.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, …

.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 …

.Africa: California Judge Reverses Tentative Ruling on Technicality, Case set for second hearing

The continuing case of African nonprofit DotConnectAfrica’s vs ICANN for the .Africa domain is set for another hearing January 31, 2017  after DCA filed an ex parte application for a temporary restraining order (“TRO “) PDF motion. On Thursday December 22, 2016, the Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Howard L. Halm issued a written tentative …

South Africa’s ZACR reportedly suspends thousands of org.za domains

South Africa’s ZA Central Registry (ZACR) the company tasked with administering second-level domains of the .ZA namespace  that includes .org.za has reportedly suspended thousands of org.za domains this week due to them not being transferred from a legacy system to ZACR-accredited Registrars. The suspended domains all org.za names that had not migrated across to new Registrars  …

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“At no time until after it had rejected DCA’s application, did ICANN assert that the AUC had properly “withdrawn” its endorsement.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 …