1) a. Warning to dotBRANDS at ICANN60:
Brand Registry Group Update (pdf) dotBrand Trends and Use Cases, Thursday, 2 Nov 2017:
Editor's Note - Translation: that fancy dotBRAND new gTLD (for which you paid ICANN $185,000 upfront), will likely not work as expected on the internet, including in email applications. For more info: News Review: ICANN's Extortionate .BRAND Scam Failing.
1) b. Moment of Truth at ICANN60:
GNSO - NCSG Meeting 31 October 2017 re: Consumer Safeguards (video beginning at 2:20:00):
Question to ICANN's Consumer Safeguards Director Bryan Schilling: What are the protections that are in place for [domain name] registrants?
2) Other ICANN news
b. Use of Emoji in Domain Names--Approved Board Resolutions | Regular Meeting of the ICANN Board 2 Nov 2017 | ICANN.org: "... Whereas, the SSAC report concluded that emoji should not be included in TLD labels and strongly discouraged the registration of any domain name that includes emoji in any of its labels ... Resolved (2017.11.02.09), the Board hereby directs that conformance to IDNA2008 and its successor will continue to be a necessary condition to determine valid IDN TLD labels. Resolved (2017.11.02.10), the Board requests that the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) and the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) engage with the SSAC to more fully understand the risks and consequences of using a domain name that includes emoji in any of its labels, and inform their respective communities about these risks. Resolved (2017.11.02.11), the Board requests that the ccNSO and GNSO integrate conformance with IDNA2008 and its successor into their relevant policies so as to safeguard security, stability, resiliency and interoperability of domain names." [Editor's Note: A cynic might say "Oh, go ahead and use the emojis, after all, ICANN delegated over 1200 new gTLDs into the root KNOWING most would FAIL TO WORK as expected on the internet--what's a few more defective gTLDs?"]
c. New gTLDs & Domain Name Collisions--Approved Board Resolutions | Regular Meeting of the ICANN Board 2 Nov 2017 | ICANN.org--"the Board has considered the applications for .CORP, .HOME and .MAIL and determined to defer delegation of these names indefinitely because of collisions. [Editor's note: good idea. Too bad the ICANN Board 2012-2014 wasn't as careful about new gTLDs "failing to work as expected on the internet" which ICANN had known about since at least 2003!] A name collision occurs when an attempt to resolve a name used in a private name space (e.g. under a non-delegated Top-Level Domain, or a short, unqualified name) results in a query to the public Domain Name System (DNS). When the administrative boundaries of private and public namespaces overlap, name resolution may yield unintended or harmful results. This class of as-yet undelegated strings is referred to as “Collision Strings.” In some cases, the unintended or harmful results of delegating Collision Strings may be considered “high-risk” ... the Board is ... requesting that the SSAC conduct a thorough study and provide advice to the Board regarding the risks posed to users and end systems if .CORP, .HOME, .MAIL strings were to be delegated in the root." See also: IDN Relevant Board Resolutions | ICANN.org.
d. Office of the Chief Technology Officer Document Archive | ICANN.org: Update on Postponing the Root KSK Roll.
e. ICYMI: New gTLD .WEB Appeal by Ruby Glen (Donuts), ICANN's Answering Brief --Editor's note: a "must read" if you want to know what is really going on re: .WEB and how Donuts, like many other new gTLD applicants, has probably made most of its money thus far with ICANN's new gTLDs (hint: gaming in the private new gTLD auctions), with analysis you will not find anywhere else on the web).
f. ICANN61 | San Juan Updates
- Hearing on Hurricane Recovery Efforts in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands | U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: Tuesday, November 14, 2017, at 9:30 a.m. ET in Washington, DC. and webcast LIVE replay.
