Tag Archives: Israel

How Washington power brokers gained from NSO’s spyware ambitions

The Israeli surveillance giant NSO Group and companies linked to it or its founders have spent millions of dollars in hopes of wooing their way into the U.S. market, hosting demonstrations for government intelligence officials and hiring Washington’s most prominent names despite pledges that its phone-hacking tool can’t be used inside the United States.

Continue reading How Washington power brokers gained from NSO’s spyware ambitions

ICANN Announces Successful String Evaluation for Israel IDN ccTLD

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.

Continue reading ICANN Announces Successful String Evaluation for Israel IDN ccTLD

.IL Registry Fee Upped By One-Third

The registry fee for domain names under Israel’s ccTLD .il increased by a third to 44 shekels (US$12.25) from 34 shekels on 1 January 2019.

In their announcement [in Hebrew], the Israeli Internet Association, who manage Israel’s country code top level domain, said their board of Directors noted the last time the fee was increased was in 2013. In the past 12 years there have been a number of changes including ending direct registration activity.

Justifying the increase, the IIA said in recent years they have performed extensive infrastructure technological activity to ensure the strength and stability of the .il space. And there are significant technological changes anticipated in the coming years.

Israeli Registry To Stop Registrar Services In November

The registry for .il domain names, ISOC-IL, is to cease its registrar services on 1 November.

Israeli Internet Association - ISOC-IL - logoThe Israeli registry will cease domain name registration and administration of domain names currently under its direct management to its accredited registrars. ISOC-IL will focus on its role of managing and leading the IT infrastructure and database required for managing Israeli domain names registry.

The purpose of this step is to enhance the execution of the domain name registration by ISOC-IL accredited registrars, who are private entities operating in a competitive and free market. This is a direct and natural continuation to the significant step undertaken by ISOC-IL a decade ago – adjusting the domain name registration model to the one applied by many registries in the world. In this model, the domain name registry (the Registry) manages and leads the IT infrastructure and database needed to manage domain names at the top level (such as IL), while the process of registration and administration of domain names vis-a-via the holders of such names is performed by registrars, authorized by the registry and acting under his supervision.

The Israel Internet Association – ISOC-IL (RA) – has managed the registry of domain names since the dawn of general public use of the Internet in the 90’s. Until 2007, the Registry has served as the sole registrar and registry managing body. From that date, ISOC-IL commenced accreditation of other bodies to serve as secondary registrars. To date, ISOC-IL has authorized ten registrars who have been acting in parallel with the Registry.

The new policy turns the Registry into an entity focused solely on management and supervision, thus actually making another adjustment of the model in Israel to the most advanced models used by many registers worldwide in which the domain names with country suffixes (ccTLD) are managed by non-profit neutral entities such as ISOC-IL. This model provides the end-user with competitive service and price. At this stage, the new model will not apply to domain names that are not subject to the Association’s current registration rules, set forth on December 31, 1998.

According to ISOC-IL CEO, Adv. Yoram Hacohen “the purpose of this important step is to continue focusing the activities of ISOC-IL as the main third sector body in Israel on Internet and digital life issues. With regards to the domain name registration system, we will focus on supervising the registrars’ activity, both in terms of service provided to the end customer and the level of security required for this activity. I hope that ISOC-IL ceasing activity as a registrar will be an incentive for the registrars to offer a rich variety of services related to the management of domain names. ISOC-IL retains the possibility of reassuming its activity as a registrar, if so required in case there are malfunctions in the market”.

In Case Over Attempts To Seize Iran’s ccTLD, ICANN Tells Court ccTLDs Are Not Property

