ICANN Appoints First Two New gTLD Data Escrow Agents

Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management, Inc. and NCC Group have been approved by ICANN to provide data escrow services to new gTLD registry operators. All new gTLD registry operators will be required to regularly deposit a backup copy of their TLD registration data through one of the approved data escrow service providers. The data held …

NomCom Receives Largest Number of Applicants Since 2003

The 2013 Nominating Committee application period closed on Wednesday, 15 May 2013 at 23:59 UTC. At the deadline, the NomCom had received 110 Statements of Interest, more than in any one year after 2003, when there were also 110. This year, there are 12 candidates from Africa, 30 are from Asia/Australia/Pacific Islands, 32 are from …

Bartleby’s Prefers Not to See Amazon Run Web Books Domain

Herman Melville’s character Bartleby the scrivener famously said he “would prefer not to,” and 160 years later the owner of Bartleby’s Books would prefer not to see Amazon (AMZN).com Inc. control Internet addresses ending in .book. “I would just hate to see the cultural process that books represent be controlled by a single firm,” John …

GAC Advice largely unworkable

The position of GAC and its importance in the ICANN new gTLD progress is being placed in a very tight spot over the relevance and the practicability of the recommendations that it has offered on the new gTLD applications and more specifically the Safeguard Advice. GAC entered ICANN as one of the arms that would …

GAC Advice to ICANN Board “Anti-Competitive” says DotConnectAfrica in response to the GAC Advise Objection notice it received on its .africa bid

  DotConnectAfrica in a spirited effort to secure its application on .africa that has lately been a victim of GAC advice during the just concluded ICANN Beijing 46th meeting has called the GAC Advice anti-competitive saying:   “we see the GAC Policy Advice as a wrong step, and against the explicit commitment to fair competition …

DotConnectAfrica disagrees with the Objection Advice in response to ICANN GAC for its .Africa application

PRLog (Press Release) – May 16, 2013 – DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA Trust), the contending applicant that submitted an independent bid for the .Africa new generic Top-Level Domain name, recently submitted another fulsome response to the ICANN Board of Directors to defend the GAC Objection Advice that was issued against its .Africa new gTLD application by …

Is the ICANN GAC right? It depends on who you ask

What they’re saying about the GAC’s safeguard advice The ICANN New gTLD Board Committee request for comment on the GAC’s safeguard advice has closed, and the reply period will open soon. Here are some select comments, along with links to the full comments. “Instead of Guidebook advice, the GAC has offered public policy advice and …

ICANN on Africa’s Internet Market and Hub Offices: Interview with Brad White, ICANN’s Director of Global Media Affairs

Africa is increasingly becoming a key player in global business and essential resources like the internet will definitely be forming a critical part of this growth. At the end of 2012, Africa’s internet penetration rate was quoted as heading to 16%. While this is quite low compared to global rates, the continent has witnessed a …