Digital Branding Blog

Paris, France will host ICANN's 32nd International Public Meeting June 22 - 27, 2008.

At its August 14, 2007 meeting, the ICANN Board accepted the proposal put forward by Association pour la Gouvernance de l'Internet en France, en Europe, et dans le monde (AGIFEM). "ICANN is looking forward to working with AGIFEM and welcoming the global Internet community to Paris," said Paul Levins, ICANN's Executive Officer and Vice President - Corporate Affairs. "We had two highly competitive proposals to host the meeting slated for ICANN's European region - a testament to the great local Internet communities in France and Serbia."

ICANN has received a number of competitive bids to host the 31st Public Meeting, slated to be held February 10 - 15, 2008 in the Asia-Pacific region. They are being closely evaluated and a decision will be made shortly.

Posted by Tempy Wright at 8:40 AM | Permalink

The future of the Internet will be front and center at ICANN's 29th International Public Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico this week. Meeting topics include the introduction of new gTLDs in 2008, Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), IPv6, and Registrar Accreditation Agreements (RAA), among others.

Posted by Tempy Wright at 1:38 PM | Permalink

The June INTA Bulletin reports that ICANN has recently revamped its contractual compliance program to ensure that TLD registrars and registries abide by the requirements of their ICANN agreements, which include providing a WHOIS service with accurate information, protecting registration and registered name holder data, complying with minimal functional and performance standards and ICANN registration policies, having a policy and procedure for resolving domain name disputes and following restrictions on the registration of reserved names. According to the article, ICANN intends to implement specific procedures for addressing TLD registrars and registries that are not in compliance with contracts, including investigating alleged violations, conducting regular compliance audits and providing transparent reporting of ICANN's compliance activities.

Posted by Tempy Wright at 2:33 PM | Permalink

Domain Name Wire reports that the Czech Arbitration Court (CAC), which handles .EU disputes, has filed a proposal with ICANN that suggests several key changes to current UDRP practices, including: providing dispute resolution services in more languages; creating a type of "class action" complaint whereby a single person can file a complaint on behalf of multiple rights holders against a domain owner that infringes on multiple domains (which would allow trademark holders to go after massive cybersquatters more effectively); offering an online platform for lawyers, registrars, and service providers to manage UDRPs; and banning reverse domain name hijackers from filing complaints after three losses.

CAC wants to become the fourth provider of dispute resolution services, in addition to three other organizations that currently provide services (WIPO, the National Arbitration Forum and the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre).

Posted by Tempy Wright at 1:54 PM | Permalink