September 2, 2011 — Internet backbone and colocation provider Hurricane Electric announced on Friday that it is partnering with Internet Society Hong Kong to launch the first IPv6 Certification Program in Asia. According to the press release, it will be the first non-English global IPv6 certification program since it will be conducted in Chinese.

A series of six papers from the European Commission “represent a wholesale effort to put governments in charge of the internet” writes Kieren McCarthy. “They would be put in a position to decide how the internet’s underlying naming structure – the domain name system – expands and evolves. “If the DNS evolves in the right way of course, governments won’t need to do anything, they will let others get on with it. But just in case people decide to do something that isn’t in the public’s interest, then governments will be there to firmly but politely inform them that they are not allowed to do that. Well, that’s the theory anyway.” To read McCarthy’s analysis of the papers and the players and what is going on, check out his posting on his Dot NXT site at news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-papers-analysis .

ICANN is issuing today a Request for Proposal (RFP) [PDF, 104 KB] to identify a Global Background Screening Service Provider capable of generating a thorough and timely background check for all new generic Top Level Domain Applicants. After extensive discussion, debates, and deliberations over the past several years with the business groups, trademark owners, governments, and the Internet community at-large, ICANN’s Board of Directors have approved the plan to allow entities to apply for new top-level domains through the new gTLD program.  The number of generic top-level domains, (there are 22 in existence today and include familiar names such as .com, .net, and .org), are expected to dramatically expand over the next several years. Based on extensive community feedback regarding a safe and stable new gTLD launch, ICANN has committed to conducting an extensive background screening of each applicant. The new gTLD program is designed with multiple stakeholder protection mechanisms.  Background screening, features of the gTLD Registry Agreement, easy access to zone file data, and data and financial escrow mechanisms are all intended to provide registrant and user protections.  The scope of the background screening is expected to cover, at a minimum, the entity applying, key directors, officers, partners, and major shareholders of that entity. The new gTLD program is expected start accepting applications in January 2012, and receive a diverse set of applications from all over the world.  Ensuring that applicants have the intention to operate the new gTLDs in the public interest and in compliance with the program requirements is of utmost concern.  Conducting a thorough and timely background check on each applicant is an important component of the ICANN’s application approval process. Respondents are requested to respond to this RFP by replying to: BackgroundScreeningRFP@icann.org . The period to submit questions about the RFP will close on 13 September 2011. ICANN will provide answers to all questions submitted to all respondents by 22 September 2011. The final response to the RFP is due on 4 October 2011. This ICANN announcement was sourced from: www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-30aug11-en.htm

