NTIA said it’s changing its domain to NTIA.gov from NTIA.doc.gov, including email addresses. The change makes the site consistent with other Commerce Department websites, NTIA said Monday.
ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization Council, OK'ing all policy recommendations in the Expedited Policy Development Process Team's report on temporary specifications for global top-level domain registration data, noted the final document has 29 such recommendations. Data that would be collected and made public such as through the Whois database of registered domain names would include some contact information to report problems, although some people's names would be redacted in other data fields. The council gave the nonprofit's board the report, with public comments due April 17 before directors would act, ICANN said Monday and emailed stakeholders the next day. In 2018, the board approved the temporary Whois gTLD registration data spec to comply with EU's general data protection regulation (see 1810310008).
Policy recommendations for the next round of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are expected to go to ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization (GSNO) Council for consideration in Q3, an ICANN official said Wednesday. The subsequent procedures working group is considering whether changes are needed to the way the 2012 round of new gTLDs was handled, Julie Hedlund, who provides GNSO policy support to the panel, said at the Middle East DNS Forum in Dubai. The working group started "from the assumption of the status quo": If the existing scheme worked well, it won't recommend modifications. Several topics under discussion are of particular interest to the Middle East, Hedlund noted. One is the applicant support program, which wasn't used much in the 2012 round because of poor outreach efforts among other things, she said. The group is examining whether some potential candidates for support might not see the business case for applying for new gTLDs or whether the environment they're working in might not be ready to support a domain name registry. Other relevant issues include concerns about how community-based gTLD applications are evaluated, and inconsistencies between GNSO policy recommendations for geographic names at the top level and how those policies were carried out in the last round. DNS Africa encountered several roadblocks in its quest for gTLDs such as .africa and .durban, said founder Calvin Browne. His organization didn't qualify for applicant support, which created financial problems, and there were issues with "Americanisms," such as insurance requirements that South Africa's insurance industry didn't understand, and that South African and U.S. banking systems couldn't talk to each other, Browne said. For the next round, ICANN fees will be a "major hindrance": A $20,000 annual fee for a gTLD with 3,000 domain name registrations works out to around $8 per name, which hampers innovation.
The ICANN board approved for another 90 days a temporary generic top-level domain specification for handling the personal data of domain name registrants under the EU's general data protection regulation, the organization said. The gTLD temporary spec was approved in May and reaffirmed about every three months after. It sets interim requirements for complying "with existing ICANN contractual requirements and community-developed policies" for GDPR, noted an ICANN email. The board can continue renewals for a year. Earlier Wednesday, a Brussels conference heard about non-domain name GDPR challenges and hopes (see 1901300007). An ICANN committee developing policy for GDPR compliance expects its final report in early February (see 1901250003).
The ICANN committee working on EU general data protection regulation expects to deliver its final report early next month. The Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) Team on a temporary specification for global top-level domain registration data got 42 unique comments, including from nine ICANN community groups, and from companies and other organizations. "From the outset of this EPDP, we knew the work before us would be challenging and require patience, flexibility, and hard work," blogged Generic Names Supporting Organization Council Liaison to EPDP Team Rafik Dammak Thursday. ICANN says it "has consulted with contracted parties, European data protection authorities, legal experts, and interested governments and other stakeholders to understand the potential impact of the GDPR to Personal Data that is Processed by certain participants in the gTLD domain name ecosystem (including Registry Operators and Registrars)."
ICANN wants feedback on a proposed amendment to its IANA contract with Public Technical Identifiers (PTI), which manages operation of the Internet Assigned Number Authority functions, it said Monday evening. The change would allow the Customer Standing Committee (CSC), which reviews PTI's monthly performance against the IANA naming function service level agreements, and PTI/ICANN to modify SLAs without having to do a contract amendment each time. Instead, an SLA change would be subject to a process that would enable amendments in a timely fashion but still require consultations with IANA function naming customers -- such as generic top-level domain name registries or country code TLD managers -- and the broader ICANN community as appropriate. Once the IANA contract is amended, the table containing current SLAs will no longer be included in it but made available on pti.icann.org or iana.org. The table may then be changed only when the change process is followed. PTI/ICANN would consider feasibility and costs of any potential amendments before a broader consultation. Comments are due Feb. 18, and a staff report is scheduled for March 6.
NTIA and Verisign agreed Thursday to extend through 2024 the cooperative agreement allowing Verisign to administer the root zone file and run the .com and .net domain registries, repealing the $7.85 .com domain price increase cap NTIA included when it last extended the agreement. The 2012 cap was set to expire this month. Repeal lets Verisign pursue a change in its registry agreement with ICANN that could result in up to a 7 percent annual increase in .com domain name prices beginning in 2020, an amendment said. The move “provides Verisign the pricing flexibility” to potentially “increase wholesale .com prices,” in line with the Trump administration's “policy priorities,” NTIA said. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other GOP lawmakers who were critical of the 2016 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition raised concerns that year about the proposed extension of Verisign’s contract with ICANN over domain pricing (see 1608150052). The new pact adds language committing Verisign to “operate the .com registry in a content neutral manner and that Verisign will participate in ICANN processes that promote the development of content neutral policies” for Domain Name System operation. NTIA clarified the company is barred from operating as a .com top-level domain registrar, not from being a registrar for other TLDs.
ICANN should avoid conflicts of interest when senior staffers leave, NTIA Administrator David Redl wrote ICANN Chair Cherine Chalaby, copying CEO Goran Marby. The U.S. intends to bring the issue up to ICANN's third accountability and transparency review team, which is expected to hold its first meeting by June, but "I encourage you to look into this now," he wrote. One potential fix would be to have cooling-off periods for employees who accept jobs with companies involved in ICANN activities and programs, he said. Friday's letter mirrored comments Redl made Oct. 22 at ICANN's meeting in Barcelona.
Video & Audio Center bought the domain name “justonewhisper.com,” President Joseph Akhtarzad told us at the Home Technology Specialists of America fall meeting in Dallas this week. “Twenty years ago, everything was about ‘Just One Touch,'” he said, referring to the name of the Los Angeles-based company’s custom installation business. The future, Akhtarzad said, is about voice, and eventually, “when everything is Just One Whisper, that will be the website.”
NAB asked the FCC to reconsider September approval of Nominet UK, which otherwise administers the .uk domain name registry, as a TV white spaces database administrator (see 1809190015). NAB found "hundreds of errors, including incorrect channel information for at least 200 television stations,” said Friday's filing in docket 04-186: “Nominet’s continued noncompliance with FCC rules also raises concerns about the Commission’s overall mechanism to reliably evaluate database administrator efficacy.” Nominet UK didn’t comment. The NAB said FCC procedures were apparently “insufficient to catch fundamental errors that would cause the database to return faulty information."