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Dr Whois... final part

by .Nxt | 16 Jan 2013 |


Read now: Whois Review chair reveals what happened with her team's report

Dr Whois... part 5

by .Nxt | 16 Jan 2013 |


Dr Whois... part 4

by .Nxt | 16 Jan 2013 |


Dr Whois... part 3

by .Nxt | 16 Jan 2013 |


Dr Whois... part 2

by .Nxt | 16 Jan 2013 |


About .Nxt

.Nxt is an information service covering the Internet policy and governance worlds.

We follow and report on events and processes at relevant organizations, including ICANN, the IGF, ITU and others, including attending meetings and conferences, tracking issues, providing easy to use and easy to understand guides, and various other related services.

.Nxt uses a membership, subscription model. For an annual fee, you gain full access to all .Nxt content as well as our archive (there are discounts and additional services for multiple corporate subscriptions). We also offer a monthly recurring membership fee.

Philosophy

We believe that the multi-stakeholder model - where everyone impacted by policies is entitled to have an equal say in their development - is the best solution for deciding Internet policy and governance issues and are dedicated to strengthening and improving that model of decision-making.

ITU, MoUs and the web of standards development bodies

by Sam Dickinson | 26 Jul 2012 |

On 5 July, the ITU announced that it had signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with European Telecommunications Standardization Institute (ETSI), replacing two earlier MoUs they had signed in 2000 (with the ITU-T) and 2002 (with the ITU-R).

The latest MoU will "smooth the way for regional standards, developed by ETSI, to be recognised internationally" and provide "a single framework through which to channel ITU, ETSI collaboration", according to an ITU press release. The release also explains that this latest agreement follows on from an MoU signed in 2011 with four national standards development organizations (SDOs) in Asia.

Secret pLD domain program revealed

by Kevin Murphy | 1 Apr 2012 |

Filthy with cash from incoming new gTLD applications, ICANN is secretly working on a new “penthouse-level domains” project.

The program, detailed in leaked emails [pdf] between senior ICANN executives, will open up the space to the right of the final, overlooked dot in a fully-qualified domain name.

The new “pLD” project will allow brand owners, for example, to apply to run a domain name to the right of their newly acquired dot-brand gTLD, creating new marketing opportunities. Penthouse-level domains are believed to be the brainchild of outgoing CEO Rod Beckstrom.

“I figured I may as well torpedo the whole joint on my way out,” he said, stuffing ICANN’s air-conditioning system with three-day-old sushi.

Officially, ICANN expects the program to be warmly welcomed by the trademark community. “The most common complaint we hear from dot-brand gTLD applicants is that they have no idea what to put at the second level,” said ICANN spin doctor Brad White.

Shoot

Ethics and Conflicts of Interest

Summary

This session covered the three reviews going on around ICANN's conflicts of interests:

  • Document review -- long-term ICANN external counsel made some commonsense recommendations for improvement
  • Outside perspective -- run by external law firm, report due soon
  • "Expert group" -- looking at best practices, due to report May/June

Then there were questions from the community, most expressing uncertainty and concern.

For full details, including context, agenda, results, an executive summary and longer summary with hyperlinks to relevant documents and parts of the transcript, become a member of .Nxt.

CHERINE CHALABY: Good afternoon, everyone.

This next session, we would like to bring the community up‐to‐date with
the work we're doing on conflict of interest and ethics.
With me here, we have two board members, and they are members of
the BGC as well, Bill Graham and Ray Plzak, and as well as our General
Counsel, J.J., otherwise known as John Jeffrey.

Okay. What's the agenda for this afternoon? Basically we want to
review our plans and make you familiar with them. We want to update
you on the work we are doing, specifically with outside reviews as well
as our internal work. And then we want to pause and take questions
from all of you.

Okay. So the first starting point goes back to where we were in Dakar.
J.J., can you move the slide?

We talked about conflicts and the work we were doing in Dakar, and we
said we would like to enhance our conflict or interest policy to more
clearly address the hard cases, and not only those that relate to actual
conflict but also those related to perception of conflicts. And I think the
most important thing here is to raise the bar to the highest possible
standard so that there's no perception of conflict at all.

Wake up. The Internet’s new dawn is upon us

by Kieren McCarthy | 12 Jan 2012 |

For a program that sought to throw off the hackles of a bygone era, to break from dot-com tyranny and let loose the collective spirits and imaginations of the world of Internet users on its most precious possession, the new gTLD program was never going to be an easy process.

But today, it has finally been born, years later than expected, years sooner than some wanted. It is not complete. It’s not yet fully conscious. But the Internet’s new dawn is here. No longer will we be artificially constrained within the semantic borders devised by those well-meaning but conservative custodians of the old order.

'Google' is a damn silly word. But if we see it appear at the end of our web addresses next year, we will all know that something remarkable will occur there.

We live, for better or worse, in the brand era. The Internet has always had its one big brand – dot-com – but now it is time for the virtual world of Internet engineers to merge with the real world of marketers and give those brands their own space, their own lives online.

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