As IPv4 address space dwindles, there is a debate as to whether an exchange for trading unused address blocks should be created, and ars technical has asked two of its contributors, Iljitsch van Beijnum and Timothy Lee, to argue the case for and against. Timothy Lee argues an exchange for trading IPv4 address blocks is the way to go, saying “there are still a lot of unused and underused IP addresses in the hands of various private organizations. All that is needed is an incentive for them to part with their unused addresses voluntarily. In other words, what’s needed is a market in IP addresses.” Lee says large companies with unused address blocks are unlikely to relinquish them, so an incentive needs to be created. But Lee notes, “the American Registry for Internet Numbers … has resisted the emergence of a market for IP addresses — at least one it doesn’t control. The organization insists that IP addresses are not property and that address blocks can only be transferred with its approval.” On the fairness of a market for IPv4 addresses, Lee notes “critics of selling IP addresses on the open market worry about the egalitarian implications of asking relatively poor countries like India to pay millions of dollars to rich countries like the United States for additional IP addresses. But this objection gets the issue precisely backwards.” He then says “so the alternative to Indian ISPs paying Westerners for IP addresses isn’t that they get them for free. It’s that they don’t get them at all. No one is arguing that Indian ISPs should be forced to buy IPv4 addresses. If they can go straight to IPv6, more power to them. But it would be paternalistic to try to block Indians from buying IPv4 addresses if they think that’s in their interest.” Arguing the no case, Iljitsch van Beijnum states that “US holds about four IPv4 addresses per capita, and most of Western Europe has one or two. But many other parts of the world have much less than that. China has been using up IPv4 address space like it was going out of style, going from having about 8 million addresses around the turn of the millennium to 330 million now. India, on the other hand, has almost as many people but only 35 million IPv4 addresses. Should the poorest countries in the world be forced to buy IP addresses from the West, providing a windfall to some of the richest American companies just because those participated in an e-landgrab at the right moment?” Buying up IPv4 addresses in a market will see companies like large ISPs with highly fragmented small blocks of addresses and that “just dealing with so many different contracts will be a nightmare.” So van Beijnum says his “prediction is that at the ISP level, a functioning market won’t form at all, or will break down very quickly after it forms. All the while, address trading will take away resources, monetary and otherwise, from implementing the long-term solution: IPv6. With no new supply of IPv4 addresses and an increasing number of potential address users (we’ve been using up 200 million new IPv4 addresses per year recently), an address market will be prone to bubbles. Bubbles can also easily burst as service providers move to address-conserving technologies such as NAT and IPv6. Of course the US government can always bail out service providers using the nearly 200 million legacy IPv4 addresses that it has on its books.” “If address trading happens in non-trivial volumes, the address space will also fragment as organizations sell off only part of their address space. Due to the power-of-two limitation, doing this easily adds a handful of entries to the routing tables of routers throughout the world. The IPv4 Internet will become less reliable as older routers operate at peak capacity and routing protocols are stressed. Unless the RIRs throw all their policies out the window and rubber-stamp all address transfers, it will become harder to trace back an address to its user, giving free reign to spammers and other shady outfits.” Both of these articles are available in full on the ars technica website. The article by Iljitsch van Beijnum is available at arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/trading-ipv4-addresses-will-end-in-tears.ars while Timothy Lee’s article is available at arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/the-case-for-a-free-market-in-ipv4-addresses.ars .

Following criticisms from two American advertising associations of the ICANN proposal for new generic Top Level Domains, two more advertising groups, one on each side of the Atlantic, have come out voicing their criticisms. In the US, three groups – the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), and most recently the American Association of Advertising Agencies(4A) – have come out strongly against the plan. And in the UK the Direct Marketing Association has added its voice the chorus. However it would appear they have left it too late. Chris Combemale, executive director of the DMA UK, said that “the creation of new internet real estate will come at a cost to businesses that could outweigh any potential benefits.” “Creating a tranche of new internet domain names will be extremely costly to businesses. As well as the associated costs of registering new domain names and spending money to attract customers to multiple domains, businesses face the legal and financial headache of having to contend with cybersquatters grabbing specific domains. “Customised domain names won’t offer brands any enhanced marketing possibilities because consumers can easily search for specific information with the current domain name system.” Combemale adds: “Companies are already hard pressed to find cost savings in these tough trading times; adding a further financial burden that won’t reap any commercial benefits cannot be justified.” DMA UK say they will respond formerly to ICANN with a request to revise or withdraw its new rules. Meanwhile back in the US, 4A complained about the new gTLD plans saying that “if adopted [new gTLDs] would allow applicants to claim virtually any word, generic or branded as a domain name, resulting in confusion of brand identity and dilution of brand history and value.” “We are very disappointed in the position taken by ICANN concerning the assignment and sale of new domain names,” said 4A’s President and CEO Nancy Hill. “These changes would cost brand owners billions of dollars, severely, if not irreparably, diluting the value of trusted and respected brand names, as well as abrogate the good work 4A’s members have done on behalf of their clients.” “All marketers share the goal of a stable global marketplace, served by an Internet system that consumers can rely on to accurately reflect the quality and history of a product or service. ICANN’s actions would remove that trust and place consumers at a significant disadvantage in making marketplace choices and decisions.” The complaints by the advertisers have been aired many times and dealt with by ICANN. ICANN has been consulting with intellectual property groups, people involved in domain names including potential applicants, lawyers and anyone else who is interested for over five years, yet the American, and now British, advertising groups have seemingly only just realised the significance of the changes. Not only that, as Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s CEO and President, pointed out in a letter to the ANA in 2008 the ANA had complained to ICANN about new gTLDs, something seemingly overlooked by the ANA in their complaints. With ICANN board having approved the applicant guidebook at its Singapore meeting in June, and having announced a three month application window commencing 12 January, it would appear that advertising associations on both sides of the Atlantic have been asleep at the wheel.

