Monday, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Naming Function Review Team (IFRT) has announced that it is in the final stages of completing its Initial Report. The IFRT will be holding a webinar for the community regarding one of their proposed recommendations that would require an amendment to the IANA Naming Functions Contract between ICANN and its affiliate Public Technical Identifiers (PTI). This amendment may be of particular interest to country code top-level domain (ccTLD) and generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry operators.
Public Interest Registry’s General Counsel Brian Cimbolic has laid out a new two-step appeal process for their .org top-level domain under their Anti-Abuse Policy in a post on the registry blog. Under the new appeals process registrants who believe their .org domain names have been suspended unfairly can contact PIR and then appeal to a neutral third party. The goal is to help build confidence in a safer, stronger DNS.
[news release] Public Interest Registry (PIR), the people behind the .ORG domain name, has been selected by The Washington Business Journal as one of the Top 10 Best Places to Work for 2020. PIR was selected because of its culture of caring and respect, its deeply held mission, and its commitment to honoring its people.
The second quarter of 2020 saw global domain name registrations continue to rise, with an increase of 3.3 million, or 0.9%. This took total registrations around the world to 370.1 million as the global COVID-19 pandemic continued to wreak havoc.
An interesting news observation. As possible antitrust investigations into four of the biggest tech companies are discussed, this week MarketWatch reported how “some big names in videogaming could speed up things” including Fortnite, which they note “is one of the initial conclusions of legal experts and developers following Epic Games Inc.’s lawsuits against Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google for booting Epic’s hit videogame Fortnite out of their app stores Thursday.”
Back in April it was announced GoDaddy was acquiring Neustar’s registry services, and this week it was announced in a blog post on the new GoDaddy Registry website the deal had closed.
The FBI has reported this week it was seeing an increasing number of consumers not receiving items purchased from websites, according to complaints they have received. The websites are offering low prices on items such as gym equipment, small appliances, tools and furniture. And the FBI has found domain names being used are not .com, but rather the fraudulent websites are using new gTLDs like .club and .top.
Public Interest Registry (PIR) has become the first gTLD registry to undergo a human rights assessment with ARTICLE 19 and the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) collaborating to guide the .org registry in its human rights efforts. The report was largely positive, finding PIR’s “policies and operational procedures respected human rights so they cause few negative impacts.”
It’s been an interesting year for Public Interest Registry, the .org operator. For months following the announcement of the proposed takeover by Ethos Capital there was intense debate as to whether it should go ahead. After many months of deliberations, ICANN rejected the takeover and PIR is back to where it was before Ethos made its bid: intent on becoming an even better registry, focussing on quality registrations and growing in its global markets in a more meaningful way.
