Digital archery issue index (13 Jun 12)

The following letter was sent by MarkMonitor to ICANN on 7 June 2012 over plans to batch new gTLD applications through a 'digital archery' method. It was published the following day on the company's blog.

MarkMonitor Asks ICANN to Reconsider Batching and Allow Community to Provide Input

Yesterday, MarkMonitor sent the following letter to ICANN requesting that they

1. reconsider batching
2. allow the community to provide guidance after the list of applications has been revealed, and
3. unambiguously clarify whether "Digital Archery" technology solutions provided by third-parties are allowed

To: New gTLD Program Committee

Re: New gTLD Batching and "Digital Archery"

June 7, 2012

Efforts to raise awareness of the need to move to the new Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) through "IPv6 Day" were broadly seen to be successful with a big jump in traffic as people were encouraged to make the transition from the old IPv4 system.

However, the amount of traffic of the Internet using IPv6 remains tiny overall, representing just 0.1 percent (although that is an improvement on last year's 0.02 percent). The move to IPv6 is becoming increasingly important, warn Internet engineers, as addresses on the old IPv4 system slowly run out.

However, due to the fact that IPv6 is not compatible with IPv4, many companies are putting off the additional expenditure of moving to IPv6 until they have no other choice.

Predictions, new companies and - finally - the release of information

With just a few hours to go until details of the thousands of applications for new Internet domains is finally released, those that have spent the past five years working up to this day are, tentatively, allowing themselves to get excited.

The process run by ICANN has been one of the more convoluted, painful and at times, downright frustrating experiences that many of the companies in the Internet field have ever experienced. But tomorrow at least everyone will be able to revel in the fact that it has finally happened.

ICANN, and particularly its outgoing CEO, is trying to make as much of the launch as possible. Sadly, the right of ICANN to be excited and proud was lost some time ago - somewhere between the fourth version of the Applicant Guidebook and the six-week delay in closing applications.

No let up in vocal skirmishes as summary document leaks

ITR discussions begin to resemble Monty Python's argument sketch

It is an unsettling truth that if you are being physically attacked, experts recommend you should shout the word "fire" rather than "help".

Why? Because if people hear the word "fire" they immediate think it could affect them too, so you get their attention. Once you have it, people find it much harder not to rush to your aid.

It is difficult to picture the United States government in the role of victim, but even so it has been on a concerted and organized campaign to shout the word "fire" as frequently and loudly as possible in recent months over an upcoming conference in Dubai in December. The Internet is being attacked by the United Nations, come the cries, and if you don't help, you can kiss goodbye to the network you know and love.

Shane Tews: If you all in the back, there's a little space, you either spread or come in the room, you're welcome. If you want to walk in I'll give you a second while I'm introducing everybody. Or if you really like standing in the hallway, good luck. [laughter] There's a couple chairs up front. So I'm excited and unlike Tim's [0:00:28] ____ issue, it's not gonna be [0:00:31] ____ when we're done and it would never be [0:00:34] ____ in the room.

Facebook was ordered to reveal the identities of those who has unfairly targeted a UK woman online, creating a potential legal precedent. Nicola Brookes was granted a high court order after she was at the end of "vicious and depraved" abuse on the social networking site having done no more than voice support for a game show contestant.

Facebook has been ordered to reveal the names, email and IP addresses of those behind a torrent of abusive messages. The case is being hailed as a fightback against anonymous online bullies - reflecting a recent YouTube hit where a comedienne puts some of the more abusive messages she has received online to music (warning: strong language).

The row over a highly sophisticated cyberspying worm called Flame continues. This week, President Obama was forced to dispute claims that the White House had leaked the fact it was behind the worm, which was found on computers mostly in Iran and is believed to have sent back huge amount of confidential information.

Obama was seen to gain politically in an election year from being touch on Iran but denied that his team would ever leak national security information. Meantime researchers discovered that the worm's authors had tried to kill any trace of the worm by sending out a "kill" command over the Internet - a feature that may have been behind the worm's ability to have stayed hidden for so long.

Business networking site LinkedIn suffered a huge data break-in that resulted in six million users' password being published in plain format on a Russian hacker forum.

The breach forced millions to change their password but questions were raised over LinkedIn's lax security and light encryption techniques. The theft of user passwords is not unknown. Recently both music site LastFM and dating site eHarmony were targeted by hackers and had passwords stolen.

The theft nevertheless raising doubts over the security efforts in place in many Internet companies and may well boost European efforts to introduce legislation and heavy fines for those companies that do not adequately protect their customers.

The following article on ICANN's digital archery system for breaking new gTLD applications into batches was published on Minds+Machines blog and then republished on CircleID on 10 June 2012.

The Biggest Glitch of All - ICANN's Batching Program for New gTLDs

Jun 10, 2012

By Antony Van Couvering

ICANN's batching program, called digital archery, is deeply flawed and should be abandoned before it causes havoc with the new gTLD program. As well as arbitrarily creating winners and losers, creating unfair advantages for certain types of applicants and for certain regions, the program may be suffering from another software "glitch" of the kind that damaged the application process. There is a much better solution: a single batch for all applications.

