Coordination Center for TLD RU/.РФ Closing In on Another Milestone : 5 Million .RU Domain Names

The Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ, the company responsible for the administrations of .RU and .РФ extensions, is approaching 5 million domain registrations under .RU .

.RU currently holds the 6th position in list of biggest ccTLD’s after .DE , .TK , .UK , .CN and .NL, with 15.7 million domain names for .DE, 15.1 million domain names for .TK , 10.3 million domains for .UK, 6.4 million domain names for .CN and 5.2 million domain names for .NL. .RU is also a leader in terms of growth rates among the biggest ccTLDs.

The fourth million .RU domain name was registered on 17 September 2012, while the third million .RU domain name was registered registered on the night of 24/25 September 2010.

Three years ago, .RU got a little brother, IDN TLD .РФ. Since then, the Internet market in Russia started growing twice as fast: by approximately 1,000-1,500 new domain names daily in each domain zone.

At the time of writing this article, there are 4,907,860 .RU domain names.

Check out EuroDNS here to register your .RU domain name.

GNSO Constituencies Issue Unanimous Joint Statement on ICANN Accountability by Philip Corwin, Internet Commerce Association

In an unprecedented development, all stakeholder groups and constituencies comprising ICANN”s Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) unanimously endorsed a joint statement in support of the creation of an independent accountability mechanism “that provides meaningful review and adequate redress for those harmed by ICANN action or inaction in contravention of an agreed upon compact with the community”. The statement was read aloud during a June 26^th session on the IANA transition process held on the last day of the ICANN 50 public meeting in London.

The creation of this new accountability structure is meant to accompany the transition of the IANA functions away from US control and is intended to encompass accountability issues beyond those that are IANA-specific. Business, intellectual property, and civil society members of the GNSO will likely be delivering the message to Congress and the NTIA that creation of this new accountability mechanism must be assured before any final action is taken on an IANA transition plan developed within ICANN’s multistakeholder community.

During an earlier session on ICANN accountability, ICA Counsel Philip Corwin delivered remarks emphasizing that there was a preexisting need for improved ICANN accountability and transparency independent of the IANA transition, but that the contemplated termination of US counterparty status in regard to the IANA contract presented the opportunity and increased the need for establishment of an independent review and redress mechanism to address ICANN actions. He noted that ICANN’s fairly unique combination of public policy functions and substantial self-funding capabilities created an enhanced need for measures that could address the substantial potential for self-dealing behavior by the organization.

Here is the full text of the unanimous GNSO statement:

The entire GNSO join together today calling for the Board to support community creation of an independent accountability mechanism that provides meaningful review and adequate redress for those harmed by ICANN action or inaction in contravention of an agreed upon compact with the community. This deserves the Board’s serious consideration – not only does it reflect an unprecedented level of consensus across the entire ICANN community, it is a necessary and integral element of the IANA transition.

True accountability does not mean ICANN is only accountable to itself, or to some vague definition of “the world,” nor does it mean that governments should have the ultimate say over community policy subject to the rule of law. Rather, the Board’s decisions must be open to challenge and the Board cannot be in a position of reviewing and certifying its own decisions. We need an independent accountability structure that holds the ICANN Board, Staff, and various stakeholder groups accountable under ICANN’s governing documents, serves as an ultimate review of Board/Staff decisions, and through the creation of precedent, creates prospective guidance for the board, the staff, and the entire community.

As part of the IANA transition, the multi-stakeholder community has the opportunity and responsibility to propose meaningful accountability structures that go beyond just the IANA-specific accountability issues. We are committed to coming together and developing recommendations for creation of these mechanisms. We ask the ICANN Board and Staff to fulfill their obligations and support this community driven, multi-stakeholder initiative.

This article by Philip Corwin from the Internet Commerce Association was sourced with permission from:
www.internetcommerce.org/gnso-constituencies-issue-unanimous-joint-statement-on-icann-accountability/

ICANN 50 Kicks Off in London by Philip Corwin, Internet Commerce Association

“The temperature in the room is warm and I suspect it will get a whole lot warmer before we are through.” So stated ICANN Board Chairman Steve Crocker at the beginning of the Board’s interaction with the GNSO Council on the afternoon of Sunday, June 22^nd. Yet that dialogue never got beyond lukewarm. Both Crocker and CEO Fadi Chehade made clear that the recently published report of the Expert Working Group on gTLD Directory Services, a complex proposal to replace the current WHOIS registrant data service, was just the beginning of a dialogue with the community — and that it was premature to begin a Policy Development Process (PDP) based upon it. The main dust-up regarding the EWG report was the omission of a dissent regarding insufficient privacy protections filed by one of the participating experts.

