A New Draft Document from the RIRs: "The RIRs acknowledge the benefits in the ICANN structure in terms of providing an open framework for the coordination of a number of critical Internet administration functions, and have determined that they will continue to work within this framework and support ICANN in this endeavor. At the same time the RIRs are aware that ICANN is a private corporate entity, and that its future is one that is not absolutely assured. There is a risk, as with any private corporate entity, that the entity may fail...."

(Updated 12:09 PDT) Today starts the beginning of a new format for my icann.Blog. I'll only be posting to that section of my weblog on Tuesdays and Fridays. Expect more of a format like today's, with a longer comment followed by a lot of Quicklinks. Read on....   more »

Hiawatha Bray quotes a Verisign spokesperson in the Boston Globe: "VeriSign began work on the system a year ago, spokesman Tom Galvin said. 'We began to think of a service that would help improve Web navigation,' he said. Galvin said VeriSign informed a major Internet regulatory body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), of the Site Finder plan. He said ICANN president Paul Twomey raised no objections."

I'm not sure if he'll publish it, but here's a note I sent to Dave Farber's IP list this morning about the ongoing debate over Verisign's Sitefinder service.   more »

The Commerce Department has decided to let the Dean Administration handle the next MOU. Or maybe it's the Kerry Administration, I keep forgetting.

From Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer comes this story on how ISC is planning to "patch" BIND to block the Verisign typosquatting service. According to the article, the folks at the Internet Software Consortium expect to release the patch tomorrow.

Here's a note from Tina Dam to SITA that unearths a little nugget from the .aero registry agreement -- as a condition of sponsoring the .aero registry, SITA was required to give up its .int domain name.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Verisign waited until Louie had moved on to implement its typosquatting service.

I received a nice little credit from Amazon.com recently (thanks, Milton!) that made me think I'm not doing enough to generate revenue from this site. Make no mistake, my weblog is and always has been a labor of love, not a means of making money. I'm never going to be able to compensate myself for the time spent reading and writing about ICANN and the other things that make their way to this weblog, but perhaps I can at least cover some of the hard costs associated with running a web server. So yesterday I started running a handful of small banner ads from Domain Direct, Commission Junction, BeFree, and Amazon.com in the lower left margin. They're all semi-related to the content of this web site. If you were inclined to buy any of products or services from these vendors, consider clicking through to them from my web site. I'll get a small commission, but the price to you won't change.

The Domain Direct ad is static. I put it there because I trust the folks at Tucows, and I also own Tucows stock. That's an easy company for me to feel good about promoting. The ad immediately below it is served from Commission Junction; ads from four or five different vendors I selected will rotate in that spot. The ads from Expedia and Travelocity are static and served from BeFree. The Amazon.com ad is based on the keyword "domain name" and will feature about a dozen books rotating in that slot. I picked the keyword, but I have no control over which specific books appear in that slot.

If you were inclined to go to Tunisia and book through Expedia or Travelocity, click through my banner. Who knows, with enough clicks, you may see me there too! ;-)

The ITU Weblog has a note on the ITU-ICANN joint meeting on .int domains. A PDF containing a summary of the meeting and a draft position paper is linked from the ITU site.

Wong Choon Mei writing for Reuters: A fight over the role of governments in managing the Internet is brewing as policymakers prepare for a U.N.-backed summit on the network's future, said an official at the body governing Internet domain names.

ICANN just posted the Preliminary Report for the Board meeting held on 9 September 2003.

It's 6:22 am on Monday, September 15th. Do you know where your preliminary report for September 9th can be found? It's not posted.

Elizabeth Olson follows the story of registries profiting from typing mistakes in Profits in Missed Exits on Information Highway. The article includes quotes from Vint Cerf.

Robert Connelly writes: "Eric Faucet of ICANN blog attended the meeting but avoided signing any of the registers when he arrived. I believe he entered in the back of the room."

Personally, I didn't see Eric, but that shouldn't surprise anyone. He's sneaky. I must have missed his entrance when I was saying hello to everyone. Not only is he good at getting into places where he clearly shouldn't be, he's a good hacker as well. He occasionally posts the most outrageous stuff to this weblog under my name.