The following letter was sent from Neustar to ICANN on 7 June 2012 over its 'digital archery' plan to batching new gTLD applications. It was subsequently published on the company's blog.

Neustar Urges Caution to ICANN Before Batching

Neustar has sent the below letter to ICANN. Neustar sent the letter to urge caution to ICANN before launching the batching process to promote competition and choice for consumers in a fair and balanced manner.

Neustar has long been an advocate for the introduction of new generic top level domains. Given the long and sometimes arduous road the ICANN community has traveled to get to this point in the process, we are understandably anxious to avoid unnecessary delay in the launch of new gTLDS. Ironically, perhaps, it is concern about further delay that motivates Neustar to join those who have called upon ICANN to pause briefly before launching the Digital Archery "batching" process.

The European Union said it was planning to create a "global alliance" to tackle child abuse images online, including the provision to block websites.

The pressure is on countries to sign up to an as-yet ill-defined approach, although the approach has already been criticised by civil rights groups who fear an emotive issue will be used to introduce controls that can easily be expanded into other areas.

Blocking has been shown to provide no real protection, critics argue. Regardless, the issue is being discussed at high political levels.

The following two letters were sent from ARI Services over ICANN's 'digital archery' plan for splitting new gTLD applications into batches. The first letter was sent on 1 June 2012; the second (which appears first on this post) on 6 June 2012.

To: Cherine Chalaby – Chair Board gTLD committee; ICANN Board; ICANN staff

Dear Cherine,

Re: New gTLD Program – Digital Archery and Batching Processes

06 June 2012

This letter is a request to the Board and staff of ICANN to delay the launch of the digital archery batching mechanism and review, in Prague, the need to batch and the chosen mechanism.

Batching was included in ICANN's thinking because there were an unknown number of applications for new gTLDs. Batching had two major objectives:

• To manage ICANN resources within the New gTLD Program timeline; and
• To govern the number of TLDs added to the root each year.

We suggest that, given the data that is publically available, these two objectives can be met without batching and without a significant or unreasonable impact on timelines.

The following letter was sent regarding the 'digital archery' batching process for new gTLDs from ICANN's intellectual property constituency on 9 May 2012.

To: ICANN Board New gTLD Program Committee
From: Steve Metalitz, IPC President

Re: "Digital Archery" batching method

May 9, 2012

I write at the direction of the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC), to urge ICANN to reconsider use of the "digital archery" method for batching new gTLD applications for evaluations.

On May 4, ICANN announced that over 2000 new gTLD applications have been received. Since the evaluation system is only designed to handle about 500 applications at once, it is clear now that batching is not just a theoretical possibility, but a necessity, at least under the evaluation system ICANN has adopted.

The following letter was sent from MelbourneIT to ICANN on 30 May 2012 over the digital archery plan to batch new gTLD applications.

From: MelbourneIT
To: ICANN Board New gTLD Program Committee

Re: "Digital Archery" batching method

30 May 2012

ICANN has recently revealed that there are over 2000 applications in ICANN's TLD Application System (TAS), and that ICANN plans to open the "digital archery" process for batching applications on 8 June 2012, before the publication of the new gTLD applications on 13 June 2012, and conclude the process on 28 June 2012.

Melbourne IT recommends that ICANN delay the implementation of a batching solution until the community has had a chance to review the published applications for new gTLDs, and fully consider the implications of the batching method. Given the applications will be published for public comment on 13 June 2012, the ICANN meeting in Prague would be an ideal time for the community to re-consider whether the chosen batching solution is still appropriate.

Possible implications of the "digital archery" batching solution include:

The following letter was sent to ICANN from NetNames on 4 June 2012 over the digital archery plan for splitting new gTLD applications into batches.

From: NetNames
To: Dr. Steven D. Crocker, Chair, ICANN Board of Directors; Mr. Cherine Chalaby, Chair, ICANN New gTLD Program Committee

Re: Digital Archery

Paris, June 4 2012

Dear Steve, Dear Cherine,

We are writing to you to express our serious concerns over the proposed batching process that ICANN has indicated it will initiate on June 8, 2012.

Group NBT has been involved in the new gTLD program since its inception. As a member of the GNSO community, we have devoted a significant amount of time and resources to our participation in the bottom-up development process that has led to this major program becoming a reality.

The following speech was given ITU Secretary-General, Dr Hamadoun I. Touré to staff on 6 June 2012. It was published - unusually - in response to an aggressive campaign by the US government that pointed to the WCIT conference in December as containing threats by the United Nations to take over control of the Internet.

Speech by ITU Secretary-General, Dr Hamadoun I. Touré

World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12)

Remarks to ITU Staff on WCIT-12

06 June 2012, Geneva, Switzerland

Dear Colleagues,

I have called this meeting because you are all no doubt increasingly aware of the great importance of the World Conference on International Telecommunications, WCIT-12, which will be taking place in Dubai in December.

I say ‘increasingly’, because unlike some of our work – and even some of our most important work – which passes under the radar screens of the global media, this particular conference, WCIT-12, is very much in the public eye.