ICANN: Contention Sets and New gTLD Auctions

Depending on the person, the word auction can bring to mind a dusty, hot structure full of livestock and a fast-talking announcer with a Western lilt to his voice or a cool, quiet room of well-dressed art patrons waiting for the next Impressionist masterpiece to be unveiled in a stately building on the Upper East …

Why is the ICANN Board appointing its own Ombudsman for gTLD matters NOW?

Two ICANN boards tasked with reviewing requests for further reconsiderations in the new gTLD programme. This is intended to give applicants a fair evaluation of their requests before any exhaustive solutions are made on the 185, 000 USD applications. Such applications that have to go through the committees include those which GAC objections and are …

ICANN’s credibility questioned after the rush to sign .africa contract before IRP determination

The recent ICANN 49 meeting in Singapore saw Akram Atallah, president of ICANN’s Global Domains Division (GDD) and Lucky Masilela, CEO of ZA Central Registry (ZACR) participate in a symbolic signing ceremony that allows the new gTLD “.Africa” to proceed to delegation. The Announcement by ICANN continues that “This marks the first Registry Agreement signed …

ICANN signs .africa Registry Agreement with ZACR negligent of the IRP proceedings with DotConnectAfrica

ICANN has on Monday 24 2014 signed a registry agreement with the ZA Central Registry NPC trading as Registry.Africa to operates the .africa top-level domain. The agreement comes even as DotConnectAfrica is going through ICANN’s own Independent IRP process. The IRP which is a proceeding provided for in Article IV, Section 3 of the ICANN …