Last month, over 1,000 people concerned with internet governance came together in Cancun, Mexico at ICANN76, including several members of the MARQUES Cyberspace Team. Progress was made on a number of items that will in time have an impact on all MARQUES members, as Nick Wood reports.

New gTLDs

The ICANN Board voted to proceed with the next round of new gTLDs, earmarking an initial $9 million for work up until the end of October.

An Implementation Recommendation Team is being formed from volunteers who will work with staff to establish how the policy recommendations, developed over five years by the Subsequent Procedures (SubPro) working group, will be practically implemented. This will include building the application mechanism, processes and procedures.

38 unresolved recommendations from SubsPro across 16 issues have yet to be resolved. The costs are not finalised nor is the timeline but an update is promised by the Board at the start of August.

Whois successor

Accurate up-to-date information on registrants is vital in the enforcement of rights and management of domain portfolios.

The ICANN board gave the green light to staff to develop a Registration Data Request Service (RDRS). RDRS will act as a centralised portal to receive user requests for non-public registration data and pass them on to the relevant registrar.

The decision on whether to provide the data will be made by the individual registrar (far from ideal), and any data disclosure will be made outside of the system. This pilot system will generate data on user demand over a two-year period and inform a future decision by ICANN on whether to build a fuller-functioning System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD).

It is important, therefore, that brand owners submit disclosure requests via the RDRS, even if those requests do not result in satisfactory disclosure of the data, so as not to feed the narrative that there is no problem with access to data. The RDRS is expected to be ready for launch in late November 2023.

DNS abuse

Negotiations to amend the Base Registry Agreement and Registrar Accreditation Agreement, specifically with respect to DNS abuse, were initiated by registries and registrars in December 2022.

DNS abuse is being defined as malware, botnets, phishing, pharming and spam (when spam serves as a delivery mechanism for the other forms of DNS Abuse listed here). The amendments will create an obligation for registries and registrars to take action to mitigate or disrupt DNS abuse. There will be a public comment period on the proposed changes in the coming months.

New CEO search

Goran Marby abruptly stepped down as ICANN CEO at the end of 2022 for health reasons, ending his six-year tenure leading the organisation. He was viewed as a safe pair of hands during the pandemic, but there was frustration across all parts of the ICANN community that little progress was made in a number of policy areas.

ICANN’s existing SVP of Global Stakeholder Engagement, Sally Costerton, was immediately installed as Interim CEO until a permanent appointment is made. A job description will be published at the end of June.

The Board is keen to hear from anyone on the desired qualities of the future CEO, and particularly on what outside forces ICANN will have to confront in the coming years which should shape those qualities. If you feel inspired, email your views to ceosearch2023@icann.org.

Nick Wood is Managing Director of Com Laude, a MARQUES Council member and member of the Cyberspace Team