLDs.

Goran Marby also justified the delays in decision-making by the large number of ongoing and overlapping issues and by the fact that ICANN sometimes needs additional expertise to make decisions. In response to the criticisms, he also indicated that ICANN is now working on some form of prioritisation, a wish expressed by NAMESHIELD that seems to have been heard. However, Marteen Botterman of the Board nuanced this by specifying that prioritisation is not the Board’s responsibility, as it must ensure that the multi-stakeholder model is respected and must therefore maintain a certain neutrality on the subjects submitted to it.

A risk of fragmentation

From an organisation that has difficulty in making decisions, to its questioning, there is only one step. From the first day of the sessions, Goran Marby, who was particularly involved in the exchanges, spoke of “threats to ICANN”. ICANN is working on a risk management framework for the organisation. He also spoke of the need to talk more closely with governments as the current governance model is being challenged. Indeed, one only has to look at Russia to see that in November 2019, the Russian government introduced new regulations that create a legal framework for centralised state management of the internet within Russia’s borders. Russia has also proposed to hand over the management of the root servers to BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) member states. Proof that the States are going on the offensive in terms of their legislation, recent European directives also have an impact on the governance model, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the forthcoming NIS2 (Network and Information Systems) directive, subjects which were also recalled at the summit. In China, for example, a law strengthening controls on digital services operated in China has just been adopted.

The failure of the ICANN governance model, if confirmed, could lead to a fragmentation of the DNS as we know it today, a fragmentation which takes shape as ICANN becomes bogged down in sterile debates. This summit has highlighted that the community and ICANN leadership have identified this major risk. The challenge for the future is to address it. We will watch the next ICANN summit scheduled in March 2022.

The observation that DNS regulation policies are bogged down, particularly at ICANN72, was widely shared by NAMESHIELD well before this summit. In particular, NAMESHIELD had expressed the need to prioritise topics in agreement with the community during the ICANN72 preparatory sessions. NAMESHIELD, which participates in working groups working on recommendations in the context of the periodic reviews conducted by ICANN, also advocated for re-enchanting voluntary work and helping diversify representatives in these working groups, in particular from small structures. Indeed many volunteers are now overwhelmed by the increasing volume of topics to be considered as the processes accumulate and decisions do not follow. New participants are discouraged from taking an interest in these topics by lengthy and cumbersome processes.

Image source : David Mark via Pixabay

New document : 5 minutes to understand domain names extensions (TLD)

5 minutes to understand - Domain names extensions (TLD) - Nameshield

The “Top Level Domains” also called TLD or extensions, are defined by the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) which depends on ICANN since 1998.

ICANN and IANA are in charge of allocating Internet protocol (IP) addresses space, assigning protocol identifiers and managing the top level domain names system, i.e. the “Top Level Domains”.

Find out in this “5 minutes to understand” document, available for download on the Nameshield’s website, the different types of top level domains.

Download the document

.SBS : Sunrise phase opening

.SBS : Sunrise phase opening

The .SBS (side by side) is a short, thoughtful, three-letter domain extension, perfect for social causes, charitable organisations and other philanthropic initiatives, and any progressive business, individual, or community that believes in social and financial inclusion.

It is important to note that a part of the profits linked to the registration of .SBS domain names will be donated by the ShortDot registry to a non-profit organization.

Here is the launching schedule:

  • Sunrise Phase: May 6, 2021 – June 7, 2021
  • EAP (Early Access Period) : June 8 – June 15
  • General Availability: June 8, 2021, on a first come, first served basis

For more information about your .SBS registration conditions, please contact your Nameshield consultant.

Image by truthseeker08 from Pixabay

ICANN70: At the crossroads of different policy development processes

Initially scheduled to take place in Cancun, Mexico, like ICANN67 , the recent summit on Internet governance was once again held entirely by videoconference due to the global health situation. The PDPs, the Policy Development Processes, were the main thread of this summit.

ICANN 70
ICANN70 was the fourth summit held remotedely

The PDP, Policy Development Process, is the central community mechanism used by the Generic Names Supporting Organization (Gnso), the body responsible for policy developments on generic domain names, to propose new requirements and revise existing rules to update them. Each PDP results in a series of reports that are ultimately forwarded to the ICANN Board of Directors, which decides on the fate of the recommendations they contain. 

News on the PDP of the new generic extensions

It is with this mechanism that ICANN launched a program of new generic extensions that led to 1930 applications in Spring 2012 and 1233 delegated extensions by the end of 2020. The opportunity to consider a new round of applications was materialized by a PDP initiated by Gnso in late 2015. Five years later, this process to review and improve the Gnso recommendations for the 2012 cycle has entered its final stretch. It is now up to the ICANN Board to decide on the recommendations of the working groups that worked on this PDP. The Board of Directors should launch a last phase of consultations of the community before pronouncing on the continuation of their works. The community was expecting an announcement at this summit or perhaps even a timetable to mark out the next steps until the next round of applications, but we have to admit that hopes have been dashed. Indeed, no announcements were made, even though we know that the prospect of a future round of applications is now approaching fast. Regarding the content of the recommendations this time, the elements discussed mainly during ICANN70 were about a pre-evaluation of the future registries, the improvement of the predictability to evaluate the future applications and the ways to improve the applicants’ support.

