ICANN announced the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, Inc. (FIRST) Friday last. The MoU aims to strengthen the relationship between ICANN and FIRST and enhance its collaborative efforts to support a safer, more secure, and resilient Domain Name System (DNS).
ICANN Tuesday announced the successful completion of String Evaluation of the proposed Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) country code top-level domain (ccTLD) string for Israel.
ICANN is inviting the community to join the ICANN Board for its upcoming Special Board Meeting on 7 May 2020 from 18:30-19:30 UTC. This meeting will be directly followed by an informational webinar regarding the Board’s Fiscal Year 2020 operational priorities. The Board meeting agenda can be found here.
Registrations are now open for the ICANN68 Policy Forum scheduled for 22-25 June 2020. Originally to be held physically in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic it has now been held as a virtual meeting instead.
Continue reading Registrations Now Open For Virtual ICANN68 In JuneICANN Thursday announced that its affiliate, Public Technical Identifiers (PTI), invites the community to engage with Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) staff and members of the PTI Board to discuss the development of its first comprehensive strategic plan.
Continue reading ICANN: Webinar Invitation: PTI FY21-FY24 Strategic PlanICANN announced Monday that it will hold two public webinars to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its current and planned work. ICANN org has recently developed new projections in ICANN’s Revised Draft FY21-25 Operating and Financial Plan and Revised Draft FY21 Operating Plan and Budget, which will be presented during the webinars for information and discussion and will be proposed for adoption by the ICANN Board in early May.
Please join one of the two scheduled informational webinars on 28 April 2020 to learn more about the impact of COVID-19 on ICANN’s planned work as detailed in the Revised Draft FY21-25 Operating and Financial Plan and Revised Draft FY21 Operating Plan and Budget. ICANN welcomes the community’s questions and comments.
28 April 2020
ICANN’s mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you need to type an address – a name or a number – into your computer or other device. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with a community of participants from all over the world.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2020-04-20-en
Purpose: This is a draft of PTI’s first Strategic Plan for community review and input prior to finalization and adoption by the PTI Board of Directors. The plan defines PTI’s strategy in delivering the IANA functions and represents a subset of the ICANN organization’s strategy.
Current Status: The PTI Board has developed this draft with IANA staff and the broader ICANN org, proposed to cover the fiscal years 2021 through 2024.
Next Steps: During the Public Comment proceeding, PTI will hold community webinars on the topic. Once the Public Comment proceeding closes, PTI will consolidate the feedback, publish a summary report, and the feedback will be incorporated into the finalization of the strategic plan.
This is the first dedicated Strategic Plan for Public Technical Identifiers (PTI). PTI as an organization was constituted in 2016, the result of the IANA Stewardship Transition that created a new not-for-profit organization to operate the IANA functions under contract with ICANN. Prior to this, ICANN had operated those functions directly. The IANA Stewardship Transition created and ratified a transition plan that includes deliverables and associated milestones, and that transition plan acted as the interim strategy for PTI in its first years of operation. To align with ICANN’s new Strategic Plan beginning FY21, PTI plans to adopt this plan for the period FY21-24.
The PTI Bylaws mandate the development of a four-year strategic plan that outlines the Corporation’s strategic priorities. Prior to adopting the plan, the bylaws state that PTI shall consult with the Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees, as well as the Registries Stakeholder Group, IAB and RIRs in the development and updating of the Strategic Plan. The plan shall also be subject to public comment prior to approval by the PTI Board. Upon approving the plan, the PTI Board shall submit it to the ICANN Board. The plan shall be reviewed on a yearly basis and the Corporation’s actual performance shall be measured against the Strategic Plan and reported to the PTI Board.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/draft-pti-fy21-24-strategic-plan-2020-04-20-en
Registrants of domain names in gTLDs have been given relief by ICANN should they be facing hardship resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes concerns about the ability of registrants to renew their domain names in a timely manner given current circumstances.
To ease the burden, ICANN announced in a blog post last week they will be invoking section 3.7.5.1 of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement for the second time. This clause permits registrars to temporarily forebear from cancelling domain name registrations that were unable to be renewed as a result of a natural disaster.
The post by Russ Weinstein, Senior Director, gTLD Accounts and Services, notes “the COVID-19 pandemic once again highlights the potential need for a policy initiative to protect registrants when they are unable to renew their domains as a result of natural disasters or other extraordinary circumstances. In the interim, we encourage contracted parties to take these circumstances into consideration when reviewing renewal delinquencies.”
