In wake of gTLD security criticism, ICANN announces emergency back-up registry operators

IDG News Service – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has selected three emergency back-end registry operators to guarantee domain names within a new generic top-level domain (gTLD)A will resolve in the event of a failure at a new TLD operator, it said on Tuesday. [ALSO: Groups say ICANN unprepared for gTLD …

ICANN Names Back-up Registry Operators for New gTLDs

Marking another milestone in the implementation of the community-developed New gTLD Program, ICANN today announced the selection of three geographically diverse emergency back-end registry operators, or EBEROs. The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), Neustar, Inc. and Nominet were selected to guarantee domain names within a new gTLD continue to resolve in the event of …

Breaking: ICANN Revised Registry Agreement Posted for Review

In the interest of transparency and accountability ICANN is providing the latest revision of the previously posted “Revised New gTLD Registry Agreement” for the community’s information and review. Clean [PDF, 458 KB] Redline [PDF, 455 KB] Summary of Changes [PDF, 155 KB] This revision reflects the inputs and comments received from our stakeholders and other …

Many brands are rethinking their Internet identity strategies. – Are they contemplating is boycotting the defensive registration all together?

Companies looking to protect their brand identity on the Internet from phishers and cybersquatters will soon be faced with a dot-com identity crisis. “We’re hostage to the situation,” said Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, which has been fighting hard to convince Icann to put into place better trademark protections. …

Ex-White House Official Joins Group Fighting “Excessive” Online Privacy Laws

As the Obama administration and tech company lobbyists chip away at the European Union’s attempts to protect online privacy, a new pro-industry coalition has popped up to join the fray. Not quite two weeks ago, the Coalition for Privacy and Free Trade announced its existence. The group’s senior academic adviser is Daniel Weitzner, who, less than …

Egypt catches divers cutting Internet cable amid disruptions

(Reuters) – Egypt’s coastguard caught three divers cutting through an undersea Internet cable on Wednesday, the army said, the first suggestion criminals might be involved in days of severed connections and disruptions online. A patrol stopped a fishing boat near the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and arrested three divers, the army spokesman said on …

New Set of Initial Evaluation Results released for the New gTLD Program

According to the ICANN announcement of 29 March 2013, ICANN has released a new set of Initial evaluation results. Building upon last week’s release of results for the first 30 applications, today ICANN released Initial Evaluation (IE) results for the next set of applications with priority numbers 31-60. There are 25 applications in this second …

Feud Explodes Into ‘Nuclear’ Cyber-Attack

What if the World Wide Web were hit by a cyber-attack so massive as to threaten government infrastructures, banking systems, and email — and nobody noticed? That’s what’s reportedly happening right now. According to BBC News, a feud between a Dutch spam host and a spam filter vendor has spilled over into a series of …