The PDP: A solution to the impasse over malicious use of the DNS?

Another topic, related to the implementation of the PDP mentioned above, is the malicious uses of the DNS, a topic commonly referred to as DNS abuse.

ICANN’s monitoring of malicious practices in generic names covers some 205 million domain names, of which barely 11% are from the cycle of extensions created since 2012. The observation made through their analyses shows that around one million domains concentrate these infringements, that is to say 0.5% of them. Another notable fact is that the new generic extensions are more used for malicious practices than the historical generic extensions like .COM, .NET, .ORG, .BIZ and .INFO. In fact, ICANN indicated that in February 2021, 35% of security breaches came from names created in the new generic extensions against 65% in the historical extensions, a ratio that even rose to 40% in November 2020. ICANN also said that 90% of malicious practices in the new extensions were concentrated in 23 extensions. As for the most common types of attacks, spamming is involved at 85%, phishing at 8.4%, botnets (malicious programs that operate remotely) at 3.9% and malware at 2.7%. The new generic extensions concentrate more spamming and phishing practices. Although DNS abuse has been a central topic of discussion between the bodies representing the stakeholders of the Internet community for five summits now, positions still diverge on the measures to be taken to curb these harmful practices. Here again, the expectations of the community at this summit were high.

The GAC, the body that represents governments, has already supported the idea of a dedicated PDP on this topic. It advocates for a holistic approach that addresses all extensions, existing and future. GAC highlighted the work of the SSAC, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, which advises the community and the ICANN Board on issues related to the security and integrity of the Internet’s naming and addressing systems. Indeed, it published an advisory prior to ICANN70 urging the Board before launching the next round of new gTLDs to commission a study of the causes, responses and best practices for mitigating domain name abuse proliferating in the new gTLDs in the 2012 round. To their credit, they also made a series of recommendations to the ICANN Board, ranging from the systematic presence of security experts in all future contract negotiations to an ePDP (expeditive Policy Development Process).  As for Gnso, it is continuing consultations for the moment without ruling out the use of a PDP.

And the ePDP phase 1 and 2 on access to registration data

Another topic, another PDP process, the ePDP in connection with the GDPR for access to domain name registration data. Initiated in 2018, it was intended to replace a Temporary Specification that involved redacting personal data from freely available registration data of generic names. Phase 1 of the ePDP, not finalized at this time, is intended to replace the Temporary Specification with a future-proof provision. Phase 2 aims to create a standardized data access system for legitimate applications commonly referred to as SSAD. This phase has now reached the end of the roadmap, as it is now in the hands of the ICANN Board of Directors after the Gnso has approved all the provisions formulated by the working groups that have worked on this subject, even those that did not reach consensus. The Gnso assumed this position under the pretext that it was necessary to take its responsibilities and that the recommendations were a whole, a breach of the process of creating new policies that normally wants to be consensual and that led the ALAC (At-Large Advisory Committee) that represents the end users to express concerns, the IPC (Intellectual Property Constituency) that represents the interests of the intellectual property community even going so far as to ask not to continue with the review of the recommendations. The ICANN Board has simply launched an Operational Design Phase to consider the operability of the future system and intends to take a position on the recommendations at a later stage.

A new PDP on domain name transfer policies

Another PDP process was officially launched at ICANN70 to revise the rules for domain name transfers: transfers between registrars and transfers between two registrants. The latter aims to simplify, secure and make name transfers more efficient. A vast project that could extend over several years…

Concerns about the concentration of the sector

Indicative of the concerns of the Internet community, the public forum this year was marked by many questions around the concentration that is accelerating among the players of domain names. The latest is Ethos Capital, a private equity firm founded in 2019, which after buying the operator of .ORG, PIR, has just taken over Donuts, which manages no less than 242 new generic extensions and had recently acquired Afilias, which is among other things manager of the extension .INFO. The community has expressed concerns about these new players whose expectations are not necessarily in line with one of ICANN’s totems, which is to defend competition, trust and consumer choice. ICANN, for its part, does not see a problem in this phenomenon, which has become a trend, because these mergers trigger very closely supervised procedures for analyzing and approving the changes that are brought about. 

ICANN70 has highlighted the fact that ICANN is looking at a number of potentially high-impact topics in domain name management, most of which are about to be materialized into new policies that Nameshield will implement for its customers. Beyond this framework, Nameshield, an independent French player, has already implemented solutions that provide answers to the problems that some of these policies must address. Do not hesitate to reach your consultant with your needs so that we can study together the solutions that we can already bring.

Opening of the sunrise phase of the .FORUM

Launch of the .FORUM - new gTLDs
Image source: ary74 via Pixabay

The .FORUM is an interesting new extension to exploit and secure.

Here is the launching schedule:

  • Sunrise Phase: November 16, 2020 – December 16, 2020
  • General Availability: March 02, 2021, on a first come, first served basis!