- FEMA update: Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, has the same eligibility as any U.S. state for FEMA and other federal funds in a catastrophe, and FEMA aid to date is outlined here. The Trump administration has reduced the usual 25% match agreement required of U.S. states for some types of federal assistance to just 10% for Puerto Rico's government which was already financially strapped before Hurricane Maria's devastation of the Caribbean island. FEMA has extended job offers to 2,000 Puerto Rico residents to assist in recovery efforts on the island, and they will join more than 17,000 federal employees representing 35 federal agencies who have assisted in one of the largest disaster responses in U.S. history. [Editor's note: much misinformation (a/k/a "fake news") has been published in mainstream media about the recovery effort in Puerto Rico. Read For Hurricane-Hit Puerto Rico, an Insider’s Guide to Disaster Management | gCaptain.com.]
- Update via UPS.com Nov 8, 2017:
3) Names, Domains & Trademarks
• Trademark King? Thousands more trademarks linked to Michael Gleissner unearthed; leading in-house lawyer calls for action | WorldTrademarkReview.com: "Nearly 2,000 additional applications seemingly linked to entrepreneur revealed, some appear to be for terms associated with established, well-known brands. Leading in-house lawyer calls on IP bodies to do more and offer guidance."
• Domain Name Registration in China: An updated (Aug 2017) regulation, adopted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, requires registrars to verify the accuracy of information submitted by registrants. Registrars must not share the information with third parties without consent from the registrants who are also required to register any changes to their identity and contact info within 30 days--Xinhuanet.com.
• Verisign at Techweek Los Angeles (techweek.com/losangeles), Thursday, Nov 16 • 12:10-12:40pm, at The Broad Stage 1310 11th St, Santa Monica, CA 90401: "Building Your Online Presence hosted by Verisign: Join Ebrahim Keshavarz, Verisign SVP of Product Management and one of the top minds behind Verisign.com’s innovative names suggestion service and Alexandra Watkins, Brand Name Expert (domain: eatmywords.com) and Author, for a fireside chat as they discuss how this useful tool can help you find the perfect domain name to build your brand online and grow your business" (emphasis and links added).
• NTIA.doc.gov: David Redl, President Trump’s nominee to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), was approved by the Senate on Nov 7, 2017--TheHill.com.
• Trump Domains Hijacked: According to security experts, hackers hijacked the web addresses by penetrating and altering domain registration records at registrar GoDaddy.com--news-herald.com.
• KF.org UDRP Claimant John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Inc., DENIED Relief: "Complainant has acknowledged Respondent’s rights and legitimate interests in the domain name through its offer to purchase the name for $20,000."--adrforum.com
• Bad actors on the web are now using a combination of Google search-engine optimization (SEO) for banking-related keywords, compromised websites that rank high in Google Search results, and malicious Word macros to infect users with the Zeus Panda bank credential stealer.--ZDNet.com and Poisoning the Well: Banking Trojan Targets Google Search Results | Talos Group at Cisco | talosintelligence.com.
• The Dark Web: "... the deep web makes up most of the internet ... [m]uch of the content here is only available through the intranet — a private network — and includes things like medical and financial records, content from academic databases and government resources. Further below, under the cover of encrypted technology, lies the dark web. Google does not index the dark web ... How do you access the dark web? ... It can only be accessed through a program called Tor, which stands for The Onion Router. On Tor, the sites have a .ONION domain name ..."--KSL.com.
• Sci-Hub blocked by Court Order: Internet search engines, web hosting sites, internet service providers (ISPs), domain name registrars and domain name registries ordered to cease facilitating “any or all domain names and websites through which Defendant Sci-Hub engages in unlawful access to, use, reproduction, and distribution of the ACS Marks or ACS's Copyrighted Works.” --ScienceMag.org.
• [gnso-rpm-wg] Change in Status | mm.icann.org: "Dear WG Members: I have today, November 6, 2017, terminated all operations of the Virtualaw LLC consultancy and commenced employment in the legal department of Verisign, Inc. in the position of Policy Counsel. I intend to continue in my co-chair position, and will update my SOI prior to our next call."--Philip S. Corwin.
