If delays are necessary, ICANN should pitch in for monitoring and notification system.
A couple weeks ago new top level domain name applicants received some very unwelcome news: many of their TLDs could be significantly delayed due to security concerns about “name collisions”.
Basically, some private networks already ping non-existent top level domain names that applicants have applied for. This leads to so-called name collisions.
ICANN should have undertaken its study of the matter years ago. Now, over a year since accepting $185,000 a pop for applications, and well after many applicants have bulked up on staff to market their domains, ICANN has added a new requirement and a big delay.
To be sure, ICANN says the delay for 80% of the strings won’t be much because it will happen concurrently with other aspects of the onboarding process. But it still adds more technical requirements; Applicants must now alert people that make requests to the non-existent domains.
There’s an open comment period to give feedback on ICANN’s name collision mitigation plan.
My thought is this: ICANN needs to throw new TLD applicants a bone on this one. It’s bad enough that they face more delays. It’s worse that they need to invest in technical resources to detect and inform people that use their future TLDs.
Can Donuts, Google, and Amazon handle it? Of course. But what about the small guys? The ones that have tied up a significant portion of their capital into the process?
ICANN received well more money from applications than it was expecting. It should use some of the money to create its own detection and notification service on behalf of registries.
Not only will this alleviate the burden on applicants, but it will also ensure consistency and a single point of contact for ISPs and companies that receive notifications.
No one (OK, one company) is excited about this delay. Pitching in is the least ICANN can do.
Graham Schreiber says
Throw them a bone? No way.
There’s fewer than 50 financially engaged & well rooted people in this pursuit; and a small handful of companies of which they own, all of whom are dedicated to messing with brand owners.
Let them drown.
Cheers, Graham.
Brad Mugford says
Sounds like corporate welfare. These companies should have known what they were getting into.
Brad