The Donuts domain name registry said it believes its participation in the anti-piracy Trusted Notifier partnership with MPAA "is a useful and efficient manner for addressing blatant online piracy, and we encourage others in the domain name community to follow suit with similar programs." Donuts and MPAA began their anti-piracy partnership in February, agreeing to a set of strict standards for making anti-piracy referrals (see 1602090029). MPAA has since also expanded the Trusted Notifier program to include UAE-based registry Radix (see 1605130053). MPAA has sent Donuts referrals against six websites using Donuts domain names for potentially infringing content, the registry said Wednesday in a blog post. Donuts suspended two of the domain names, and the registrar for two others deleted those domains. Another registrar took action against one of the referred domains, while another domain remains under MPAA investigation and potential Donuts enforcement action, the registry said. The Trusted Notifier program will hopefully “be a pre-cursor to a more streamlined industry-wide process that all interested parties can develop collaboratively,” Donuts said. MPAA Deputy General Counsel Dean Marks said in a blog post Wednesday “we share Donuts’ enthusiasm and positive evaluation of the constructive and cooperative voluntary relationship that we are building together. Furthermore, we share the same hope for future collaboration with more operators of domain name registries and registrars.”
ICANN said it implemented amendments to its domain name Transfer Policy and the Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy (TDRP). Amendments to both policies take effect Dec. 1, ICANN said in a Wednesday news release. The Transfer Policy amendments in part require domain registrars to deny inter-registrar domain transfer requests if the registrar imposed a 60-day transfer lock after a change in the domain’s registrant and the registrant didn’t opt out of the lock. The amendments also require a registrar to deny an inter-registrar domain transfer if a Uniform Rapid Suspension proceeding is occurring. The amendments also clarified ICANN’s definition of what constitutes a “material” change in domain registrant and modified the required information to be included in registrant change notifications. The TDRP amendments in part require registrars to file TDRP complaints with ICANN-approved dispute resolution providers rather than directing them to domain registries. The amendments require TDRP providers to publish TDRP decisions and expand the statute of limitations for filing a TDRP complaint to 12 months. The amendments also require a domain to be transferred back to the registrar of record if a dispute resolution panel finds that an invalid transfer occurred.
The FCC should clarify that video relay service providers can populate the "iTRS database with provider domain names, rather than user IP addresses," the five VRS providers said Thursday in a filing in docket 10-51. ASL Holdings, CSDVRS, Convo Communications, Purple Communications and Sorenson Communications said they have made much progress toward developing "voluntary, consensus-based" Session Initiation Protocol standards, but that in order to implement SIP, providers must publish their domain names in the iTRS database instead of user IP addresses. They said the FCC hadn't yet directed Neustar, which runs the iTRS database, to clarify that the domain name use is permissible despite their request it do so. They said using domain names has several advantages, including that it would enable providers "to switch service centers for maintenance and incident mitigation by changing DNS [domain name system] entries thus increasing VRS service reliability." It also would also allow providers "to more easily identify the provider of a peer-to-peer call to work on interoperability problems," enable "DNS load balancing and advanced routing" and minimize robocall attacks that affect VRS, they said.
GoDaddy sought FCC approval to transfer FreedomVoice's international Communications Act Section 214 authorization to the domain name registrar as part of GoDaddy's purchase of the cloud-based communications company. GoDaddy said Tuesday it was buying FreedomVoice for $42 million in cash and up to $5 million in “future milestones” payments. FreedomVoice currently holds Section 214 authorization to provide international telecom services between the U.S. and “international points on a facilities and resold basis,” GoDaddy said in Thursday's filing. GoDaddy/FreedomVoice “will serve the public interest by further facilitating the provision of cloud-based communications and other services to small businesses,” GoDaddy said. “This transaction will not impact FreedomVoice's customers, and will be virtually transparent to customers in terms of the service they now receive.”