Another point emphasized by both Crocker and Board member Bruce Tonkin was that ICANN policy was to be made by the GNSO and the other ICANN supporting organizations, with the Board’s role confined to overseeing the implementation of policy. As Tonkin summarized, the Board is a corporate one and “not a parliament”.

The temperature had been a bit substantially warmer earlier in the session as ICANN staff described the status of the IANA functions transition process and the parallel effort to develop an enhanced ICANN accountability structure. Many participants wanted a clear commitment that the transition plan would not go forward until an acceptable accountability framework had been formalized and accepted, but staff was unwilling to go beyond stating that they were “interdependent” and would inform one another. Staff was also pressed to explain why ICANN’s recent revision of the transition process plan, while making concessions on coordinating group composition and community-based selection of its members, had not broadened the scoping document despite numerous comments that it was far too narrow and sought to predetermine an outcome in which ICANN alone would be recipient of the IANA functions. But, while confirming that the scoping document remained unchanged, staff provided no clear rationale for that intransigence.

Following that impasse, CEO Fadi Chehade engaged in dialogue with the Council. Conceding that the workload burden on the community had reached unprecedented levels, he announced that senior staff would hold a weekend long meeting with the heads of ICANN’s supporting organizations and advisory committees to discuss ways in which that might be addressed.

Chehade also raised the “original sin” of continuing mistrust between ICANN and its community, but the ensuing dialogue reached no consensus on how to narrow the trust gap. Chehade’s closing words, in which he asked, “What is driving people who want to slow down the IANA transition? What interests do they represent?” indicated that the mistrust extends to ICANN’s executive staff as well. Our perception is that the overwhelming majority of the community accepts that the IANA transition will occur, but believe that finalizing it prior to the development and acceptance of enhanced accountability measures would surrender the only real leverage for improving ICANN’s adherence to community input in the future.

At Monday morning’s Welcome Ceremony, Chehade conceded that ICANN accountability must be improved. He also referred to the IANA transition as a removal of ICANN’s “training wheels”, and announced that ICANN staff levels would reach 300 by the end of 2014 as its globalization efforts continued – with no new staff additions planned for its Los Angeles headquarters office. Turning to Internet governance (IG), he pronounced the recent NETmundial meeting in Sao Paulo a success in laying the groundwork for the development of a distributed Internet cooperation ecosystem. He also indicated that, while ICANN would not be playing a lead role in future IG developments, it would soon announce a number of new alliances and coalitions related to it in the coming months. We’ll be standing by to see what those entail.

The real work of the ICANN 50 meeting in London is about to commence. We shall be actively participating and will report on important developments

This article by Philip Corwin from the Internet Commerce Association was sourced with permission from:
www.internetcommerce.org/icann-50-kicks-off-in-london/

Yahoo Files Complaint For YahooPostOffice.com Domain Name

Yahoo has filed a UDRP ,seeking control of YahooPostOffice.com domain name.The complaint was filed with the National Arbitration Forum a few days ago.

According to whois records,the domain name was first registered in October,2012.

The National Arbitration Forum will examine if YahooPostOffice.com domain is confusingly similar to Yahoo’s trademark,if the current owner has rights over it and if the domain is being used in bad faith .The disputed domain name will be passed over to Yahoo if it falls under all three of these stipulations.

The case is still pending compliance checks with the National Arbitration Forum .

SnapNames To Hold 2014 Year-End Premium Auction

SnapNames is hosting this autumn the 2014 Year-End premium auction. The auction is set to begin November 13,2014 at 3:15 pm ET.and features hand selected domain names across many popular online verticals including Finance,Sports, Travel and Technology.

The inventory will features domain names from low and no reserve to ultra premium reserve ranges.

In order to participate you have to set-up a new SnapNames account . If you want to speak to a domain name sales specialist regardin domain names for sale contact SnapNames by email or phone :

Email: auction[@]Moniker.com
Phone: Toll free in the U.S. and Canada 866-690-6279
Phone: Outside the U.S. and Canada 503-241-8547

Here are the submission criteria :

One or two generic word domains or 1-4 character domains.
Domains and websites in popular e-commerce and search-engine categories (such as finance, travel, debt relief, jobs or shopping) are preferred.
Domains that include assets such as a web site, trademarks, copyrights, etc should be noted in the submission form.
Domain traffic and revenue data should be included whenever possible.