Stephane Van Gelder

The challenges of the Nairobi ICANN meeting

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:17:39 +0100

ICANN's 37th international meeting doesn't officially get underway until Monday, but for many attendees work has started already. I got to the meeting venue in Nairobi this morning and I'm happy to report that apart from some truly horrendous traffic, the Kenyan capital looks like being a very pleasant place to be in.

But I won't have much time for sightseeing over the next few days. This meeting promises to be challenging. Not just for me, although it will be that as well. The GNSO Council Chair Chuck Gomes is not making the trip over to Nairobi, so his chairing duties should have been split evenly between me and fellow GNSO Vice Chair Olga Cavalli. However I learned this morning that Olga is also unable to make the trip for personal reasons. I will therefore be chairing all the GNSO meetings, including the open Council meeting on Wednesday and the Council wrap-up on Thursday. Talk about being unexpectedly thrown in at the deep end…

But this meeting will also present several challenges for ICANN itself. First and foremost, will the organisation be able to keep this meeting relevant even though many of the usual suspects have chosen to stay away? The Board has some key topics on its agenda, not least a possible reconsideration of the .XXX application and the need to decide whether to okay the proposed Expressions of Interest for new gTLDs. It is imperative that this work not be slowed or delayed because there are less people physically present than usual. Otherwise the whole rationale for having this meeting could be questioned.

One way to ensure this will be to guarantee a high quality of remote participation for those not physically in Nairobi but who still wish to take part. Remote participation hasn't been a strong point at past ICANN meetings. Most of the time, remote participants have been relegated to the role of silent observers due to the inherent difficulties in making themselves heard in a room full of people onsite. For this meeting, the remote participants will definitely want to speak and be active. A lot of them are regular ICANN attendees and they have no qualms at all about speaking publicly. If their voices can be heard, Nairobi will be a more productive meeting.

.FR to become available to all Europeans in 2 years

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:40:00 +0100

Following the French government's announcement yesterday that AFNIC had been confirmed as the French registry for the next 7 years, new rules have been announced for .FR.

Currently, .FR is only open to individuals or companies that have a physical address in France.

In the next 2 weeks, AFNIC will open .FR to French nationals living abroad. The address-in-France requirement will therefore no longer be enforced for the domain owner, as long as he or she is a French national. The admin contact will still have to be located in France however.

After that, .FR will be opened up to any individual or business located in one of the European Union member states. This will go a long way towards bringing .FR in line with other major European domains like .DE or .UK, both of which are open to registrants outside of their respective countries.

Unfortunately, AFNIC says it will take it up to 2 years to open .FR to European registrants.

French government signs contract with .FR registry

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:32:27 +0100

AFNIC, the incumbent French registry, will continue to operate .FR. Minister for Industry Christian Estrosi today signed a 7 year contract with AFNIC to run the French top level domain.

In January 2009, the French authorities started a tender process to determine if AFNIC should be allowed to stay on as registry for .FR. As an AFNIC Board member, I've known for a while that AFNIC would most likely be awarded the contract, but I was sworn to secrecy.

Estrosi says that in order to get the registry contract, AFNIC has had to commit to spending at least 5% of its revenue on strengthening the .FR infrastructure to improve its load and request management capabilities.

During the first half of 2010, AFNIC will also open .FR to French nationals living abroad (right now an address in France is required to register a .FR domain name).

.XXX urges ICANN to execute 2004 contract

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:22:50 +0100

Following a ruling in its favour by ICANN's Independent Review Panel (IRP), would-be .XXX operator ICM Registry is pushing ICANN to honour the 2007 contract which should have allowed it to run .XXX for the last 3 years.

ICM Chairman Stuart Lawley has written to ICANN Chairman of the Board Peter Dengate Thrush. "I sincerely hope you share (…) the view expressed by so many (…) that the completion of the first ever Independent Review Process following the issuance of the Panel’s recent ruling is a defining moment for ICANN," writes Lawley.

