ICANN Opens Floodgates Over Holiday Weekend

Information overload hits over Memorial Day weekend.

Maybe it was because this weekend was the end of the month. Or perhaps it was to meet deadlines for the upcoming ICANN conference. Regardless, ICANN chose a U.S. holiday weekend to release a number of very important documents.

The big kahuna is the fourth draft applicant guidebook for new TLDs. This may be the last “draft” of the guidebook. It will take a while for me to go through it and I’ll report back later. Here’s a summary of other documents released over the weekend, many of which will warrant further discussion later.

Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Working Group Initial Report – George Kirikos spotted this one over the weekend. It basically provides a mechanism to reverse stolen domain registrar transfers. Although it acknowledges there needs to be an appeal mechanism, the group needs to consider the massive size of the domain name sales aftermarket, and how this works into a system where any domain can be requested transferred back within a relatively long period of time.

Proposed GNSO Working Group Guidelines – beginning stages of how GNSO will make the policy development process more inclusive and representative.

New GNSO Policy Development Process – recommendations for the Policy Development Process.

Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery Working Group Initial Report – report on what, if any, changes might need to be made to allow registrants to recover their domain names after they expire.

Registration Abuse Policies Working Group Final Report – includes recommendations related to cybersquatting, front running, fake renewal notices, etc.

Draft Interim Report of Working Group on ICANN Geographic Regions – for discussion at Brussels meeting.

Initial Report on Proposals for Improvements to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement – issues related to future registrar accreditation agreements.