ICANN: Yes, we're toothless

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:12:11 -0400

For any of us who have been frustrated by ICANN's seeming unwillingness to enforce many of the issues surrounding domain registration, we now have some answers: ICANN admits that the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) is missing authority over many issues that "were not contemplated when the RAA was written."

ICANN's July magazine, which references highlights of its June newsletter, includes a section titled "Why Domain Name Issues are Not Always a Matter of Contractual Compliance" which reads in part:

"The parties engaged in some of the new practices that the ICANN community is studying do not involve the actions of contracted parties (registrars or registries) exclusively. Hence, the RAA and the registry agreements do not always provide neat solutions to current issues. Some issues are more appropriately addressed through the enactment of new policies or RAA amendments, while other issues are clearly outside of ICANN's mission. Some issues can be addressed by ICANN outside of the contractual compliance role or by other parts of the Internet community."

The section is almost certainly a response to scathing commentary from Brian Krebs that appeared on the Washingon Post blog Security Fix back in May. Krebs noted that research had determined that the majority of spam came from domains registered with false WHOIS information. The Standard's own Ian Lamont wondered last month whether ICANN would take action against one of the worst offenders, a Chinese registrar that has registered tens of thousands of spam sites, most with blatantly false WHOIS information.

ICANN has mastered passing the buck when it comes to enforcement, whether the RAA has clearly defined rules about the issues or not. Having personally tried to get them to enforce issues with ENOM squatting on domains and demanding hundreds of dollars to renew when one of their resellers failed to transfer domains as requested, I don't think that ICANN's proposed changes to the RAA will change anything when it comes to forcing registrars to abide by the terms they are supposed to be governed by.

More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:

Analysis:
News: Chinese, Arabic and Hindi domain names to go up for sale – finally!
News: http://is8.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/26/icann-approves-new-domain-naming-rules-new-profits-them

ICANN: Yes, we're toothless

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:12:11 -0400

ICANN's July magazine, which references highlights of its June newsletter, includes a section titled "Why Domain Name Issues are Not Always a Matter of Contractual Compliance" which reads in part:

"The parties engaged in some of the new practices that the ICANN community is studying do not involve the actions of contracted parties (registrars or registries) exclusively. Hence, the RAA and the registry agreements do not always provide neat solutions to current issues. Some issues are more appropriately addressed through the enactment of new policies or RAA amendments, while other issues are clearly outside of ICANN's mission. Some issues can be addressed by ICANN outside of the contractual compliance role or by other parts of the Internet community."

More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:

Analysis:
News: Chinese, Arabic and Hindi domain names to go up for sale – finally!
News: http://is8.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/26/icann-approves-new-domain-naming-rules-new-profits-them

ICANN: Yes, we're toothless

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:12:11 -0400

ICANN's July magazine, which references highlights of its June newsletter, includes a section titled "Why Domain Name Issues are Not Always a Matter of Contractual Compliance" which reads in part:

"The parties engaged in some of the new practices that the ICANN community is studying do not involve the actions of contracted parties (registrars or registries) exclusively. Hence, the RAA and the registry agreements do not always provide neat solutions to current issues. Some issues are more appropriately addressed through the enactment of new policies or RAA amendments, while other issues are clearly outside of ICANN's mission. Some issues can be addressed by ICANN outside of the contractual compliance role or by other parts of the Internet community."

More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:

Analysis:
News: Chinese, Arabic and Hindi domain names to go up for sale – finally!
News: http://is8.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/26/icann-approves-new-domain-naming-rules-new-profits-them

ICANN: Yes, we're toothless

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:12:11 -0400

ICANN's July magazine, which references highlights of its June newsletter, includes a section titled "Why Domain Name Issues are Not Always a Matter of Contractual Compliance" which reads in part:

"The parties engaged in some of the new practices that the ICANN community is studying do not involve the actions of contracted parties (registrars or registries) exclusively. Hence, the RAA and the registry agreements do not always provide neat solutions to current issues. Some issues are more appropriately addressed through the enactment of new policies or RAA amendments, while other issues are clearly outside of ICANN's mission. Some issues can be addressed by ICANN outside of the contractual compliance role or by other parts of the Internet community."

More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:

Analysis:
News: Chinese, Arabic and Hindi domain names to go up for sale – finally!
News: http://is8.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/26/icann-approves-new-domain-naming-rules-new-profits-them