Lawley told me recently that he expects his legal fees alone to exceed USD 6 million. But ICM is not asking ICANN reimburse these or even make reparations for the loss of revenue ICM has undoubtedly suffered from not being able to launch .XXX in 2007. What ICM is asking for, however, is that it be considered a part of the 2004 application round and not be amalgamated into the new gTLD program. "Nothing in the declaration would justify a decision to reconsider the ICM application in connection with the upcoming new gTLD round," Lawley argues. "Nor is there any principled reason to apply new rules or requirements to a proposal that was already determined to comply with the rules and procedures governing the 2004 sTLD round."

Lawley will be making the trip to Nairobi next week for ICANN's 37th international meeting, where he is hoping to meet with Dengate Thrush and ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom and to see the ICANN Board revisit the .XXX issue.

Chinese authorities want to meet every new .CN website owner… in person!

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:01:32 +0100

China is fast becoming the benchmark for strange and exotic ways of managing a national namespace.

The latest rumour to come out of the country suggest that authorities will require an in-person meeting with any prospective website operator behind a .CN domain name to green-light it.

The applicant would be required to show some kind of ID to ensure that the authorities can act against him should his website be used to display illicit content at any time.

Since last December, China has embarked on a fight against undesirable web content such as pornography. It started by closing off the very liberal .CN (used to be that anyone, from any country, could register) and limiting access to Chinese companies only.

The next step was excluding those foreign registrars that had been active on .CN ever since the Chinese government reached out to them in 2003 when .CN was first opened. As if blocking companies that had invested to add .CN to their registration systems and offer them to their customers wasn't enough, China then decided that any new .CN registration request would have to be made with heavy supporting documentation, thereby ending any hope for a relatively simple and cheap registration chain.

Problems for non-Chinese registrants and registrars alike have been compounded by the tendency for new rules to be announced only a few hours before coming into effect, giving all very little time to adapt.

Should this new requirement for website operators to meet with Chinese authorities in person be confirmed, it will be just one more example of this apparent lack of regard for .CN users and registrars worldwide.

ICANN Nairobi goes ahead as planned

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:18:03 +0100

The ICANN Board met yesterday and reconfirmed its commitment to the 37th international ICANN meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi from March 7 to 12.

Security concerns expressed by some participants in recent weeks combined with a recent terrorist alert on the convention center where the meeting is to be held have contributed to many of the usual attendees deciding not to come.

That includes whole groups, such as the GNSO's intellectual property constituency (IPC) or the gTLD registries. The IPC and the registries are even planning alternative meetings in "safer" locations such as New York during the Nairobi meeting week. Sensibly, the Board has said that no funding would be available from ICANN for such meetings.

ICANN staff and the Board have been working in recent weeks to gauge the true extent of any security threat and ensure that if the meeting did go ahead, it would do so in relative safety. Various reports, both from governments, people onsite and recent visitors to Nairobi, show that the terrorist threat is actually not very credible and that the level of security on the street is no worse than at many other major cities. Touch wood… I hope no-one finds out otherwise in a couple of weeks!

Continue reading "ICANN Nairobi goes ahead as planned"

ICANN Board delays EOI decision until Nairobi

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:21:06 +0100

The Expression Of Interest (EOI) model was up for consideration at the ICANN Board's February 4th meeting, but ended up being pushed back until Nairobi.

ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee was amongst those calling for more time before any decision be taken on the EOI.

The proposed EOI model would make it compulsory for those wishing to apply for a new gTLD in the first round (currently expected to open in 2011). An EOI fee of USD 55,000 would be applied, and deducted from the USD 185,000 applicants would be required to pay in the first round.

During its February 4th meeting, the Board committed to an EOI decision at its next meeting, to be held in Nairobi in March.

Afilias acquires .MOBI registry

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:28:11 +0100

Afilias, the registry for .INFO and several other TLDs, has just announced its purchase of mTLD, the registry for .MOBI.

Afilias was already running the back-end registry service for .MOBI, which today boasts nearly one million registered names.

