Recently in policy Category

As an internet business it is only natural that we would be concerned with the development of policies that affect our sector.

Earlier today ICANN's agreement with the US government came to an end. It has been replaced with a new document which paves the way for the future - a bright future which is truly global in nature.

As founder and Managing Director of Blacknight, which is also an ICANN accredited registrar, I welcome the signing of the new document - the Affirmation of Commitments. I welcome ICANN and the US Department of Commerce's commitment to a "multi-stakeholder, private sector led, bottom-up policy development model for DNS technical coordination that acts for the benefit of global Internet users".

This new document severes the close link between ICANN and the US government, while reinforcing and affirming the organisation's role in the development of a truly global organisation that will work in the public interest.

What many people may not realise is that the US government held, until earlier today, an overly important role in the governance and control of the internet. 

The JPA (Joint Project Agreement) did provide for government oversight of ICANN, however it was oversight by one government only - the US government.

While it is only natural that the US government would wish to have a degree of oversight of such an important resource, it is also fundamentally important that such oversight reflect the global nature of the internet.

The new document also strengthen the global and multi-cultural and multi-lingual facet of the internet.

The internet is far too important a resource to have been left in the hands of a single government or cultural ideology.

The recognition of the importance of IDNs underlines this very clearly.

With the wider introduction of non-Latin (ASCII) character sets into the DNS system people of all races, cultures and creeds will be in a much better position to truly participate in what has to be a global community.

We in Ireland are on the outer edges of Europe, but the Internet has allowed businesses, such as ours, to actively compete in global markets.

With the signing of this new agreement we look forward to policy development that reflects the diverse legal and cultural frameworks that need to interact and be respected within ICANN and internet policies.

We look forward to working with a stronger and more transparently accountable ICANN.

This step furthers the innovation and growth of a global internet.

We hope that with the post-JPA agreement in place ICANN, its staff and members of the ICANN community will now be able to focus their energies and resources on the introduction of new TLDs.
It is time for ICANN to "take the bull by the horns" and provide a concrete timeline for their introduction without further delay.

Although we only became ICANN accredited a few short months ago we found ourselves signing up to the new contract with ICANN during the meeting in Sydney.

The new contract (RAA) is the first major revision of the contract since it first came into being a decade ago.

The new contract gives domain holders greater protection and certainty when they register domain names.

In the picture above Dr Paul Twomey (centre) surrounded by a group of ICANN registrars including ourselves (I'm the one wearing the Blacknight tshirt obviously!).

There's been a lot of media attention on the new TLD process in the last few days, which is a good thing. Unfortunately most of it is badly written, misleading or simply misinformed.

Let's look at the reality.

To start with, there are currently 20 gTLDs ie. "global" top level domains (extensions). (21 if you include arpa) These are:

1. com
2. net
3. org
4. info
5. biz
6. mobi
7. name
8. museum
9. pro
10. cat
11. aero
12. asia
13. coop
14. jobs
15. tel
16. travel
17. edu
    
18. gov
19. mil
20. int

There are a further 248 ccTLDs (country codes, such as "ie", "im" etc) - I won't list them here!
 
During the ICANN meeting in Paris the new TLD process was officially started (based on community feedback ie. it didn't come out of nowhere).

What that means in plain English is that ICANN said "let's do this", but they didn't say "how", "when" or "how much".

In reality what has happened so far is that there has been a LOT of discussion and debate and disagreement. There will be more to come in the coming weeks and months as the process moves forward.

First off ...

Can anyone get a TLD?

No.
In order to get a TLD you would need to meet criteria on multiple levels, both financial and technical.
A lot of the media coverage seems to suggest that just about anyone who wants to can run their own domain extension - the reality is that they can't.

How much will it cost?

The application fee is currently set at $185k, however you would really need to have a couple of million in the coffers if you wanted to actually launch a TLD. (As was pointed out to me the costs would be lower for a non-commercial TLD)
The application fee does not cover any legal costs, backend costs, marketing, staff, PR etc., Depending on the TLD you are interested in setting up you might also need to have lobbyists working with you..

