Talks seeking to craft a new policy for allowing access to private Whois data have hit another nodal point, with the community now pressuring the ICANN board of directors for action. The Whois working group has more or less decided that a centralized model for data access, with ICANN perhaps acting as a clearinghouse, is [...] Continue reading →

Google Registry will allow trademark owners to register domains matching their marks in the .new gTLD from tomorrow. While the company hasn’t made a big public announcement about the launch, the startup dates it has filed with ICANN show that its latest sunrise period will run from October 15 to January 14. As previously reported, [...] Continue reading →

ICANN this evening said that it will continue to open up gTLD registry contract amendments for public comment periods, despite posting information yesterday suggesting that it would stop doing so. The organization recently formalized what it calls “internal guidelines” on when public comment periods are required, and provided a summary in a blog post yesterday. [...] Continue reading →

Car-maker Chrysler has withdrawn its application for the .ram dot-brand gTLD more than six years after receiving a government objection on religious grounds. Ram is a brand of pickup trucks manufactured by Chrysler, but it’s also a variant spelling of Rama, an important deity in the Hindu pantheon. Back in 2013, ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee [...] Continue reading →

Tarek Kamel, a senior advisor to the ICANN CEO and one-time shortlisted candidate for the top job, died yesterday, according to ICANN. He was 57. His cause of death was not released, but he apparently had been suffering from health challenges for some time. At ICANN, Kamel was senior advisor to the president and senior [...] Continue reading →

Nominet wants to know what you thinking about three significant policy changes that could be implemented in the next year or so. The .uk registry today published a consultation document covering two security-related changes and one related to expired domains. First, Nominet wants to know if it should be allowed to preemptively block resolution on [...] Continue reading →

Today, I’m introducing what I hope to be the first of several regular features, the DI Leaders Roundtable. Every week or two, I’ll be putting a single question to a collection of domain industry and ICANN community leaders and compiling their responses in order to gain some insight into current thoughts on hot topics or [...] Continue reading →