Afilias say they will continue to run .MOBI as a separate entity.

Read the Afilias announcement here.

Foreign registrants allowed back into China

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:49:08 +0100

"Let's twist again…" Whenever I hear about China's management of its namespace these days, I can't help but thinking about that old song.

China just doesn't seem to know whether it's coming or going anymore. First it barred foreign registrants in a surprise December 2009 move, and now it's decided to allow them back in.

But not like before, noooo Sir! Before the December rule change, .CN was open to all, private individuals and companies alike, and had no registration rules beyond the first-come, first served system which meant that the only possible case where a .CN could not be registered is if it had already been registered by someone else.

Since then, .CN has become a bureaucrat's dream and a registrant's nightmare. Individuals are barred. Companies must have a local office and register through that office. Those are the new rules as from today (Feb 10, 2010). Before, foreign companies simply could not register, even if they had a local office, despite what some registrars told their customers as they tried to twist and bend the rules.

So it looks like a lot of people are doing the twist around China these days. Would-be .CN registrants will now have to dance with the Chinese registry's draconian registration rules which include obligations to return documents within a (very short) time limit.

The best advice for prospective registrants at this stage: work with an accredited .CN registrar that not only knows the rules but is also able to assist you to work through the complexities of a registration request on a daily basis, until the name is actually confirmed.

A very partial view of the Internet… and the world

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:50:53 +0100

Chanced upon a little beauty of an article about how the US invented and paid for the Internet and should therefore keep controlling it forever.

Now I realise that the author's views aren't shared by everyone in the States. The site on which the article is being run is obviously slightly Republican friendly to say the least, and the article's "foreigners are going to take our Internet away from us" diatribe is obviously more political than anything else. Still, I can't help but be worried when the article's author, Bradley A. Blakeman, is an ex American President's deputy assistant and now teaches politics at a major US university.

With credentials like that, some people might actually believe untruths like "the Internet was invented by America". That's sad, because while there's no doubt Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn are the Net's fathers, what about its uncles? People like Frenchman Louis Pouzin, who is credited by both Cerf and Kahn as having laid the foundations for the Internet's cornerstone: the TCP/IP protocol.

And let's not forget that without Brit Tim Berners-Lee, I wouldn't have even been able to read Blakeman's fascinating piece of propaganda on a formatted webpage. At CERN (a European research institute located in Switzerland), Berners-Lee invented the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http) and the Hypertext Markpup Language (html), two crucial parts of the true multimedia experience that is today's Internet.

Most sane, rational people realise that great enterprises like the Internet aren't built by a single person or nation. That would be like crediting all research and scientific progress made on AIDS to France because Luc Montagnier discovered HIV about 5 seconds before American Robert Gallo did.

But Blakeman doesn't seem to share the view that the Internet belongs to everyone. He argues that the Obama administration has "surrendered the Internet to foreign powers", that there is "no better country to protect the Internet than the United States" because he says "We invented it, and we paid for the research and implementation that made it possible. We are the freest most tolerant nation on earth..."

As I said, I'm worried. It's clear that the ICANN community still has its work cut out to ensure a truly global oversight of the Internet, if it has to fight such narrow minded views from the nation that still technically controls the Internet today.

Read the article here.

Good news: Nairobi meeting confirmed

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:48:05 +0100

After much worrying, talking, arguing and hesitating, ICANN has gone and done the right thing. Despite certain security concerns from participants from countries like the United States or the UK, the Nairobi meeting is on.

ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom confirmed Nairobi after Friday's special meeting of the ICANN Board, convened specifically to discuss the situation.

"We recognize that many developing country cities have higher ambient levels of street crime and much of the world (the U.S. and Europe included) faces international terrorist threats and attacks," Beckstrom explained after the meeting. "Both are simply facts of life."

It's good to see some measure of common sense returning to this Nairobi debate. Yes there are risks, risks are everywhere. But ICANN is a global organisation and as a member of that organisation, I would rather not see it slap Kenya or any other country in the face by snubbing it (this would have been the second time for Kenya, a fact which would have understandably irked the Kenyans).