For more information on the conditions of registration of your .FORUM, please contact your Nameshield consultant .

Launch of the new gTLD .CONTACT

Domain name - new gTLD - .CONTACT
Image source: Tumisu via Pixabay

Launched by the Donuts registry, this .CONTACT extension is interesting, particularly for the contact pages of your websites.

This extension is also part of the TrueName program created by the Donuts registry: when registering a domain name in .CONTACT, Donuts will also protect the typographical alternatives of your brand by blocking them, thus preventing some phishing attempts through the registration by a third party of a typographically similar name (ex.: loulou.contact vs l0ulou.contact).

Reminder of the launch schedule

  • Sunrise [period reserved for trademark holders]: September 29, 2020 – November 28, 2020
  • Early Access Phase [open to all, prices are decreasing day by day]:

– Early Access Phase (EAP) Day 1: December 2/3

– Early Access Phase (EAP) Day 2: December 3/4

– Early Access Phase (EAP) Day 3: December 4/5

– Early Access Phase (EAP) Day 4: December 5/6

– Early Access Phase (EAP) Day 5-7: December 6/9

  • General Availability: from December 9, 2020

For any questions, your Nameshield consultant is at your disposal.

New launching dates for the .GAY

The launch of .GAY - New gTLDs - Nameshield Blog
Image source : Top Level Design website

In our article of January 24, 2020, we announced the launch of the .GAY by the TOP LEVEL DESIGN registry. This extension is intended for individuals, organizations, businesses supporting the LGBTQ community. It will increase their visibility and create a safe online space.

Originally scheduled for May 20, the date of general availability has been postponed to September 16, 2020.

Currently in Sunrise II Phase, here are the new launching dates:

  • Second Sunrise phase (period opened to any trademark holder, Sunrise I was restricted to holders of trademarks registered with the TMCH): until 04/09/2020
  • EAP (Early Access Period): from 08/09/2020 to 15/09/2020
  • General availability: from 16/09/2020

Find more information about this new extension .GAY in our previous article of January 24.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact a Nameshield consultant.

The launch of .GAY is close

The launch of .GAY - New gTLDs - dotgay - Nameshield Blog
Image source : Top Level Design website

On June 1970, one year after the Stonewall Riots, which marked the birth of the LGBTQ rights movements, the first Gay Pride parades took place in many US cities to claim liberty, equality and denounce prejudice, persecution, bigotry and hate.

Fifty years later, with the launch of the new extension .GAY by the registry TOP LEVEL DESIGN, a new digital space is created for the LGBTQ community. This extension is thus intended for individuals, organizations, businesses supporting the LGBTQ community. It will increase their visibility and create a safe online space.

The launch of .GAY will follow the calendar below.

.GAY Launching Calendar

  • Sunrise period: from 10/02/2020 to 06/05/2020
  • EAP (Early Access Period): from 11/05/2020 to 18/05/2020
  • General availability: from 20/05/2020

.GAY donations to LGBTQ nonprofit organizations

Note that for each new domain name registered, the .GAY donates 20% of registration revenue to LGBTQ nonprofit organizations like GLAAD and CenterLink which are currently the inaugural beneficiaries.

A .GAY domain name registration will become a way to express support to the LGBTQ community.

.GAY rights protections policy

The .GAY will give the possibility to create a safer space online for LGBTQ community. Indeed, the extension will be subject to a .GAY rights protections policy, which will allow to report any content that is harmful or harassing LGBTQ people, and to act against them by removing the content or suspending the site itself.

“The use of .gay for anti-LGBTQ content or to malign or harm LGBTQ individuals or groups is strictly prohibited and can result in immediate server-hold. Prohibited behavior includes harassment, threats, and hate speech” highlights the registry.

.GAY domain name registrations will be prohibited to parties that are, or are associated with, recognized hate groups inciting violence against the LGBTQ community.

For more information on the conditions for registration of your .GAY, don’t hesitate to contact a Nameshield’s consultant.

[New gTLD] Launch of .NEW by Google

[New gTLD] Launch of .NEW by Google
Image source: 377053 via Pixabay

Following the launch of .APP, .PAGE, and .DEV among others, Google (Charleston Road Registry), launches the new extension .NEW in Sunrise period as of October 15, 2019.

Conditions for registration of a .NEW

  • All domains on .NEW must resolve to action generation or online creation flows. Once resolved, the web user should be able to ‘create’ something without any further navigation. For example, docs.new proposes a dedicated page proposing the direct use of Google online word-processing software allowing a new document creation page.
  • Any .NEW domain will need to be live within 100 days of registration.

If these conditions are not respected, the registry will consider the registration as non-compliant with the registration policy. In this case, the name will be placed on hold. The registrant will then be notified to correct and apply these conditions, if no action is taken, the domain will be blocked then deleted.

Launch calendar

  • Sunrise period: from October 15, 2019 to January 14,2020
  • LRP (Limited Registration Period): from January 14 to July 14, 2020
  • General availability: from July 21, 2020

For more information on the conditions for registration of your .NEW, don’t hesitate to contact us.