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Contractual Compliance Monthly Update | February 2013

Table of Contents 1

General Update

Focused Effort to launch the Consolidated Complaint Management System

Improving the user experience and moving to a single complaint management solution for all contractual compliance complaint types has been and will continue to be the focus over the next few months.

Improving The User Experience

Over the next few weeks the user, also referred to as complaint reporter, will see improvements to filing complaints. Eventually, the current links listed below will be replaced by one link for a one-stop complaint submittal landing webpage.

General complaints http://reports.internic.net/cgi/registrars/problem-report.cgi
WHOIS complaints http://wdprs.internic.net/
UDRP complaints http://www.internic.net/UDRPIntakeReportSystem.html

The user experience will begin at the complaint landing page pictured below. The three columns will ease navigation to explanations and the complaint submittal form:

  • "Help With" lists complaint topics
  • "Learn More" provides links to definitions, FAQ explanations or glossary
  • "Take Action" provides links to lookup data or the complaint submittal form
Contractual Compliance Complaint Landing Page

The user will be kept informed during the complaint process. Communication will consist of clarification, acceptance or rejection emails and a closure status email of the complaint. The closure status email will also include an invitation asking the user to complete a five-question feedback survey. Registrars will also receive closure emails with the survey link when the complaint is resolved.

Single Complaint Management Solution

As previously communicated, the Whois Data Problem Report System (WDPRS) is scheduled first to migrate to the new and enhanced system. Enforcement Process was also added in this phase to complete the automation from prevention through enforcement. The phased rollout, by complaint type, will launch in mid-March and over the following few weeks.

ICANN thanks the three pilot registrars, Blacknight Internet Solutions, eNom and GoDaddy, for their time and effort to test this first migration to the new system.

The beginning of the end of the 2011-2013 Three Year Plan

This effort is aligned to the ICANN commitment to strengthen the Contractual Compliance program and operations. Once all complaint types are migrated to one platform, ICANN will provide additional performance metrics and improved reporting.

Audit Program Update

ICANN held two outreach sessions in February for the Year One Audit Program. The sessions reviewed the overall survey results with both Registrars and Registries in attendance. The survey was titled, "Request For Information (RFI) Phase – Audit Program Year One Continuous Improvement Survey" and was completed by over one-third of all contracted parties audited in Year One. The feedback received on the following areas for improvements - Process, Communication and Tool - has been captured and will be reflected in the Year Two Audit Program.

The ICANN Contractual Compliance Audit Program, in the Audit Phase since 7 January 2013, is focused on document reviews and on generating individual Audit Report to each participant.

An Audit Report will be sent to each Year One Audit participant starting in March 2013. The report will either highlight a "No Deficiencies" audit report, which will require no further action, or "Deficiencies" audit report, which will require further action (including an action plan with expected dates of remediation and/or evidence to immediately cure the issue).

Year-1 Audit Program Milestone Dates
Request for Info Audit Phase Reporting Phase Remediation
1st
Notice
2nd
Notice
3rd
Notice
Begin End Begin End  
26 Nov. 2012 17 Dec. 2012 28 Dec. 2012 7 Jan. 2013 12 Apr. 2013 15 April 2013 19 April 2013 22 April 2013

Please refer to http://www.icann.org/en/resources/compliance/audits to learn more about this program.

Complaints Handling and Enforcement Summary

Complaints per Notification Cycle February 2013

 

Compliance Performance Results February 2013

ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY for FEBRUARY 2013
SENT DATE DUE DATE REGISTRAR NOTICE TYPE STATUS FAILURE NOTICE BASIS
5-Feb-13 26-Feb-13 Black Ice Domains, Inc. Breach Data and Documents under Review by ICANN Provide documents within 15 days (RAA 5.9.2)
11-Feb-13   Lime Labs LLC Termination   Respond to audits (RAA 3.14)
Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
11-Feb-13   Central Registrar, Inc. DBA Domainmonger.com Termination   Respond to audits (RAA 3.14)
Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
Pay accreditation fees (RAA 3.9)
11-Feb-13   R. Lee Chambers Company LLC dba DomainsToBeSeen.com Termination   Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
20-Feb-13   Bargin Register, Inc. Termination   Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
28-Feb-13   Power Brand Center Corp. Termination   Pay accreditation fees (RAA 3.9)
ENFORCEMENT UPDATES from PRIOR MONTHS
11-Jan-13 1-Feb-13 Power Brand Center Corp. Breach Cured Respond to audits (RAA 3.14)
Cured Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
Escalated to termination Pay accreditation fees (RAA 3.9)
11-Jan-13 1-Feb-13 Homestead Limited d/b/a Namevault.com Breach Cured Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
11-Jan-13 1-Feb-13 Lime Labs LLC Breach Escalated to termination Respond to audits (RAA 3.14)
Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
11-Jan-13 1-Feb-13 Central Registrar, Inc d/b/a Domainmonger.com Breach Escalated to termination Respond to audits (RAA 3.14)
Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
Pay accreditation fees (RAA 3.9)
11-Jan-13 1-Feb-13 Cheapies.com Inc. Breach Cured Respond to audits (RAA 3.14)
Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
Pay accreditation fees (RAA 3.9)
11-Jan-13 1-Feb-13 R. Lee Chambers Company LLC d/b/a DomainsToBeSeen.com Breach Escalated to termination Maintain and provide communication records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
18-Jan-13 8-Feb-13 Cheapies.com Inc. Breach Data and Documents under Review by ICANN Provide communication records (RAA 3.4.3)
Provide a reasonable opportunity to unlock the domain name (IRTP 3)
Provide AuthInfo code (IRTP 5)
19-Nov-12 12-Dec-12 Bargin Register, Inc Breach Escalated to termination Maintain and provide registration records (RAA 3.4.2/3)
Cured Pay accreditation fees (RAA 3.9)
Additional concern-failure to respond to UDRP verification requests

Please refer to http://www.icann.org/en/resources/compliance/notices for up-to-date information.


1 This update is provided for information purposes only. Please do not rely on the information contained within this update to make conclusions or business decisions.

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."