"Given that ICANN is committed to "One world. One Internet. Everyone connected." we have engaged and will continue to engage with the whole world," concludes Rod Beckstrom.

I couldn't agree more.

Does a new ICANN policy chief make the Internet a better place?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 14:48:51 +0100

Although unconfirmed at this stage, the ICANN grapevine has been buzzing the last few days with the news that ICANN's Vice President for policy development Denise Michel was about to be replaced.

Former Manager of public participation Kieren McCarthy has just confirmed the news on his personal blog with a scathing piece. "Of the hundreds of people I have worked with, some of them very difficult, I have only truly disliked two," writes Kieren, before going on to explain that Denise was one of them and that she "infected the whole work environment with destructive and negative behaviour."

Since becoming a GNSO Councillor, the GNSO being responsible for setting policy for the generic namespace, I have obviously worked with Denise on several occasions, but never closely enough to know whether Kieren's words are an exaggeration or not.

But I did work closely with Kieren on several projects within ICANN. I know him to be an extremely fair and honest person that will always tell it like it really is. So if he thinks that "when, in six months’ time, everyone is much happier about the process used to decide vital policies for the global Internet, you will be able to track it back to this day," adding "the Internet has become a better place today" I tend to trust his judgment.

Kieren names David Olive as Denise Michel's replacement and the new person in charge of what is one of ICANN's key departments.

Chinese meltdown: individuals barred from .CN, now allowed back?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:23:17 +0100

What's going on in China? After taking everyone totally by surprise when they closed .CN to individuals on December 14, 2009, the Chinese authorities then went one step further and announced that, starting January 6, 2010, non-Chinese registrars would be barred from registering new names.

What brought this on? The new rules are a complete turnaround in policy from the laissez-faire attitude exhibited by the Chinese government and enacted by the national registry CNNIC ever since .CN was opened up as a top level domain on March 17, 2003. From that point on (previously the Chinese namespace was only open at the 3rd level, e.g. .COM.CN), China has seemingly had but one goal: amass as many .CN registrations as possible. And when the 14th million .CN domain was registered during 2009, the Chinese TLD became the world's most prolific country code.

Then came chaos. China claims the new ultra-restrictive registration rules are to limit the "authenticity, accuracy, and integrity" of its namespace. Chinese netizens have even been encouraged by the authorities to report offending websites and the domain names behind them.

However the new rules look more like a kneejerk reaction than anything carefully planned. After China's initial announcement, no-one at CNNIC or elsewhere seemed to know exactly who could register what. Not a day has gone by since during which accredited .CN registrars like INDOM haven't heard contradictory reports of what they can and can't do.

Last week, it finally seemed clear that only registered entities such as companies would now be eligible for a .CN domain and that foreign registrars could no longer register new names but could continue to manage their existing names.

Then, just as the dust finally seemed to be settling, I chanced upon this little gem. It would now seem that CNNIC has reversed the rules and will allow individuals to register domains after all. (Although INDOM's registry liaison team has been unable to confirm this and no official announcement has been made by CNNIC). "If we stop individuals obtaining domain names, they will register abroad or fake themselves as company applicants anyway," a director at CNNIC is quoted as saying, as if no-one could have thought of that 3 weeks ago…

Someone hand me that bottle of aspirin, please!

A list of new gTLDs

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:00:41 +0100

Now here's a good idea. This site gives a list of new gTLD initiatives that are known to exist. You get the TLD itself, plus related web Facebook and Twitter pages. Not all the entries in this list are up to date, but in the fast moving world of new TLDs, that's hardly surprising and certainly not a major problem.

What's the point of google.aero?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:10:31 +0100

Came across this weird domain name google.aero, which doesn't belong to Google and points to a rather farcical web page. I just have 2 questions. Why isn't Google doing anything about this? And what's the owner of this domain playing at, risking the big G's wrath by registering a Google domain and then using it for… nothing much really?