4) ICYMI Internet Domain News:
• United Arab Emirates: Seven Months After Completing His Sentence, Blogger Osama Al-Najjar Remains in Prison | GlobalVoices.org.
• Data, Privacy, & Liability: Data Breaches and Damages--Equifax Discloses its Coming Nightmares | WolfStreet.com Nov 10, 2017.
• Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill | Electronic Frontier Foundation | EFF.org: "... Just a few hours after Senator Thune’s amended version of SESTA surfaced online, the Internet Association rushed to praise the bill’s sponsors for their “careful work and bipartisan collaboration.” The compromise bill has all of the same fundamental flaws as the original. Like the original, it does nothing to fight sex traffickers, but it would silence legitimate speech online ..." See also Why Google and Facebook folded on sex-trafficking bill--"the first major legislative defeat for tech giants Google and Facebook"--Axios.com.
• China’s Severe Curbs on the Internet Leave Little to Censor | Bloomberg.com: President Xi Jinping is the "first Chinese leader to truly understand the power of the internet, and hence we are seeing an unprecedented crackdown on dissenting information.”
• Federal move to undo internet freedom would make US more like Russia, not less | TheHill.com: "... According to the bill’s own legislative findings and its sponsors’ remarks, more than $1.4 billion was spent on online political advertising last year. Of that amount, some $100,000 (less than 0.01 percent) has been reported thus far as coming from Russian interests. But S.1989 fails at even a perfunctory attempt to target foreign interference. Instead, the bill would almost entirely regulate Americans ..." See also New York Times' Assault on Press Freedom: "The New York Times, which once postured as the champion of a free press, now is seeking crackdowns on news that the public gets from the Internet under the guise of combating “Russian propaganda”--Consortiumnews.com.
• FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Rollback of 'Open Internet Order' at Risk in States | USnews.com: "The FCC chairman shouldn't allow states to undermine the rollback of Title II regulations ... Simply put, the U.S. is an attractive market with a common language, common currency and common regulatory policy supporting private infrastructure investment, including wireless and wireline networks delivering internet connection. This is not the case in the European Union, where innovators have to contend with 28 nations, 24 languages and 17 currencies ..."
• How Level 3's Tiny Error Shut Off the Internet for Parts of the U.S. | WIRED.com.
• André Staltz: The Web began dying in 2014, here's how | staltz.com
5) Top 3 Most Read Posts this past week on DomainMondo.com:
• Domain Name Registration in China: An updated (Aug 2017) regulation, adopted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, requires registrars to verify the accuracy of information submitted by registrants. Registrars must not share the information with third parties without consent from the registrants who are also required to register any changes to their identity and contact info within 30 days--Xinhuanet.com.
• Verisign at Techweek Los Angeles (techweek.com/losangeles), Thursday, Nov 16 • 12:10-12:40pm, at The Broad Stage 1310 11th St, Santa Monica, CA 90401: "Building Your Online Presence hosted by Verisign: Join Ebrahim Keshavarz, Verisign SVP of Product Management and one of the top minds behind Verisign.com’s innovative names suggestion service and Alexandra Watkins, Brand Name Expert (domain: eatmywords.com) and Author, for a fireside chat as they discuss how this useful tool can help you find the perfect domain name to build your brand online and grow your business" (emphasis and links added).
• NTIA.doc.gov: David Redl, President Trump’s nominee to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), was approved by the Senate on Nov 7, 2017--TheHill.com.
• Trump Domains Hijacked: According to security experts, hackers hijacked the web addresses by penetrating and altering domain registration records at registrar GoDaddy.com--news-herald.com.
• KF.org UDRP Claimant John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Inc., DENIED Relief: "Complainant has acknowledged Respondent’s rights and legitimate interests in the domain name through its offer to purchase the name for $20,000."--adrforum.com
• Bad actors on the web are now using a combination of Google search-engine optimization (SEO) for banking-related keywords, compromised websites that rank high in Google Search results, and malicious Word macros to infect users with the Zeus Panda bank credential stealer.--ZDNet.com and Poisoning the Well: Banking Trojan Targets Google Search Results | Talos Group at Cisco | talosintelligence.com.
