ICANN Jumps Into Internet Governance Talk; Fight Over Domains For GIs

Written originaly By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), celebrating its 15th birthday during its 48th meeting in Buenos Aires this week is not only busy pushing forward the introduction of new top-level domains. ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé also inserted the organisation into the …

GAC Communiqué: Wants To Look At “Public Policy Implications of Holding Auctions to Resolve String Contention”

The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) just issued its Buenos Aires Communiqué from the ICANN Meeting and “requests a briefing on the public policy implications of holding auctions to resolve string contention (including community applications)”. The GAC considers that new gTLD registry operators should be made …

Kurt Pritz Joins Domain Name Association as Executive Director

Former ICANN executive Kurt Pritz has assumed the role of interim Executive Director for the Domain Name Association, a newly formed non-profit business association that represents the interests of the domain name industry. Kurt will be working with and representing DNA during the ICANN-48 meetings in Buenos Aires. He played a key role in the …

25 proposed gTLDs ineligible for the Alternate Path to Delegation

ICANN has published the Alternate Path to Delegation Reports and lists of Second-Level Domains (SLDs) to block for all eligible proposed new gTLDs. Nearly all of the applied for new gTLD strings have been found eligible to proceed with the Alternate Path to Delegation prior to receiving their Name Collision Occurrence Assessments. The Alternate Path …

European Nations Push for More Government Control Over Internet

Advocates for the open, lightly governed Internet were shocked last month when the European Union aligned itself with countries like Iran, China and Brazil in calling for world governments to assert control over the Internet’s core technical management functions. The EU proposal, offered near the end of a two-week UN conference on the Internet, appeared …

Fighting for Smaller New gTLD Applicants

Will new gTLDs just be more of the same, or will they bring real diversity and innovation to the Internet’s namespace? For Hong Kong based Stable Tone, applicant for two Chinese character IDN TLDs (世界 or “Dot WORLD” and 健康 or “Dot HEALTHY”), it’s the smaller applicants that give the new gTLD program its soul. …

Wolfgang Kleinwächter announced as member to the ICANN Board of Directors

The 2013 Nominating Committee (NomCom) is pleased to announce the selection of Wolfgang Kleinwächter as a member to the ICANN Board of Directors. The position became vacant following the recent resignation of Board member Ms. Judith Duavit Vazquez, selected by the 2011 NomCom. Wolfgang Kleinwächter will take up his position on the ICANN Board of …