The witness list has just been posted for the House IP committee on the new gTLD's hearing that's going to be held on Wednesday , and its not shocking that the list isn't exactly fair and balanced. Here is the list: Witness List Kurt Pritz Senior Vice President, Stakeholder Relations ICANN Mei-lan Stark Senior Vice President, Intellectual Property Fox Group Legal Michael … [Read more...]
Breaking News: House IP Subcommittee To Hold Hearing On New gTLD’s Next Week
The House IP & Internet Subcommittee is holding a hearing next week on the new gTLD program. It looks like the hearing has been requested by IP interests to be a forum for their complaints that the trademark and other IP protections in new Guidebook that was published on April 15th. Look for ICANN to be called on the carpet at the meeting. Hearing Information Hearing on: "ICANN … [Read more...]
GAC Publishes Remaining Points of Difference Between ICANN Board and the GAC On New gTLD Rights Protection
The Government Advisory Counsel (GAC) issued a paper today of the "remaining Points of Difference Between The ICANN Board and the GAC on New gTLD Rights Protection" Rights protections= trademark holders rights to domains, so listen up. The GAC has been raising a lot of concerns with the new gTLD program mostly based on concerns of trademark holders. While the GAC has continued to demand … [Read more...]
New GuideBook For gTLD’s Is Published By ICANN & Open For Public Comment
ICANN has just published another draft of its Guidebook for new new gTLD's and it has opened the public comment period today, which will close on May 15. As always the Guidebook is broken down into sections. The sections that domainer would probably be most interested in are: Uniform Rapid Suspension Trademark Clearinghouse I will be checking those out today and be back to report … [Read more...]
ICANN 2010 Annual Report Just Published & They Close The Year With $64 Million In Net Assets
ICANN just published its annual report (pdf), including its financial's for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010. ICANN finished its fiscal year with $64 Million in assets, including $17 million in cash, investments of over $45 million or a total of $63 million. For the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2009, ICANN had $27 million in cash but only $30 Million in investments or just $57 … [Read more...]
CNN Allows CADNA Representative To Spew Inaccuracies on new gTLD’s
CNN.com published a story by Nao Matsukata a senior policy adviser to the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) and to Alston & Bird, LLP. "In a dramatic change of internet policy, ICANN has proposed to approve and implement the roll out of more than 400 new top-level domains within the next few months. Top-level domains are what you see to the right of the dot, such as “com” or … [Read more...]
How Could The CEO Of ICANN Not Vote On .XXX?
Yesterday at the ICANN board meeting when the .XXX extension was approved by a 9-3 vote, 4 Board members abstained from voting including the CEO of ICANN Rod Beckstrom. While one vote either for or against the .XXX extension wouldn't have changed the outcome, the point of the matter is how can the head of an organization pass on voting on what is probably the most important vote ICANN has taken … [Read more...]