ICANN Announcements

Read ICANN Announcements to stay informed of the latest policymaking activities, regional events, and more.

Independent Report Maps Possible Way Forward in Mitigating Domain Name Collisions

26 February 2014

Los Angeles… An independent report commissioned by ICANN has offered a set of concrete recommendations on how to mitigate potential risks of domain name collisions.

A name collision occurs when an attempt to resolve a name used in a private name space results in a query to the public Domain Name System (DNS).

"This report takes an in-depth look at the collision issue and the potential risks and impacts, and gives us some very clear advice aimed at how to help system operators detect and mitigate those risks," said Akram Atallah, President of ICANN's Global Domains Division. "The next step is to seek input from our community on the report's findings."

The report stressed that name collisions are nothing new and that any issues that arise from expansion of the Top-Level Domains (TLDs) under ICANN's New gTLD program would resemble those that occur in other parts of the DNS. But the report noted that expanding the number of TLDs will not fundamentally or significantly increase the risks of name collisions.

Specifically, the study outlines a set of recommendations on how ICANN and the TLD operators should handle the issue of name collisions in the expanding TLD space:

  • ICANN should require new TLD registries to implement and publish a 120-day controlled interruption zone monitored by ICANN immediately upon delegation in the root zone. 
    • After the 120-day period, there shall be no further collision-related restrictions on the TLD.
  • ICANN should have emergency response processes to analyze and act upon reported problems that present "clear and present danger to human life".
  • ICANN and others in the community should continue to collect and analyze data relating to the root servers and to the controlled interruption.
  • The Top-Level Domains .corp, .home and .mail should be permanently reserved.

The report, Mitigating the Risk of DNS Namespace Collisions, is posted for public comment until April 21, 2014.

###

To review the report and/or make comments, go to: http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/name-collision-26feb14-en.htm

For more information on name collisions, go to: http://www.icann.org/en/help/name-collision

For more information about the new gTLD program, go to: http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Brad White
ICANN Director of Global Media Affairs
Washington, D.C.
Tel. +1 (202) 570 7118
brad.white@icann.org

James Cole
ICANN Global Media Coordinator
Washington, D.C.
Tel. +1 (202) 570 7139
james.cole@icann.org