The project to sign the DNS root zone with DNSSEC took an additional step toward completion yesterday with the last of the “root server” hosts switching to serving signed DNSSEC data. Now every DNS query to a root server can return DNSSEC-signed data, albeit the “...

Following yesterday’s big news [http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-05may10-en.htm] with the introduction of the first IDN ccTLDs we thought it was a good time to provide an update to where the Fast Track Process is. IDN ccTLDs in the DNS root zone: Egypt: مصر...

Today the first three production non-Latin top-level domains were placed in the DNS root zone. This means they are live! Here is one newly enabled domain with a functional website that works right now: وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر What you should be seeing is something like the...

The 23 April 2010 blog post about a New gTLD Consultation referenced exploration of a legal working group and a follow-up consultation to be convened on 3 May 2010. This blog post provides information about an open drafting consultation group and its first session that...

This is a very brief blog post with quite the big content. Last week was a special week at ICANN, with several IDN milestones meet. Many were included in the 22 April 2010 ICANN Board meeting. The ICANN Board approved the first IDN ccTLD delegation requests for four...

Dear ICANN Community, At the end of July, I will be leaving my post as ICANN’s Chief Operating Officer. While my engagement in the work of ICANN has made this a difficult decision, the reasons I am leaving are simple. I accepted my role with ICANN in December 2006 with...

On 13 April 2010, ICANN convened an open consultation on the Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution and Registry Agreement Amendment Processes in the new gTLD program. This consultation was organized in response to a request from the Registry Stakeholder Group...

As some of you may have heard I am leaving ICANN next month. An opportunity came my way which will take me “back to my roots” in international intellectual property policy, and as great a job as Senior Director for Participation and Engagement is (and it is a great job!),...

What’s wrong with Whois? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps a lot. We lack the data to answer with certainty. The Whois service has drawn a lot of thought and debate from the ICANN community for ten years. In fact, the global look-up service has been the subject of so many points...

This blog post is primarily intended to update the many people in the technical community and ccTLD community about activities related to Synchronized IDN ccTLDs. As you may know, one of the ICANN Board resolutions from the recent ICANN meeting in Nairobi directed staff...

Just about a month ago, I blogged about the launch of ICANN Start, the audio podcast that helps newcomers to our community start understanding key issues. As of this week, ICANN Start episodes have been downloaded one thousand times! All of us involved with producing the...

During the run-up to ICANN’s Nairobi meeting, some corners of the community raised concerns. Many community members could not make it to Nairobi for a variety of reasons, and some interest groups, such as the Registries, were going to be under-represented as physical...

As has been noted again in recent days, some ISPs, vendors and end users have been using previously unallocated IPv4 blocks to address their own networks and devices. When these address blocks become officially allocated or assigned, the prior use can lead to routing...

The paper entitled “Registry-Registrar Separation: Vertical Integration Options” [PDF, 44K] was produced for review by the ICANN Board during its 4 February 2010 Board Meeting (as was discussed in the preliminary report of that meeting at...

Since the launch of the Fast Track Process, ICANN has received many questions about how the DNS Stability Panel will determine a confusingly similar string; that is, a requested string that is confusing similar with an existing ccTLD, gTLD or applied-for TLDs. The overall...

I travelled with Rod Beckstrom to Beijing on 2-3 March for talks with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Industry leaders and CNNIC, the China Internet information Network. Apart from a brief visit to Europe at end 2009 this was Rod’s first major...

By Nick Tomasso 5 March 2010 Late Wednesday, my meetings team here in Nairobi was hit with some unexpected and troubling news by the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC), the venue for the ICANN meeting. Unfortunately, it is news that could severely impact our...

Imagine footmen playing a royal brass fanfare as we announce: ICANN now produces its first audio podcast series for you! When you join the ICANN community, you quickly discover that folks here have considered and debated certain issues for years. You want to participate,...

Whether you intend to participate in the upcoming Nairobi meeting in person or remotely, you’re not alone if you feel under-prepared. The ICANN community has a huge number of important issues working their way through the policy development process (PDP), and it’s tough...

The staff have been informed that there are groups of stakeholders getting together to meet and remotely participate in the Nairobi meeting. Since we thought it would interest many in the community to know of these gatherings, and because we want to ensure that groups...

One area of the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process about which questions have arisen is community support for the IDN ccTLD and how such support can be demonstrated. I have provided some clarification here that I hope is helpful to present and future IDN ccTLD Fast Track...

ICANN Strategic Plan July 2010 – June 2013 [PDF, 947 KB] The ICANN meeting in Seoul was my first meeting as CEO, and coincided with the kickoff of the ICANN Strategic planning process, an essential basis for ICANN’s operational and budget planning process. Based on my...

On Friday (19 February), we received the Declaration of the Panel from the first ICANN Independent Review Process (IRP), which is posted here: http://www.icann.org/en/irp/icm-v-icann.htm. This is a landmark step in ICANN’s use of the accountability mechanisms built into...

ICANN’s commitment to accountability and transparency is an ongoing full time quest. The recent posting of two financial guidelines are markers of the progress we have made in this quest. One is the Cost Accounting Guidelines and the other is the Procurement Guidelines....

As some of you will have already noticed, remote participation details are in the process of being posted on the ICANN Nairobi site. Work on the remote participation for Nairobi began for me on the first day of December when I took up the post of Senior Director for...