ICANN has published what it is calling "Non-Lawyers' Guide to the May 2009 Registrar Accreditation Agreement"The document attempts to explain the registrar contract with ICANN in non-legal English.The registrar contract (RAA) is one of the more important documents when it comes to domain names, so the more people who can understand it the betterIf you register domain names then … [Read more...] about The Registrar Contract For Humans
icann
ICANN Chief Tweets His Income
Image by blacknight via FlickrIn what could best be described as a surprising move, ICANN CEO, Rod Beckstrom, tweeted his salary details (pdf) to the world yesterday afternoon.Beckstrom has been using Twitter (and Facebook) to share quite a bit of information related to the organisation's inner-workings. While this has been met with a positive reaction by many members of the … [Read more...] about ICANN Chief Tweets His Income
DNGlobe Loses ICANN Accreditation
Image via WikipediaICANN has terminated DNGlobe LLC's ICANN accreditation effective February 22 2010.In a letter to DNGlobe ICANN outlined why the registrar's accreditation is being pulled. Apart from anything else they do not have a WHOIS server accessible on port 80 ie. via a browser. Their website is currently unreachable as well, which is not a good sign.They also owe ICANN … [Read more...] about DNGlobe Loses ICANN Accreditation
Registry Registrar Separation Now Probably Going To Be A Policy Debate
Again on the subject of new TLDs ....One of the "issues" that concerned a number of people is the concept of "vertical separation".The basic idea is that registries and registrars should be kept separate.While that is a wonderful Utopian ideal, the reality is that in the real world companies own other companies, people trade in stocks and shares etc., etc. So it's far from … [Read more...] about Registry Registrar Separation Now Probably Going To Be A Policy Debate
IDN Scaremongering – Mashable and Times Online Screw Up
IDNs might be a slightly "hot" topic at the moment following on from ICANN's launch of the IDN cctld program recently.However, IDNs are NOT a new topic.Far from it.They've been around for quite some time.Unfortunately neither The Times Online or Mashable seem to have done any homework. Considering the amount of content available on IDNs that has been researched and actually … [Read more...] about IDN Scaremongering – Mashable and Times Online Screw Up
Digital Britain Uses Stone Age References
The Digital Britain report and the legislation which is now before the UK parliament (Digital Economy Bill) makes for very scary reading. The implications of the legislation are far reaching - and not just within the UKWhat about the sections of the legislation that refer to domain registries? Note the pluralThere is an entire section of the legislation dedicated to "internet … [Read more...] about Digital Britain Uses Stone Age References
Informal Working Group Publish Report On New TLDs
In an interesting move several members of the ICANN community formed an "informal" Working Group to discuss the concept of "expressions of interest" in new TLDs. This all happened very quickly, which is more or less the opposite to how most ICANN related activities progress.Earlier this evening the group submitted its report / paper to ICANNThe report, which runs to about 11 … [Read more...] about Informal Working Group Publish Report On New TLDs
New TLDs – Progress? Or Just More Chaos?
During the ICANN meeting in Seoul it became very clear that new TLDs were not going to progress on schedule (which schedule doesn't matter).It also became clear that:ICANN still wants them to go aheadICANN wants to make everyone happyThere's an obvious flaw there.You cannot appease all interest groups AND move forward with new TLDs.The "overarching issues" need to be addressed … [Read more...] about New TLDs – Progress? Or Just More Chaos?
ICANN Registrars Switching to new RAA Update
ICANN staff informed the Registrar Stakeholder Group at the meeting in Seoul, Korea, that 638 registrars have either signed the new RAA or are in the process of signing it. While it may prove difficult to encourage all registrars to signup voluntarily ie. prior to contract expiry it's encouraging to see that the bulk of domain registrations are now covered by the new … [Read more...] about ICANN Registrars Switching to new RAA Update
ICANN Site Revamp Unveiled
ICANN's website contains a LOT of information. Some of it is useful, some of it is fascinating, but it's all valuable (to someone)The problem with the current site is that has grown so much over time that it is practically unusable. Unless you spend a silly amount of time using it (and I do!) it's nigh on impossible to find anything. Even when you spend a lot of time using the … [Read more...] about ICANN Site Revamp Unveiled