ICANN has told a US federal court in the District of Columbia, that a ccTLD cannot be considered “property,” and thus cannot be attached by plaintiffs in a lawsuit, who are trying to obtain the assets of countries that they argued have supported terrorism.”We filed a Motion to Quash in the US federal court today, to ensure that the court has the essential information about how the Internet’s domain name system (DNS) works. While we sympathise with what plaintiffs may have endured, ICANN’s role in the domain name system has nothing to do with any property of the countries involved”, said John Jeffrey, ICANN’s General Counsel and Secretary.”We explained in our Motion to Quash, that country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLD) are part of a single, global interoperable Internet which ICANN serves to help maintain.” Jeffrey further explained that “ccTLD’s are not property, and are not ‘owned’ or ‘possessed’ by anyone including ICANN, and therefore cannot be seized in a lawsuit.”ICANN’s arguments were put forth when the victims of terrorism who had successfully won lawsuits against Iran, Syria and North Korea, sought to collect on those civil judgments. In their attempt to recover assets from these countries, the plaintiffs served ICANN with “writs of attachment” and subpoenas seeking information to help them seize the ccTLDs of those nations.ICANN also argued that if ccTLDs were property, they would not be “in the US” and therefore subject to attachment — rather the ccTLDs are located where the servers that contain the domain are located — in this case in Syria, Iran and North Korea, Paul Rosenzweig wrote on the Lawfare blog.Rosenzweig, a conservative attorney, also wrote that ICANN “argues that the suit is barred by the sovereign immunity of the “property” owners; and that it lacks legal authority to make the transfer requested. Finally (and to my mind most persuasively) it argues that having US courts force the re-delegation of the domains would destroy their entire value and go a long way to fracturing and destroying the general domain name system of the internet.”If successful, as I wrote on Domain Pulse/Domain News, the case could set a precedent and mean countries such as North Korea and Syria could lose control of their ccTLDs. The case was won by families in late June who won American federal court judgments that amount to more than a billion dollars against the Iranian government seeking to own all the TLDs provided by the US to Iran including the .ir TLD, the ایران TLD and all Internet Protocol (IP) addresses being utilised by the Iranian government and its agencies. The court papers were served on ICANN.The ccTLDs (and related IP addresses) targeted by the plaintiffs include; .IR (Iran), .SY (Syria) and .KP (North Korea), as well as internationalised top-level domains in non-ASCII characters for Iran and Syria.”This is the first time that terror victims have moved to seize the domain names, IPs and internet licenses of terrorism sponsoring states like Iran and are attempting to satisfy their court judgments,” attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Tel-Aviv said in a statement in June. “The Iranians must be shown that there is a steep price to be paid for their sponsorship of terrorism. In business and legal terms it is quite simple – we are owed money, and these assets are currency worth money.”

Hebrew IDNs General Registration Commences Sunday

Hebrew internationalised domain names (IDNs) will be available for general registration in the Israeli ccTLD as of this Sunday, the Israeli registry ISOC-IL has announced.

The opening of Hebrew IDNs for registration to the general public follows the completion of a Sunrise Process where a small number of Hebrew domain names identical to the names of incorporated entities and certain trademarks were reserved.

Registration is done through accredited registrars and more information, including eligibility rules, is available on the ISOC-IL website here.

Europe Registry logoTo register your .IL domain name, check out Europe Registry here.

.IL Domain Names in Hebrew Available Soon

ISOC-IL, the registry for .IL (Israel), has announced they will soon be making available domain names containing Hebrew characters, like איגוד-האינטרנט.org.il.

Prior to general availability, ISOC-IL is launching a Sunrise process. There will be four phases in the lead up to making Hebrew .IL domain names available to the general public. The dates for the different phases are:
Phase 1: 30 August 2010 – 30 October 2010.
Phase 2: 31 October 2010 – 20 November 2010.
Phase 3: 21 November – 4 December 2010.
Phase 4: Public Registration.

The Sunrise is intended for owners of certain Israeli trademarks, and for incorporated legal entities, such as companies and associations, whose registration is officially handled by the State of Israel. The Sunrise allows such entities to secure the registration of well-defined Domain Names which reflect their trademarks or registered names.

This process for making .IL domain names in Hebrew comes about as ISOC-IL is in the process of consulting on a Top Level Domain in Hebrew. However when the Hebrew TLD is introduced, registrants with existing .IL domain names will automatically get their domain name in the Hebrew TLD with no additional cost.

For more information on the introduction of Hebrew .IL domain names and the introduction of a Hebrew internationalised top level domain, see:
www.isoc.org.il/domains/idn_eng/

Europe Registry logoTo register your .IL domain name, check out Europe Registry here.