ICANN reveals 12 more user credentials were used in March 2015 data breach

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has concluded its investigation into a data exposure issue in the New gTLD Applicant and Global Domains Division (GDD) portals blamed on several misconfigurations in the portals. The breach was first announced on 1 March 2015 where over 60 searches occurred, resulting in the unauthorized access …

Senators Thune, Schatz warn ICANN Board not to stymie accountability demands as it jeopardizes IANA transition

US Senators Chairman John Thune (R-SD) and colleague Brian Schatz [D-HI] have once again written to the ICANN Board concerning interference of the accountability steps and proposals to the IANA transition as it would jeopardizes IANA transition. The ICANN Board has twice rejected proposals that would improve board accountability and the ability of the multistakholder …

IANA Transition Standoff: ICANN Board neither supports the Single Member Model nor its alternative, the Designator model

The ICANN Boards Penchant for maintaining its status quo on power has triggered another multistakeholder storm after rejecting the second option of the Designator model.This is after rejecting the proposed Single Member Model (SMM or CMSM). In an email to the CCWG-Accountability mail list on Monday evening, October 5, 2015, just hours before a scheduled …

US Senators Letter Questions GAO on whether Obama Administration has Power to allow IANA Transition

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), along with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting an affirmative determination of whether the Obama …

An unsupervised Post IANA-ICANN will be pressured by power hungry governments warns Internet Expert

Sophia Bekele Internet expert and previous ICANN policy adviser,   has warned in her article that if, as has been argued by some other writers, governments want more power within the ICANN ecosystem, an unsupervised PTI-ICANN will also be pressured by various governments. Read the article below on The Hill: November 2016 elections will determine …

Council of Europe urges ICANN to take international and security rules seriously

The Council of Europe released a Declaration encouraging the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (‘ICANN’), when developing policies for the Internet’s domain name system, to consider international privacy, security and human rights laws and policies. The Council has no legal power to force any changes on ICANN. In its Declaration, the Council were …

“Case far from Closed” says BBC: Unsuccessful ICANN interview on .africa Cover up

In an interesting follow up response to last week’s BBC Click Program discussion on .Africa  dispute, the head of the ICANN’s Global Domains Division Akram Atallah  tried to clarify the issue of the wrongdoing and alleged coverup make by ICANN on the  .africa DCA VS ICANN IRP  case, which DCA prevailed in. Most interestingly, he …

DCA Trust’s Precedential Win over ICANN, .AFRICA the most important case of the gTLD Program

dubious After ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) issued “consensus advice” objecting to DCA Trust’s application, ICANN’s Board summarily awarded the .AFRICA domain to the African Union Commission, DCA Trust’s competitor. DotConnectAfrica in turn refused to back down and accept the Boards recommendation that it should withdraw its application and instead invoked the last accountability mechanism …