.Africa gTLD: ICANN Loses MSJ, Back to Legal Arena

The battle for the control of the .Africa top level domain may yet become more protracted after a recent court decision to have the case proceed to trial. BackGround DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Trust after winning an IRP and still rejected by ICANN went to court and filed its first Amended Complaint (“FAC”) on 26 February 2016, …

Amazon beats ICANN on .Amazon gTLD following DCA Trust’s precedent setting case in .Africa IRP!

Amazon.com has become the latest winner in the ICANN Independent Review Process IRP. Amazon was one of the largest applicants for new domain names, but its .brand strategy was slowed down when governments opposed its .amazon application. Amazon’s applications had been rejected three years ago after ICANN accepted Governmental Advisory Committee consensus advice.  That advice, …

.Africa Founder Sophia Bekele Named Industry Trailblazer & Internet Governance Pioneer, by CIO

“Inspired to set up DotConnectAfrica, as its name aimes, to Connect Africa through a Single Pan-African domain name“ The CIO East Africa, an influential IT, Business and Leadership News Magazine talked to Sophia Bekele about her journey, taking stock of a decade of professional activities and achievements to date, in the ICT and DNS Industry, …

.Africa Domain to be delegated pending DCA Trust Vs ICANN Court Hearing on Merits

ICANN has announced that it is free to delegate the .Africa domain to ZACR pending the court case resolution. This action mirrors its signing of a contract in the middle of an Independent Accountability Hearing (IRP) that ICANN initiated. This step was taken by ICANN after a recent California court decision to deny DotConnectAfrica’s Motion …

ICANN “Free to Delegate .Africa” as Judge rules re-delegation is possible if DCA prevails

The .Africa gTLD can be re-delegated to DCA in the event DCA prevails in this litigation,  says California Judge ICANN announced last Friday that it is free to proceed with the delegation of .AFRICA domain following a recent Court decision that denied DotConnectAfrica’s (DCA’s) Motion for Preliminary Injunction to stop the delegation of the .AFRICA …

DCA Trust dismisses ICANN’s Enforcement of The Purported AUC Endorsement withdrawal as a Rearguard Action

“At no time until after it had rejected DCA’s application, did ICANN assert that the AUC had properly “withdrawn” its endorsement. – DCA   Geographic new gTLDs in the ICANN application round were required to have endorsements of upto 60% from counties in the applying region. Many applications in the new gTLD program were therefore …