McDonalds terminates its .Brand gTLDs .McDonalds and .MCD

McDonalds has joined a host of companies that had applied for their .brand top level domain names and later  have decided it’s not worth the expense or effort. “The restaurant chain applied to run the .McDonalds and .MCD top level domain names, but it recently sent termination notices (pdf) to domain name overseer ICANN voluntarily …

US Congress to hold hearing on .sucks gTLD and ICANN accountability

A Congressional hearing called  “Stakeholder Perspectives on ICANN: The .sucks Domain and Essential Steps to Guarantee Trust and Accountability in the Internet’s Operation” has been scheduled by the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet It will take place in Washington DC next Wednesday, May 13. The announcement has however not listed any …

ICANN temporarily takes its New gTLD Applicant & GDD portals offline amid security leak scare

ICANN has announced that it temporarily took its New gTLD Applicant and GDD portals offline on 27 February 2015 to investigate a reported security issue. This week’s announcement also follows on the heels of a spear-phishing attack in December where a number of ICANN’s systems were compromised including the Centralized Zone Data System (CZDS) – …

.africa debacle: DotConnectAfrica writes to newly elected African Union Leaders raising ethical questions

From the The Reporter Ethiopia DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Trust has written to the new AU leadership raising ethical and accountability issues on how the endorsement process was handled from its inception within the African Union institution. In the letter dated August 2, 2013 the Company asks the AU leadership to “review and investigate the role that …