We are pleased to announce the release of ICANN Domain Metrica for the whole ICANN community. This release makes Domain Metrica accessible to anyone with a free ICANN account and reflects significant effort to incorporate feedback received since the initial release.
What has Changed?
As part of this release, the Domain Metrica team has decided to remove spam as a tracked abuse type for the time being. This change has been made while we work to align the definitions of spam used in Domain Metrica with the language used in ICANN's contracts with the registries and registrars. We recognized the importance of this change to our community, which led to a small delay in the release.
A less visible, but significant, aspect of this release is the introduction of the community application programming interface (API). This feature allows users to authenticate and retrieve data via scripts rather than using the web-based interface, making it more suitable for regular tasks or situations where the data will be integrated into other systems. Documentation for this API can be found here.
In addition to these major changes, we've also worked on many small fixes–some visible and others less so–that contribute to a smoother and more intuitive user experience. In the next few rounds of development, we will focus on consolidating the foundations we've built and enhancing the charts and metrics already in place. We are adding features such as plotting abuse as a proportion of the wider population (either zone size or domains under management, depending on the entity in question), which will provide more relevant comparisons when analyzing entities of different sizes. We are also working on improving chart readability through the use of symbols and color.
What is Next?
At the same time, we are conducting ongoing research into how we can measure and communicate new metrics, such as separating maliciously registered domains from abuse conducted via compromised web assets, or measuring the lifetime of active abuse before any mitigation occurs. Although these two metrics are separate, they are linked, as any mitigation actions taken will be informed by the nature of the abuse, thus affecting the signals seen in the data.
We hope that this release allows the wider community to start benefiting from the platform, and we look forward to seeing how the data will be used.
Release Timeline:
September 2024: Pilot phase
October 2024: Contracted Parties release
Q1 2025: General launch
Q2 2025: Consolidation release