Peter Yu's article on "The Neverending ccTLD Story," from the forthcoming book Addressing the World, is now available for download here (find the 'Download Document' icon near the bottom of the page). It's interesting reading.

I missed the last part of the Registrar meeting. Ross has the explanation. I'll clean up my notes and post a few more things over the weekend.

Here are my running notes for the afternoon. The usual caveats apply. These aren't quotes, not even a good summary. Just my own personal notes of the things I found interesting. Some of the notes are fairly detailed, some are just rough, overbroad conclusions. Only I know the difference. Still, you're free to read...   more »

I came across CommonName in this article about domain names.

I'll be posting my notes from today's registrar meeting on the linked page. The webcam image, on this homepage and the linked page, will update periodically. As with all 'blogged' events, these aren't quotes, even good summaries. Just my running notes of the meeting...   more »

According to the ICANN Calendar, the Board of Directors will hold another "Special Meeting of the Board by Telephone" tomorrow, September 12th. No agenda has been posted, and it's hard to even speculate about the subjects that might be covered since the Preliminary Report from the September 9th meeting is not yet available.

This reminds me a little of the first article I ever wrote about ICANN back in 2000 when the Board was holding teleconferences without publishing agendas and before the minutes from the previous meeting had been posted. That rant led to this reconsideration request and the five-day deadline in the bylaws for publishing preliminary reports. But when the five-day rule was adopted, who knew that ICANN would start holding meetings three days apart?

This looks like it could be good: Addressing the World: National Identity and Internet Country Code Domains. The publication date is next month. According to the publisher, the table of contents includes:

1. The NeverEnding ccTLD Story;
2. East Timor's .TP: From a Virtual Initiative to a Political Reality;
3. Chile's .CL: A Virtual Home for Chileans Worldwide;
4. India's .IN: Underused and Under Appreciated;
5. Malaysia's .MY: Globalization and Domain Identification Among Malaysian Students;
6. Sweden's .SE: Re-establishing Itself as the Best Choice for All Swedes;
7. Niue's .NU: Providing a Free Internet to an Isolated Nation;
8. Moldova's .MD: The Little Domain That Roared;
9. China's .CN: Reaching Every Corner of the World;
10. Swaziland's .SZ: Virtual Symbols of Swaziland's National Aspirations and Character;
11. The United States' .US: Striving for the American Dream; and,
12. Australia's .AU: Australia's Second Gold Rush.

I've pre-ordered my copy.

An excerpt from an ALAC draft statement on Whois: "We think that the chief issues of concern to individual Internet users regarding WHOIS involve the mandatory collection of data not operationally necessary, the forced disclosure to the public of that data, and disclosure to them about the data protection/use policies of the registrars to whom they give such data." I think that's just right.

No, it's not trademark exactly. But "name recuperation" is what the EU is titling its attempt at the WTO meetings this week to prevent the use around the world of words like "Champagne" and "Feta" to describe bubbly wine and cheese that do not come from specific locales in Europe. The initial list of 41 names for which the EU seeks protection is here. Public Radio's Marketplace has a nice story on the EU demands in RealAudio format and notes that the 41 names are just the beginning. If these are approved, hundreds more wait in the wings. The movement to seek exclusive rights to geographical designators for food products won't surprise any ICANNwatchers. It's born of the same motivations that drove the GAC to seek protection of geographical designations for SLDs in Montevideo.

Here's something you don't see everyday: a press release from .aero. Airports have only a few more weeks to register their three-letter airport codes as domain names.

Registrars arriving for this weeks meeting in Marina del Rey might like to take a look at lax.aero.

See you there.

People Kill People. Or at least that was the meme of the anti-gun control lobby a few years ago. I never gave much credence to that argument when it was used in the gun control debates, but it was the first thing that popped into my head today when I read Joanna Glasner's article in Wired News: "P2P Taken to Task for Child Porn." This strikes me as a slippery slope. As soon as we start blaming the medium for the content, we have to look at all of the things that make the electronic communication of pornography possible. Today, P2P networks, tomorrow... domain names? IP addresses? Encryption? Apache, for goodness' sake? More likely than not, yesterday's hearing was just more Congressional sound and fury that will go nowhere. But as part of the continuing struggle to control the distribution of content on the Internet, it's worth watching.