ICANN is publishing today for public comment a discussion draft that addresses the requirements and implementation processes for the reviews called for in the Affirmation of Commitments. … more

The Domain Pulse 2010 conference, the premier domain name conference in the German-speaking countries, will be held in Lucerne, Switzerland on 1 and 2 February.

The conference will have several presentations on DNSSEC, including one on the introduction of DNSSEC in Switzerland by Marc Furrer, President of the Federal Communications Commission and Urs Eppenberger from SWITCH, the host of this year’s conference as well as another presentation on the results of a DNSSEC pilot project in Switzerland. … more

India can adopt telephone number mapping to avoid migrating from 10-digit mobile number to an 11-digit number. The ever-increasing number of fresh subscribers every month has exhausted the allotment of new serial mobile numbers available with the department of telecom (DoT), forcing the industry to seek migration to the 11-digit solution. … more

The 2009 Annual Report [PDF, 5.7M] for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been published online today. As you can see, it is changed only incrementally from last year’s and is somewhat slimmed down. Publishing an annual report is part of ICANN’s practice over the last several years, and an explicit commitment made in the Affirmation of Commitments signed in September 2009. … more

ICANN’s Contractual Compliance Department published its fourth Semi-Annual Contractual Compliance Report [PDF, 475K]. This report summarizes ICANN’s compliance activities from January through November 2009. During this period, ICANN continued work on two studies (Whois accuracy and domain names registered using a privacy or proxy service); completed work on two audits to determine registrar compliance with the Expired Domain Deletion Policy, and issued an advisory to clarify one of its provisions; monitored and investigated claims of Whois inaccuracy; and held a UDRP workshop. This report contains details regarding each of the studies, audits and activities. … more

The Russian government is supporting the introduction of a Cyrillic internationalised Top Level Domain, but the Russian public does not seem so keen to follow, reports The New York Times. … more

ICANN is today opening a public comment forum on a proposed amendment from Fundacio puntCAT to Appendix 6 of the .CAT Registry Agreement. … more

ICANN is publishing today for public comment a draft model for soliciting Expressions of Interest for new generic top-level domains (new gTLDs) [PDF, 192K]. According to this EOI / pre-registration model, entities interested in participating in the first round of the New gTLD Program are required to submit basic information about the participating entity and the requested top-level domain, also referred to as “string”. … more

The Special Trademarks Issues Working Team (STI) has published its Report on its recommendations to create a Trademark Clearinghouse and Uniform Rapid Suspension procedure to protect trademarks in the New GTLD Program. The public comment period ends on 26 January 2010. … more

VeriSign, the registry operator for .COM and .NET domain names announced this week that effective 1 July 2010 there will be an increase in registry domain name fees, effectively the wholesale price to registrars, for the Top Level Domains as per its agreements with ICANN. … more

ICANN today is posting its second status report [PDF, 61K] to the GNSO on the implementation of its recommendations for the Add Grace Period (AGP) Limits Policy. ICANN is committed to analyzing and reporting on the effects of the Policy to the GNSO at six-month intervals for two years after its implementation. The first status report [PDF, 41K] was issued on 10 June 2009. The purpose of these reports is “to allow the GNSO to determine when, if ever, these recommendations and any ensuing policy require additional clarification or attention based on the results of the reports prepared by ICANN Staff.” … more

Cybersquatters, quick to take advantage of people’s misery, whether personal or more widely in the face of widespread disaster, have been quick off the mark to take advantage of Tiger Woods’ affairs. … more

ICANN invites community participation in an open consultation regarding the proposed registry agreement for new gTLDs. This meeting is being organized in response to a commitment made by ICANN at its meetings in Seoul to continue discussions with the community about open issues in the agreement, including the process for amending the agreement, aspects of registry services reviews, and restrictions on registry operators’ ability to distribute names through affiliated registrars (e.g., vertical separation). … more

Pinyin, Romaji and Romanized Domains could get Priority to Register in IDN

[news release] Following the announcement on November 18, 2009, DotAsia today published a draft of the IDN launch policies for discussion. The policies will be finalized after the Kuala Lumpur APRICOT meetings in February 2010, where the Annual General Meeting of DotAsia will be held, for the launch process to begin later in the year. … more

[news release] Rick Latona Auctions has been working on a proprietary auction platform in collaboration with its sister companies. This week only, it’ll be open to preview and beta test at www.latonas.com. Once the auction is complete the system will be locked back down. … more