ICANN’s Contractual Compliance Department published its third Semi-Annual Contractual Compliance Report [PDF, 1,100K]. This report summarizes ICANN’s compliance activities from July 2008 through January 2009. During this period, ICANN updated two audits and commenced two additional audits in addition to continuing work on studies and escalated compliance actions. ICANN conducted each audit by following consistent audit procedures established before each audit commenced. This report contains details regarding the audit methodology, findings, observations and conclusions. … more

The Statement of Registrar Accreditation Policy (icann.org/en/registrars/policy_statement.html) establishes the standards applied by ICANN in granting gTLD registrar accreditation. In addition to setting minimum qualifications, the policy describes “matters potentially leading to ineligibility” for accreditation, including disqualification of a “registrar or registry administrator, or any officer, director, manager, employee, or owner (including beneficial owners) from being an ICANN-accredited registrar or registry administrator” in accordance with procedures established by ICANN. … more

The results of a lengthy community consultation to improve institutional confidence in ICANN have been published today for discussion at the Mexico City meeting.

The draft Implementation Plan for Improving Institutional Confidence [PDF, 468K] has been produced by the President’s Strategy Committee and follows extensive research, analysis, deliberation and consultation with the global Internet community. … more

auDA today announced that it has extended its au Registry Licence Agreement with AusRegistry. AusRegistry will now continue as Registry Operator and wholesale provider for all commercial domain names including .com.au and .net.au and non-commercial domain names, .gov.au and .edu.au until 2014. … more

“If former Washington State Gov. Gary Locke (D) is confirmed as the new U.S. Commerce Secretary, he’ll face several Internet policy issues that require immediate attention and decisive action in 2009,” says Network World. But whoever is confirmed in the position will face the same challenges as outlined by Network World. … more

With the ICANN meeting in Mexico City on next week, Domain Name Wire has published a guide to surviving the often violent city.

While the city can often be dangerous, with a few tips from the article, they suggest you lessen your risks of anything bad happening dramtically. … more

[news release] The APWG, the global, independent coalition combating electronic crime, today announced the availability of a new industry advisory that examines the abuse of subdomain registries by criminals engaged in phishing attacks. Over 10-percent of all phishing sites, representing tens of thousands of scams worldwide, originate on subdomains available for registration at subdomain registry services, the advisory reports. … more

Documents lodged with the Supreme Court of Queensland reveal a disturbing picture of sharp practice and summary staff dismissals at Au domain name industry regulator - au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA).

The legal action brought by Melbourne registrar - Domain Directors - stopped auDA from stripping the company of a domain name it has been using for 8 years. auDA CEO Chris Disspain gave Domain Directors just 48 hours to respond before he ordered AusRegistry to delete the name and cripple the company’s web-site.But it was auDA’s compliance officer, Shayne Honey, who was summarily dismissed in the wake of the incident.

http://www.ecommercereport.com.au/login/story80.php

Russia’s Telecoms Minister Igor Shchegolev has criticised ICANN, disapproving “of the situation when a single U.S.-based organization has control over the Internet and will soon voice it suggestions on how to ‘demonopolise’ it.” … more

ICANN is soliciting Expressions of Interest from firms interested in and capable of performing any number of independent evaluation roles as part of the new gTLD process. These entities, to be retained by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), will provide independent evaluation services, evaluating applications for new top-level domains (gTLDs). This is an opportunity to play an important role in the next significant evolution of the Internet’s domain name space. … more

Sedo have announced the acquisition of RevenueDirect, a provider of top-tier domain parking services for professional domain investors, from Dotster. … more

With ICANN in the process of introducing internationalised domain names (IDNs) to make it easier for those in the world who do not use a Roman alphabet when typing in a domain name, IDG has a report saying that in Japan, maybe IDNs will never take off. … more

In October 2008 ICANN appointed Westlake Consulting Limited as the consultants for the independent review of the RSSAC, the DNS Root Server Advisory Committee. … more

DENIC have announced they have completed a comprehensive modernisation of their data centre’s with the launch of a new data centre in Amsterdam. With this data centre and the one in Frankfurt am Main, which has been operating reliably since 11 September 2007, DENIC now operates data centres at two international hubs in Europe. … more

Voodoo.com was the big seller at the Domainer Mardi Gras in New Orleans last week, selling for $300,000. However it was the only six-figure seller and was a long way ahead the next best seller, suntanning.com, which sold for $22,500. It was interesting to note that of the five $10,000-plus sales only one sold for more than the reserve price. That sale was jobless.com, selling for $14,000 that had a reserve of $10,000. … more