Domain Name News – ICANN Meets This Week in London

ICANN meetings take place this week in London, with more than 2000 people in attendance. Here are a few of the topics to be discussed:

• The new gTLD program, and especially the .wine and .vin top-level domain applications, continue to draw much attention. ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) has not reached consensus on additional safeguards for .wine/.vin; however, some individual government representatives, including those from France and the European Commission, are pressing very strongly. In a recent letter, ICANN Chair Steve Crocker stated that ICANN has continued with the processing of the applications, but would welcome any additional advice from the GAC on the issue, and would also take into account the resolving of the issues in other global trade fora such as the WTO.
• The proposed transition of IANA functions stewardship away from the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Adminstration (NTIA), and the related topic of ICANN accountability, will be discussed. There is concern over ICANN’s approach; for example, here is an excerpt of a recent comment from ccNSO Chair Byron Holland:
  

  “The NTIA announcement calls on ICANN to convene a multistakeholder process — not to drive the community relentlessly to a predetermined outcome. As the strong and uniformly negative response to ICANN’s transition proposal and scoping document for the IANA transition demonstrates, ICANN does not appear to be listening to the community’s call a genuine multistakeholder process.”

• A comprehensive report on gTLD Directory Services will be reviewed. After more than a year of effort, a working group has proposed a Registration Directory Service (RDS) to replace the current WHOIS model for providing data on domain registrations.

Several hundred sessions will take place. Remote participation will be available for many of them.

Picks To Click

• This Thursday, June 26 is the last day for applications to be named to the CIRA Nomination Committee’s slate for the CIRA Board of Directors election. The Member Nomination stage will begin on July 30.
• “France lashes out at internet naming body Icann“, by Hugh Carnegy in the
  Financial Times.
• “Governments in combative mood over gTLD safeguard mechanisms“, by Trevor
  Little in World Trademark Review.

Timeline

• Sun, Jun 22 – Thu, Jun 26: ICANN meetings in London
• Thu, Jun 26: last day for applications to CIRA’s Nomination Committee
• Wed, Jul 30 – Wed, Aug 13: call for Member Nominees for CIRA Board election
• Tue, Aug 26 – Tue, Sep 9: shows of support for Member Nominees for CIRA election
• Wed, Sep 10 – Wed, Sep 17: online forum for CIRA Board of Directors election
• Wed, Sep 17 – Wed, Sep 24: CIRA Board of Directors election