ICANN announced Wednesday it’s turning its ICANN67 Public Meeting, which was to be held in Cancún, Mexico, into a virtual meeting with remote participation-only. This decision, ICANN says, was made as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, considered a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. Also up for review are the upcoming GDD Summit in Paris and the ICANN68 Meeting in Malaysia.
The meeting, scheduled for 7-12 March 2020, marks the first time in ICANN’s history that it will hold a Public Meeting solely with remote participation.
Each ICANN Public Meeting attracts thousands of attendees from more than 150 countries. With cases in at least 26 of those countries, there is the potential of bringing the virus to Cancún and into the ICANN meeting site. If this were to happen, there could be accidental exposure of the virus to attendees, staff, and others who come in contact with an infected individual.
COVID-19 continues to be a rapidly evolving global situation, with new cases emerging daily.
“This is a decision that the ICANN Board has been considering since the outbreak was first announced and it is one that we haven’t taken lightly,” said Maarten Botterman, ICANN Board Chair. “We know that changing this meeting to remote participation-only will have an impact on and cause disruption to our community; however, this decision is about people. Protecting the health and safety of the ICANN community is our top priority.”
ICANN acknowledges the community will have many questions about travel arrangements, scheduling, and other meeting-related issues. So they will be consulting with community leaders and groups to focus the virtual program on the most essential sessions, and will publish a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page to https://icann.org in the coming days.
Remote participation is an integral part of any ICANN Public Meeting, but it will be vastly expanded for ICANN67, and will leverage the robust technology platform in use by the community today.
Those interested in attending the remote meeting should still register in the usual place (here), if they have not done so previously. To learn more about remote participation, visit ICANN Public Meetings.
ICANN will continue to make further announcements as circumstances warrant. In the meantime, ICANN org will hold a webinar to provide a short update and take questions. The webinar will be held on Thursday, 20 February at 1800 UTC.
ICANN is also reviewing upcoming meetings, such as the GDD Summit in Paris and the ICANN68 Meeting in Malaysia. So far, no decisions have been made and these are proceeding as planned. ICANN will keep the community informed of any changes.
In the latest Domain Pulse Q&A series looking at the year in review and year ahead, we speak to ICANN board member Chris Disspain. Chris discusses the progress of the next round of new gTLD applications, the challenges of GDPR has thrown at ICANN relating to WHOIS, a 2019 highlight being finalisation of the new strategic plan especially in the way the ICANN community focused and pulled together to get it done and then what the future may hold for him after he completes his term on the ICANN board. He also would like to see a little more kindness “in the ICANN context”.
Domain Pulse: What were the highlights, lowlights and challenges of 2019 in the domain name industry, both for you and/or the industry in general?
Chris Disspain: The challenge of GDPR and its relevance to WHOIS has consumed an immense amount of time in 2019. And universal acceptance is a real issue for many especially but not exclusively in the IDN world.
The finalisation of the new strategic plan has been a highlight especially the way that the ICANN community focused and pulled together to get it done. And the streamlining of reviews work!
There are always lowlights. Calling them out isn’t necessarily helpful.
DP: What are you looking forward to in 2020?
CD: Enjoying my last year as a board member, making a difference and riding off into the sunset….. only to return later in 2021 wearing a different hat…..Or perhaps not!
DP: What challenges and opportunities do you see for the year ahead?
CD: Every issue has both a challenges and opportunities … Some examples for us are GDPR, various contractual matters, the sub-pro work, ccNSO work on retirement of ccTLDs, the ongoing work on IGOs acronyms, the ongoing community work-load and so on.
DP: How have new gTLDs fared in 2019?
CD: Some good, some bad I expect. But given that different gTLDs have different measures of success that’s quite a hard question to address. A brand likely doesn’t care about registration levels. A geographic may have a limited market and be happy with that. I guess the only real test will be to see what sort of applications come in in a next round.
DP: What progress do you see on a new round of applications for new gTLDs in 2020?
CD: Significant but it’s a long track that needs to be carefully navigated. As a board member (actually the only current board member) who was on the board from the beginning of the last gTLD round I know many of the issues that will need to be dealt with in the updated policy. Some of these are complicated and contentious but I’m hopeful that with the extraordinary work of the Sub-pro WG and the support of the community generally we’ll get there reasonably soon.
DP: What one thing would you like to see addressed or changed in the domain name industry?
CD: Well, in the ICANN context, I think a little more kindness would be good. And a ‘fix’ for the structural challenges within the GNSO would make a huge difference to the ability of the ICANN multi-stakeholder model to deal effectively and efficiently with the constantly changing industry dynamic.
Chris was also the founding CEO of Australia’s ccTLD policy and regulatory body, auDA.
Previous Q&As in this series were with:
Q&As in the 2019 series were with: