ICANN Announcements

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Draft Report on New gTLD Program Safeguards to Mitigate DNS Abuse Available for Public Comment

15 March 2016

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ICANN today announced the publication of a draft report on New gTLD Program Safeguards Against DNS Abuse. The draft report is available for public comment through 13 May 2016.

Read the New gTLD Program Safeguards Against DNS Abuse draft report [PDF, 1.17 MB].

The report, which was written by ICANN staff, explores methods for measuring the effectiveness of safeguards [PDF, 128 KB] against Domain Name System (DNS) abuse that were implemented as part of the New gTLD Program. It defines the activities that constitute DNS abuse and assesses indicators of the rate of abuse in new gTLDs and the DNS as a whole. The report also explores user feedback with these safeguards and presents additional proposals for researching how these safeguards might be affecting abuse rates.

ICANN is now seeking input from stakeholders regarding the report and measurement of DNS abuse in new gTLDs. Following the public comment period, the report will be updated to incorporate the feedback received.

Comment on the report.

The New gTLD Program Safeguards Against DNS Abuse report supports one of several activities intended to help a community-based team of volunteers determine how well the New gTLD Program is impacting competition, consumer trust and consumer choice (CCT) in the DNS.

New gTLD Program Reviews

ICANN's New gTLD Program has enabled hundreds of new top-level domains to enter into the Internet's root zone since the first delegation occurred in October 2013. Comprehensive reviews of the program have begun and cover a variety of topics including competition, consumer trust and choice, security and stability, rights protection and other areas. Along with commissioning third-party analyses, ICANN is capturing stakeholder experiences regarding the effects of the New gTLD Program.

About ICANN

ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation and a community with participants from all over the world. ICANN and its community help keep the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It also promotes competition and develops policy for the top-level of the Internet's naming system and facilitates the use of other unique Internet identifiers. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.