• The Dark Web: "... the deep web makes up most of the internet ... [m]uch of the content here is only available through the intranet — a private network — and includes things like medical and financial records, content from academic databases and government resources. Further below, under the cover of encrypted technology, lies the dark web. Google does not index the dark web ... How do you access the dark web? ... It can only be accessed through a program called Tor, which stands for The Onion Router. On Tor, the sites have a .ONION domain name ..."--KSL.com.
• Sci-Hub blocked by Court Order: Internet search engines, web hosting sites, internet service providers (ISPs), domain name registrars and domain name registries ordered to cease facilitating “any or all domain names and websites through which Defendant Sci-Hub engages in unlawful access to, use, reproduction, and distribution of the ACS Marks or ACS's Copyrighted Works.” --ScienceMag.org.
• [gnso-rpm-wg] Change in Status | mm.icann.org: "Dear WG Members: I have today, November 6, 2017, terminated all operations of the Virtualaw LLC consultancy and commenced employment in the legal department of Verisign, Inc. in the position of Policy Counsel. I intend to continue in my co-chair position, and will update my SOI prior to our next call."--Philip S. Corwin.
4) ICYMI Internet Domain News:
• Data, Privacy, & Liability: Data Breaches and Damages--Equifax Discloses its Coming Nightmares | WolfStreet.com Nov 10, 2017.
• Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill | Electronic Frontier Foundation | EFF.org: "... Just a few hours after Senator Thune’s amended version of SESTA surfaced online, the Internet Association rushed to praise the bill’s sponsors for their “careful work and bipartisan collaboration.” The compromise bill has all of the same fundamental flaws as the original. Like the original, it does nothing to fight sex traffickers, but it would silence legitimate speech online ..." See also Why Google and Facebook folded on sex-trafficking bill--"the first major legislative defeat for tech giants Google and Facebook"--Axios.com.
• China’s Severe Curbs on the Internet Leave Little to Censor | Bloomberg.com: President Xi Jinping is the "first Chinese leader to truly understand the power of the internet, and hence we are seeing an unprecedented crackdown on dissenting information.”
• Federal move to undo internet freedom would make US more like Russia, not less | TheHill.com: "... According to the bill’s own legislative findings and its sponsors’ remarks, more than $1.4 billion was spent on online political advertising last year. Of that amount, some $100,000 (less than 0.01 percent) has been reported thus far as coming from Russian interests. But S.1989 fails at even a perfunctory attempt to target foreign interference. Instead, the bill would almost entirely regulate Americans ..." See also New York Times' Assault on Press Freedom: "The New York Times, which once postured as the champion of a free press, now is seeking crackdowns on news that the public gets from the Internet under the guise of combating “Russian propaganda”--Consortiumnews.com.
• FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Rollback of 'Open Internet Order' at Risk in States | USnews.com: "The FCC chairman shouldn't allow states to undermine the rollback of Title II regulations ... Simply put, the U.S. is an attractive market with a common language, common currency and common regulatory policy supporting private infrastructure investment, including wireless and wireline networks delivering internet connection. This is not the case in the European Union, where innovators have to contend with 28 nations, 24 languages and 17 currencies ..."
• How Level 3's Tiny Error Shut Off the Internet for Parts of the U.S. | WIRED.com.
• André Staltz: The Web began dying in 2014, here's how | staltz.com
5) Top 3 Most Read Posts this past week on DomainMondo.com:
1. News Review | ICANN60: ICANN Board Crashes The Party in Abu Dhabi
2. New gTLD .WEB Appeal by Ruby Glen (Donuts), ICANN's Answering Brief
3. Tech Review | Russia, Tech, & Elections: We Have Met The Enemy, She Is-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo