Seoul, South Korea – ICANN meeting participants from all over the world, notably from Asian countries, gathered on Thursday to offer and listen to public comments on different issues that ICANN has been discussing in its 36^th meeting.

The public forum, traditionally done on Thursdays, is ICANN’s way of reaching out to the community and providing an opportunity for both the stakeholders and the ICANN board to sit down together and have an interactive discussion.

The international community raised comments on the fast track process for IDNs, in which some countries and territories may have their own IDN ccTLD operational even before the guidelines for IDNs are fully laid out. Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush explained, “(The process) is called a fast track, because a very small number of countries, proportionately, in relation to the total number of countries have been put into a fast track (providing that) they have been able to satisfy us that there is no doubt about the name of the country, the representation of the name of that country in a script used in that country. And those are being allowed to go forward before the full policy development for IDN ccTLDs has been finalized.” He added, “(The) current predictions are, from the survey that’s been done, that less than 30 of the approximately 240 country codes will be going down that fast track.” This
means
that some countries will be using non-English characters in their full Internet addresses soon.

Meanwhile, the limelight also shone on IDN gTLDs as a participant from China, Zhen Cai, spoke up. “Most of the netizens in China cannot remember the frequent Web sites such as dot gov, dot info.  This somehow affected our popularizing of these Web sites, though there are many long domain names, it’s hard to remember.” More on IDN gTLDs from Dongbum Lee from the host city, Seoul, Korea: I’m the CEO of a small business here in Seoul.  While our site is in Hangul, our address on the Internet is not.  We look forward to the day when our customers do not need to switch to English to find us on the Internet. We also want potential customers to find us using other languages and scripts such as Chinese and Japanese.”

It is worth mentioning that Netpia, a Seoul-based company has been making it possible for non-English users to type Internet addresses in their own language, one country or one territory at a time, through a service called the Native Language Internet Address (NLIA). Another Asian, Hiro Katsu Ohigashi, from Japan, pointed out: “I kept hearing from people in many countries about interest in new gTLD program.  I’d like to inform you that there are a lot of people in Asia who is interested in this opportunity. And they are looking at this opportunity to introduce culture and business and build their identities in the entire world through Internet.”

As the entire Internet community watches ICANN move forward from its ties with the US government, and on to its new gTLD and IDNs plans, it cannot be denied that there will be more changes in the coming months and the Internet will keep evolving with its users’ choices.

As part of the preparations for the launching of the application process for new TLDs, the ICANN staff has been studying the best ways to protect the rights of trademark owners to discourage malpractices and abuses among those who will apply for their own TLD.  This was further discussed on Wednesday during ICANN’s meeting in Seoul.

Previously, ICANN has formed the IRT (Implementation Recommendation Team) and subsequently, the IRT has done some research and public consultations to determine the best practices in the industry when it comes to trademark protection. The public consultations have been done online and live in Sydney (35th ICANN meeting), New York and London. The IRT has been drafting ICANN’s RPM (rights protection mechanism) since its formation.

The RPM will not only be utilized in the application process. It will be the basis for evaluating a new registry in three stages: pre-launch, launch, and full operations. The core functions of the RPM is to validate existing trademarks and provide all the important data for pre-launch claims or sunrise services.

The pre-launch claims are those that may arise before a new TLD goes into launching and the sunrise service claims may potentially come from trademark owners who are against the registration of their trademark as a domain name in a new TLD.

Moving forward, the IRT aims to put in place a clear and transparent guideline in consistently validating trademarks, as well as a justifiable amount of fee, among others.

 
SEOUL, South Korea — The 36^th meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was officially opened Monday in Seoul. Netpia, a major sponsor of the event, warmly welcomed all the participants from all over the world.

Meanwhile, in his welcome speech ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush brought up the host city’s most significant contributions in the world economy. He acknowledged that South Korea is the largest ship builder and among the top five automobile manufacturing nations in the world. In terms of modern gadgets, Thrush quipped the high probability that the international guests are using a Korean-made mobile phone and also a Korean-made monitor with your computer, since South Korea is the leading manufacturer of LCD and LED TVs and monitors. “Korea is a global economic power,” Thrush said, adding, “(the) devices and ideas of this nation impact the lives of millions, if not billions, of people every day.” He said that this economic power of South Korea makes it a fitting venue for the 36^th ICANN meeting, considering the great deal of matters that will be discussed here throughout the week.

Thrush updated the international audience that South Korea has said that it wants to be part of ICANN’s fast track so it can establish a national TLD in Hangul characters, “because they have the same vision that ICANN does:  Making it possible to use the Internet in their own languages from the start of the address to the end.”

ICANN’s 36^th meeting is expected to be productive as it will deal with the issues of competition in the Internet industry, consumer protection, as well as security and stability issues. Malicious abuse processes and the infrastructure’s resiliency to these abuses will also be discussed. ICANN’s sovereignty concerns together with the consumers’ rights protection will also be discussed by the multi stakeholder group. And of course, the entire industry awaits more information and clarifications on the third version of the draft applicant guidebook for new gTLDs. Thrush said that by the time the application process for the new gTLDs is launched, the aforementioned topics for discussion will have been resolved.

