Author: John Demco

Proposed New ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement Posted – ICANN has posted for public comment a proposed new Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). The document is the result of more than 18 months of negotiations between ICANN and the registrar community. The agreement is “a cornerstone of ICANN’s efforts to work to improve the image of the…

ICANN Meeting in Beijing Completed – The 46th ICANN meeting was held in Beijing last week. One of the main themes was the New gTLD Program, and progress was made on a number of aspects of this initiative, including: Agreement was reached in principle on a new Registrar Accreditation Agreement. Progress was made on a…

ICANN Meets Next Week in Beijing – ICANN is meeting on April 7-11 in Beijing, China, with some pre-meeting events taking place as early as Thursday, April 4. One of the main topics will be the New gTLD program. Remote participation will be available for many of the sessions. ICANN Releases Second Set of Evaluation…

ICANN Releases Initial Evaluation Results for New gTLD Applications – ICANN has released Initial Evaluation results for the first set of New gTLD applications. Results for applications with priority numbers 1 through 30 have been posted, all of which are Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). Of these 30 applications, 27 have passed Initial Evaluation and three…

ICANN Seeks New Registry, Registrar Agreements – Approximately one month after posting a proposed new gTLD registry agreement, ICANN has posted a proposed new registrar agreement. Both proposed agreements have encountered criticism, notably from within the registry and registrar communities stakeholder groups. The negotiation processes have been similar in that ICANN has proposed significant changes…

ICANN Sets April 23 Target For First New gTLD Recommendation – ICANN is “targetting to be able to recommend for delegation the first New gTLD as early as the 23rd of April,” according to ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé in a recent interview. He went on to indicate that events beyond their control could…

Canadian Internet Forum Agenda and Speakers Announced – CIRA has announced the agenda and speakers for its third annual Canadian Internet Forum (CIF) to be held in Ottawa on Thursday, February 28. This year, the forum will explore digital literacy, cyber-security, and Internet governance. Speakers and panelists include Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, Steve Anderson from…

Call For CIRA Nomination Committee Candidates Closes This Week – The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has issued a call for new members for its Nomination Committee. The committee’s role is to solicit and select qualified candidates for the Nomination Committee slate of CIRA’s annual Board of Directors election. Applications to become a member of…

French Characters Now Supported In .CA Domain Names – It is now possible to register .ca domain names containing accented French characters. Registry upgrades made on January 13 represent the culmination of an extensive process of Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) consultation and implementation. Picks To Click The first .ca domain name, upei.ca, was registered 25…

Domain Name Registrations Surpass 246 Million Worldwide – According to VeriSign’s Domain Name Industry Brief [pdf], the third quarter of 2012 ended with more than 246 million domain name registrations worldwide, a year-over-year growth of 26.4 million or 12%. The annual growth as reported three months ago was 25.5 million or 11.9%. Total ccTLD registrations…

WCIT Fails To Achieve Consensus – The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) ended last week in a failure to reach consensus. The conference was held in Dubai under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations agency, with the purpose of reviewing and revising a treaty known as the International Telecommunications…

World Conference on International Communications Commences – The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) is taking place until December 14 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The meetings are being held under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations agency. The conference’s formal purpose is to review a treaty known as the…

Root Zone Partners Ready for New gTLD Deployment – The organizations responsible for managing the Root Zone have issued a statement on their readiness to deploy new gTLDs into the root, indicating that they “are able to process at least 100 new TLDs per week and will commit the necessary resources to meet all root…

CIRA Reports On 2012 Canadian Internet Forum – CIRA has announced the findings of its 2012 Canadian Internet Forum (CIF). According to the CIF report entitled Challenges and Opportunities for the Internet in Canada [PDF], the greatest concerns Canadians have about the Internet are security, access, cost, and digital literacy. Picks To Click The annual…