A cybersquatter has registered a domain name for a charity Amy Winehouse’s father intended to set up in memory of his late daughter. Mitch Winehouse is planning to set up a foundation to help young people suffering from drug abuse, a problem his daughter had, and has already received donations from the public. However Martin McCann bought the domain name amywinehousefoundation.com, hours after Mr Winehouse revealed his plans The Sun reports , and two weeks after Ms Winehouse died on 23 July. McCann also paid £160 to register the Amy Winehouse Foundation Ltd with Companies House on 2 August, The Sun further reported, despite having never met her or Mitch. “I’m not exploiting anything yet,” McCann told The Sun. “I’ve just bought some domain names. Anybody could have. It only takes the click of a mouse. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed. Detach yourself from emotions and think business.” “He is making every effort to hijack this charity to satiate his own needs for the charity. She’s not the only Amy Winehouse in the world.” McCann said he was approached by his internet service provider and asked to hand over the domain name. He added that he wants to “come to an arrangement” with Mitch – but only if he apologises for insulting him on Twitter. McCann, of Uxbridge, West London, said: “I’m not the d***head. The d***head is sitting over there without the name in his possession.”

Sounding like a broken record, WIPO has published an update on their activities as an international resource for time- and cost-efficient alternatives to court litigation of intellectual property disputes, acting both as a provider of legal and organisational expertise and as an administrator of cases. In the report WIPO expresses concerns to the introduction of new gTLDs and a revision to dispute resolution under the UDRP with trademark issues at the heart of their concerns. Included in the report is an update on the domain name-related activities of WIPO covering their administration of domain name disputes under different policies and various related aspects of the Domain Name System (DNS), as well as selected policy developments, in particular rights protection mechanisms (RPMs) for the introduction of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), the emergence of internationalized domain names (IDNs) as gTLDs, the contentious issue of revision by ICANN of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), and the status of the recommendations made by the Member States of WIPO in the context of the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process. WIPO expresses concerns regarding proposed revisions to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the introduction of new gTLDs. Concerns regarding the introduction of new gTLDs are based around Rights Protection Mechanisms such as trademark abuse and the methods of dealing with these problems – a Trademark Clearinghouse and a Uniform Rapid Suspension System, viewing the latter as becoming “an overburdened procedure” with “many issues [remaining] to be addressed.” In the report WIPO note that “accommodating the dynamic development of the DNS, the UDRP has been offering an effective alternative to court litigation for trademark owners, domain name registrants, and registration authorities. Nevertheless, efforts appear underway at ICANN which risk destabilising this well-respected enforcement tool.” However many of the issues raised by WIPO, and by American advertising bodies in recent weeks, have been addressed by ICANN. Not that WIPO and the American advertising bodies care to admit as much. In the report WIPO also notes they have administered more than 21,000 UDRP and UDRP-based cases. WIPO UDRP proceedings have so far involved parties from 163 countries. These disputes have come from over 112 countries in 2010 and 163 countries in total. WIPO also provides dispute resolution procedures for existing gTLDs and 65 ccTLDs. Demand for this WIPO service continued in 2010 with trademark holders filing 2,696 complaints, an increase of 28 per cent over the 2009 level. The concerns regarding UDRP relate to domainers and the volume of their registration activity. The report expresses concerns regarding “the use of computer software to automatically register (sometimes expired) domain names and their ‘parking’ of often competing advertisements on pay-per-click portal sites. In addition to their value as commercial identifiers, domain names have increasingly taken on aspects of commodities for speculative gain.” “Whereas traditional domain name abuse involved the registration of domain names by individuals seeking to turn a profit on the ’squatted’ names, nowadays a growing number of ‘domainers’ are deriving income from the large-scale automated registration of domain names corresponding not only to dictionary terms but also to third-party identifiers.” To download the full WIPO report in full, go to www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/govbody/en/wo_ga_40/wo_ga_40_9.pdf