MPAA and United Arab Emirates-based domain name registry Radix reached agreement to make the association a “trusted notifier” to refer “large-scale” websites engaged in copyright infringement that use Radix-operated domain extensions. MPAA reached a similar agreement with domain name registry Donuts (see 1602090029). The Radix agreement includes “strict standards” for referral, including evidence of “clear and pervasive” infringement and evidence that MPAA attempted to contact the registrar and hosting provider to resolve the situation before notifying Radix, the association said Friday. Radix will work with registry partners to contact an infringing website’s operator and the registry will use its existing authority to suspend the website if the registry finds further evidence of infringement, MPAA said. “Our aim is to evolve our domain extensions to a point where internet users feel a greater sense of security when they see a URL that ends with them,” Radix Business Head Sandeep Ramchandani said in an MPAA news release. “While this agreement is geared to film and television piracy, similar agreements could address other illegal activity online,” MPAA Global General Counsel Steven Fabrizio said in the news release. “Hopefully, it can become a model to be used with other players in the domain name ecosystem and internet intermediaries.”
The Donuts domain name registry said it invested in geofence management firm GeoFrenzy, launching its Donuts Labs investment initiative. Donuts didn't disclose how much it invested in GeoFrenzy but said its Donuts Labs initiative will target companies that may create new uses for domain names or otherwise complement Donuts' interests. Apps use the geofence technology that GeoFrenzy manages to define geographic areas and then direct drones, driverless cars and other technologies. “There are outstanding opportunities available to put Donuts' abilities to work in companies that are similar to ours, use DNS [domain name system] technology, or simply are adjacent to our industry,” Donuts CEO Paul Stahura said in a Tuesday news release. “The Donuts team intends to be active in these developing areas.”
ICANN is “evaluating next steps and our procedural options” after U.S. District Court in Los Angeles last week granted DotConnectAfrica Trust’s request for a preliminary injunction halting ICANN's delegation of the .africa top-level domain to the ZA Central Registry, an ICANN spokesman said Friday. Judge Gary Klausner said an injunction was needed because “the evidence suggests that ICANN intended to deny DCA's application based on pretext.” Klausner also questioned the enforceability of provisions in the waiver DCA Trust agreed to when it applied to be the .africa registry that waived DCA Trust's right to sue ICANN over the .africa delegation decision (see 1604140056).
About 15 million domain names were added to the Internet in Q4, raising the total number of registered domain names globally to 314 million, Verisign said in a report. Worldwide domain name registrations in Q4 grew by almost 26 million, a 9 percent increase over the same period in 2014, Verisign said. There were a combined 139.8 million .com and .net domain names at the end of Q4, up 6.3 percent from 2014, Verisign said. The company’s average daily Domain Name System query load in Q4 increased by 11.9 percent from 2014 to 123 billion queries.
U.S. District Court in Los Angeles granted DotConnectAfrica Trust's request for a preliminary injunction halting ICANN's delegation of the .africa top-level domain to the ZA Central Registry. DCA Trust sought the preliminary injunction amid its ongoing lawsuit against ICANN, which seeks to require ICANN to follow the terms of independent review process (IRP) proceedings that found ICANN mishandled DCA's 2013 challenge to the nonprofit's .africa delegation decision. DCA Trust also wants ICANN to reconsider the registry's application to be the .africa registry (see 1603070062 and 1603280050). “The evidence suggests that ICANN intended to deny DCA's application based on pretext,” Judge Gary Klausner said in his ruling: ICANN hasn't “introduced any controverting facts. As such, the Court finds serious questions regarding the enforceability of” provisions of a waiver that DCA Trust agreed to when it applied to be the .africa registry that waived DCA Trust's right to sue ICANN over the .africa delegation decision. Evidence “presents serious questions” about whether ICANN followed the IRP decisions in favor of DCA Trust, including “whether DCA's application should have proceeded to the delegation stage” after the IRP decision, Klausner said. DCA “will likely suffer irreparable harm” if ICANN proceeds with the .africa delegation before the lawsuit is concluded, Klausner said. ICANN didn't comment.
ICANN said it and Verisign began a 90-day “parallel testing” period last week to verify that data contained in the Root Zone Management System-produced (RZMS) root zone file will remain reliable after the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition is completed. ICANN and Verisign proposed parallel testing of the root zone file as part of their August proposal to NTIA on root zone management. Parallel testing is meant to determine whether the production RZMS process and a testing version of the process that doesn’t include NTIA’s authorization step will produce identical versions of the root zone file, ICANN said Friday. A successful test shouldn’t include any “unexplained differences” in the two root zone file versions, ICANN said in a news release. Verisign will publish daily comparison reports of the two root zone files throughout the 90-day testing period, while ICANN will produce a monthly report on the test results, ICANN said. All Verisign reports since the testing period’s start April 6 showed no differences in the parallel root zone file versions, the company said.