Internet founders and leaders are joining industry executives and government officials in praising the selection of Rod Beckstrom as the new Chief Executive Officer and President of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

“Rod Beckstrom has exactly the sort of strong personal and technical background that ICANN needs, as we enter a period of unprecedented growth and change for the Internet,” said ICANN’s Board Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush, in announcing the appointment. “In addition to his cyber security expertise, he’s been a successful CEO of a global enterprise, done NGO work and volunteer work and a bestselling author. It’s an extreme understatement to say we are enthused.”

Beckstrom is the former Director of the U.S. National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC), where he formed an effective working group of leaders from the nation’s top six cybersecurity centers spanning the civilian, military and intelligence communities.

The announcement of Beckstrom’s selection as CEO occurred at the conclusion of ICANN’s 35th international meeting in Sydney, Australia.

UDRP  is the process that  domain users follow when faced with  problems on trademark protection or identity theft. The UDRP guides the current domain owners and interested parties to secure ownership of a particular domain name. Still, on the subject of improving or updating the UDRP, the IRT believes that the current statistics suggests that the UDRP is effective enough in deterring more rights violations considering that there has only been 27,000 domain names disputed out of 150 million registrations within the same period.

Meanwhile, rights owners who had been victims of rights violations were asked for the reasons on why their domain names got into trouble in the first place. The reasons that were given were the following: registrar failure, ccTLD technical system, serial cyber squatters who are too difficult to stop. With the reasons mentioned, the domain owners end up feeling frustrated as if they have been cheated.  It is therefore very important for rights owners to choose their registrars carefully.

For its part, the IRT hopes ICANN will efficiently protect the rights of others in an expanded domain name system, or when the new TLDs are launched perhaps next year.

One of the longstanding issues in ICANN is the situation over the WHOIS database. Every registrant, upon buying a domain name, is required to input WHOIS data that will be made publicly available to anyone who would run a search online. WHOIS data includes the registrant’s name and contact details including country, e-mail address, contact numbers, etc. However, a significant number of registrants refuse to input accurate data into the WHOIS database. This poses problems on illegal cyber activities, in which a person running a website  of say, for example, a gambling site, could not be easily reached for notices and complaints.

In other cases, consider a potential buyer of a domain name that is taken (not available anymore). Normally, when you want a domain name that is already taken, you go to WHOIS database to get information on who had bought the domain name, when will it expire, etc. However, since registrants are not inputting accurate data, you would find it difficult to negotiate with the current owner unless the registrar of the current owner would broker the domain sales for you. This is why the WHOIS accuracy issue
 remains a problem to be solved for ICANN with the help of the Internet community.

Overall, ICANN wants to maintain and protect the privacy of the registrants. So it is now considering designing a process in which registrants could safely input accurate data without worrying about privacy issues. ICANN wants to respect the registrants’ wish for privacy but at the same time, it wants to be able to get the necessary information about a registrant to prevent illegal cyber activities and encourage a fairer e-commerce flow in the Internet.
 
It is not expected that this is going to be resolved soon, but ICANN wants the regular Internet users to participate in the process, such that the users could report to ICANN or seek the help of their registrars in case they find suspicious WHOIS data.

ICANN on Wednesday will talk more about WHOIS data and how to respond to the ongoing Internet threats.

Kurt Pritz, ICANN VP for Services, announced some of the latest developments in the ongoing studies related to the imminent launching of application for new gTLDs.

Among other matters, still on the discussion board is the possibility of allowing 1- or 2-character TLDs since other languages, such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean can form meaningful words with only 1-2 characters. Right now, there is a lot of criticism coming from these countries when it comes to the 3-character requirement of the new program.

Pritz explained that even after the long discussion, ICANN did not release a version 3 of the applicant guidebook for new TLDs because there is still nothing definite when it comes to the most important details of the application process. However, Pritz stressed that public participation and comments will largely affect the final guidebook.

As of now, the most important stages in the application process are: acceptance, evaluation, string contention resolution (if necessary), dispute resolution (if necessary) and delegation (once the TLD has been approved). An applicant will need to spend $185,000 outright for an application to be validated. Additional fees will be incurred when an applicant meets objections and dispute resolutions.

Among the many things being polished right now is the issue on community objection. When a TLD applicant applies for a sting that is socially or politically relevant, for example (.eco), there is a chance that organizations and communities will object to raise their claim and right to the string. ICANN is still seeking ways to defend applicants from the rise of community objections. How an objection will be validated, how objections can be prevented in the first place, and how to resolve objections are very important issues for the prospective new TLD applicants. Pritz said ICANN is expecting around 400-500 new TLD applicants. He then noted that the final draft applicant guidebook will be released in December 2009 to allow more time for deliberations on what are the best things to do for a smooth application process. Public participation will continue through the 36th ICANN Meeting to be held in Seoul in October.

