Recently in icann Category

GMO Registry, which is part of the GMO Internet group, has been pushing dotShop, but it now appears that at least one other company is interested in pitching for it too..

This isn't the only new TLD project with competition and if ICANN announces tangible timelines in Cartagena you can expect to see a lot more of this..

At the ICANN meeting in Brussels one of the topics that came up for discussion both during the public forum and the board meeting, was the topic of remuneration.

That time round it was specifically in relation to the board and more specifically its chair. The discussion during the public forum was very interesting, as getting the balance right in such matters is awkward.

There is currently an open comment period on the topic

In any case it now transpires that the ICANN board held a meeting on June 23rd to discuss staff salaries. Or more specifically, the salaries of some of the more senior staff members, namely Kurt Pritz, John Jeffrey and Rod Beckstrom.

You can read more about the meeting here, though the details are pretty scant. What it looks like is that they've empowered Beckstrom to review both Pritz and Jeffrey's salaries - presumably upwards.

That an organisation would have some form of salary review process in place is logical. But during the current economic climate a lot of companies (and other organisations) are either freezing salaries or even reducing them.

And in typical ICANN style the salary review will involve more costs than just the actual increase in wages.Why? Well it's ICANN, isn't it? Instead of simply adjusting salaries they're going to pay consultants to tell them how much they should pay them ...

Beckstrom's salary is also included in this review .. ..

DomainNameWire has a story about Frank Fowlie, ICANN's ombudsman, being in the news again.

Fowlie attracted some negative attention a few months ago when an incident involving him and Air Canada made news.

He's since been trying to get his name removed from the public record, but has failed.

Over the last couple of years several of the gTLD registry operators have requested contractual changes with ICANN.

In many cases the change was small enough that it fit into what is called the Registry Services Evaluation Process (RSEP), which is the case of "new services" such as Verisign's Registry Lock.

In other cases, however, the requested change is much bigger and requires that ICANN open it up to public comment.

Such was the case with the proposed "Phased Allocation Program in .JOBS". which has been open to public comment.

You can read the proposal here (PDF), but in essence it broadens the usage scenarios and the possible registrants of .jobs domains quite significantly. Under the current regime companies are restricted to registering their company name or a close derivative. Under the proposal all those restrictions are gone out the window. From a registrant perspective that may seem appealing at first, but the way that this is being pitched could lead to only a very narrow number of registrants actually gaining at any level. Ultimately, however, the only entity that stands to gain would be the registry.

If you have the time take a read over some of the comments - they are quite revealing!

Several people have made comments about how ICANN has been losing staff over the last few months.

The most recent departure is their head of compliance - David Giza. His interim replacement will be Pam Little.

What makes this departure noteworthy is the level of activity in the compliance department over the past 18 months - the number of registrars whose accreditations were terminated due to non-compliance increased by several hundred percent

ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organisation (GNSO) has formed a working group to consider changes to the domain transfer process to enhance security and reduce hijacking.  The working group consists of registrars, aftermarket players, domainers and other members of the ICANN Community.  The group published its preliminary recommendations at the ICANN meeting in Brussels two weeks ago and the 20-day comment period has just begun.

The key areas of focus for the working group are as follows:

 a.    Whether a process for urgent return/resolution of a domain name should be
developed, as discussed within the SSAC hijacking report (http://www.icann.org/announcements/hijacking-report-12jul05.pdf; see also http://www.icann.org/correspondence/cole-to-tonkin-14mar05.htm);
b.    Whether additional provisions on undoing inappropriate transfers are needed, especially with regard to disputes between a Registrant and Admin Contact. The policy is clear that the Registrant can overrule the AC, but how this is implemented is currently at the discretion of the registrar;
c.    Whether special provisions are needed for a change of registrant near a change of registrar. The policy does not currently deal with change of registrant, which often figures in hijacking cases;
d.    Whether standards or best practices should be implemented regarding use of Registrar Lock status (e.g., when it may/may not, should/should not be applied);
e.    Whether, and if so, how best to clarify denial reason #7: A domain name was already in "lock status" provided that the Registrar provides a readily accessible and reasonable means for the Registered Name Holder to remove the lock status.

Comments by registrants, registrars and other interested parties are strongly encouraged and can be viewed at:

http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#irtp-b-initial-report

The deadline for submitting comments is 25 July.

Disclosure - I chair the working group

The site and registration for the next ICANN meeting is now online.

Cartagena de Indias will play host to the 39th public ICANN meeting this December.

ICANN have published the 4th version of the DAG.

The DAG - Draft Applicant Guidebook - is like the "bible" for anyone aspiring to run a new TLD.

Unfortunately the new TLD launch cannot take place until the DAG has been finalised - a point that seems to be always just over the horizon.

ICANN set a deadline for public comments on .xxx of May 10th 2010.
However, for reasons that they have not explained so far, the comment period is still wide open.

As of 10am this morning 12778 comments had been received.

Unfortunately, as has been covered elsewhere, a very large portion of the comments are automated submissions that bring little value to the process ie. a petition would have been more meaningful.

So when will ICANN close the comment period?

How will ICANN staff evaluate the comments? While there are a lot of repetitive comments there are also a lot of comments from individuals (including me) that need to be evaluated.

If ICANN do not get this right then what hope does the organisation have?

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The December ICANN meeting will be held in Cartagena, Colombia.

The ICANN board is currently meeting, so I'm seeing some information being dripped out of it via Rod Beckstrom's Twitter feed (nice work Rod!)

I suspect that the .co registry will be involved in the meeting in Colombia for obvious reasons, but are we going to see more panic from US participants? It's not as if the US has had an exactly stellar relationship with Colombia over the last number of years. ..