The shortest time that would be needed before a TLD is delegated would be around 6-8 months after an application is lodged. Administrative check would need at least 1 month. Evaluation and technical check would need around 5 months. The process for pre-delegation after the approval would need 2 months at the minimum. Therefore, considering that the final applicant guidebook will be released in December, the application round won’t be open until early or mid-2010. TLDs that won’t meet objections or won’t have to go through dispute resolution processes may be launched for public or commercial use within the last quarter of 2010 or early 2011. For some prospective TLD applicants, the whole journey towards the application process has been way too long already. Serious talks about the new gTLD application process started in June last year, but the timeline has been consistently adjusted to take longer time. For now, the only thing that’s certain is ICANN is not turning back when it comes to expanding the Internet with hundreds of new TLDs within the next 2 years.

Meanwhile, applicants who wish to apply for city and cultural names as TLDs are set to converge Monday afternoon to come up with plans and strategies to propose to ICANN in case the timetable for the application period gets adjusted again.

ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush officially opened the meeting after a very interesting cultural dance performance by an Australian indigenous group. Thrush mentioned that ICANN is somehow a “Sydneysider,” as Sydney represents the multicultural awareness and population in the ICANN community. In fact, more than 30 languages are spoken in Australia.

Meanwhile, NSW Premier Nathan Rees spoke about Sydney’s interest in having a .sydney as a new gTLD. He said that the Sydney government is well aware that the mayor of Paris has expressed strong support for the .paris endeavor, and they would welcome similar support for .sydney. Rees noted that afterall, Sydney, in which 200 nations are represented, is Australia’s digital gateway. In his welcome remarks, Rees affirmed support for ICANN while noting that the Internet doesn’t belong to anyone, and in fact it belongs to everyone, making it revolutionary in many ways.

The minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy in Australia, Senator Stephen Conroy, also graced the opening ceremony of the 35th ICANN Meeting. With a positive outlook, he shared with the ICANN community that Australia has launched some efforts last April to connect 90% of homes in the country by securing investments related to its infrastructure and communications network. This will translate to 25,000 jobs in Australia, a good indicator that Australia is indeed moving forward to respond to the opportunities available in the digital economy.

The meeting’s agenda was given by Twomey. In his last President’s Report, Twomey identified the agenda of the 35th ICANN Meeting, namely: the new gTLD program, IDN ccTLD fast track, new ICANN accountability mechanisms, DNSSSEC interim solution, etc. Trademark protection and economic analysis, particularly the benefits to consumers, are some of the key overarching issues in the introduction of new gTLDs. These issues along with the other factors that will be affected by new gTLDs will be heavily discussed this week. This meeting’s annual welcome reception will also serve as a testimonial dinner for Dr. Paul Twomey. ICANN’s achievements with Twomey at the helm will be celebrated Monday night.

The numbers have yet to be announced, but the 35th ICANN Meeting now being held in Sydney, Australia has got to be one of the most well-attended meetings in the history of ICANN. This may be attributed to the recent developments in and the imminent release of the final Request for Proposal for the new round of application for new TLDs, as well as the soon-to-be completed tenure of ICANN President and CEO Dr. Paul Twomey, who himself hails from Australia.

ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush officially opened the meeting after a very interesting cultural dance performance by an Australian indigenous group. Thrush mentioned that ICANN is somehow a “Sydneysider,” as Sydney represents the multicultural awareness and population in the ICANN community. In fact, more than 30 languages are spoken in Australia.

Meanwhile, NSW Premier Nathan Rees spoke about  Sydney’s interest in having a .sydney as a new gTLD. He said that the Sydney government is well aware that the mayor of Paris has expressed strong support for the .paris endeavor, and they would welcome similar support for .sydney. Rees noted that afterall, Sydney, in which 200 nations are represented, is Australia’s digital gateway. In his welcome remarks, Rees affirmed support for ICANN while noting that the Internet doesn’t belong to anyone, and in fact it belongs to everyone, making it revolutionary in many ways.

The minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy in Australia, Senator Stephen Conroy, also graced the opening ceremony of the 35th ICANN Meeting. With a positive outlook, he shared with the ICANN community that Australia has launched some efforts last April to connect 90% of homes in the country by securing investments related to its infrastructure and communications network. This will translate to 25,000 jobs in Australia, a good indicator that Australia is indeed moving forward to respond to the opportunities available in the digital economy.

The meeting’s agenda was given by Twomey. In his last President’s Report, Twomey identified the agenda of the 35th ICANN Meeting, namely: the new gTLD program, IDN ccTLD fast track, new ICANN accountability mechanisms, DNSSSEC interim solution, etc. Trademark protection and economic analysis, particularly the benefits to consumers, are some of the key overarching issues in the introduction of new gTLDs. These issues along with the other factors that will be affected by new gTLDs will be heavily discussed this week. This meeting’s annual welcome reception will also serve as a testimonial dinner for Dr. Paul Twomey. ICANN’s achievements with Twomey at the helm will be celebrated Monday night.