When will the new TLDs be available?

At the moment there is no exact date.
ICANN are pushing for opening the application process in Q1 of 2010.
Bearing in mind that applications won't be accepted immediately and that any new TLD operator would need a "ramp up" period, I doubt if there would be any launched until 2011 at the earliest.

What about trademark holders? Will people be able to "squat" on brand names easily?

Trademark holders have been engaged in the process and the IRT report was published recently. In essence TM holders' concerns will need to be addressed as part of the process, though other parties rights should not be ignored.

Who is planning on launching new TLDs?

Nobody knows exactly who will be applying, as some people are in "stealth" mode, but there is a partial list of possible TLDs here.

The applicants fall into several categories:

• cultural / special interest groups - like the Basques or Breton
  
• city domains - New York, Berlin, Paris are all pitching for their own tlds (.nyc, .berlin, .paris)
  
• commercial - too many to even begin naming
  
• other - single registrant type applications for example if BMW were to get .bmw
  

How much will registering one of these new domains cost?

The cost for registering a domain name will depend on the registry operator.

What about IDNs?

Some organisations are trying to launch IDN TLDs (ie. domain extensions that not only support non-Latin characters, but are actually made up of non-Latin characters)

Should small businesses owners be concerned?

In short - no.

Without knowing which new TLDs will launch it's impossible to give sage advice to small business owners at the moment, I would, however, encourage them to "keep an eye open". If a New York based business doesn't register the corresponding .nyc domain, for example, they could end up missing out on a fantastic opportunity. However the same business wouldn't gain much from registering a .paris ...

What about privacy?

This is still a matter that is being debated. If new registry operators were to adopt a whois policy similar to that of .tel (Telnic) which protects private individuals it would be ideal.

What about spam? What about phishing?

Nobody is going to be able to setup a TLD for the sole purpose of abuse. Anyone who tells you otherwise is seriously misinformed. Spam and phishing isn't a TLD specific problem anyway.

If anyone has any other questions or queries they feel need addressing please let us know via the comments and I will do my best to respond.

I don't want to get into the entire IRMA vs Eircom and IRMA vs ISPs debacle.

The only reason I'm even writing this is because I'm getting a bit tired of all the "quotes" of "quotes" and other unclear and misleading things that people have been saying about ISPs over the last few weeks.

To start with, we at Blacknight are not an access provider.

Basically that means that we do not provide broadband services (internet access)  to anyone. We provide hosting, domain registration and a lot of other services.

We are, however, members of both RIPE and ISPAI

So I was more than a bit taken aback when we got a letter from solicitors representing IRMA (EMI, Sony, Universal Music and Warner).

Since so many people have heard about these letters but so very few people have actually seen one I've taken the liberty of publishing the one we received below (I'm not sure if our legal counsel will approve, but I'm more than a little tired of all the "cloak and dagger"). Sorry it's a PDF, but I wasn't going to type it out again!
irmaletter.pdf

Since we don't provide access, as I've already said, I don't see how this can affect us, so I instructed our legal counsel to tell them as much:

Dear Sirs,

We act as solicitors for Blacknight Internet Solutions Limited who have handed us a copy of yours of the 13th inst.  We have explained the contents in detail to our clients who acknowledges your clients situation. 

It is most important to note however that our clients are a hosting provider.  This is distinct to an access provider and our client therefore does not offer DSL or other internet access services. 

We understand that the agreement with Eircom relates to DSL services, which make illegal filesharing possible.  Again we reiterate that our clients do not offer this service.  Nor does our client have any subscribers as outlined in your letter.

We sympathise with your clients, we hope you will see that our clients are not involved in such activities and therefore we would be grateful if you would kindly revert and confirm our clients cooperation and also a release from any legal action as mentioned in your aforesaid letter.

Obviously we cannot and will not condone any illegal activity on our network and will quite happily enforce our terms of service should we find them breached.

However the reality is that most of the "illegal content" that we do find on our network ends up there due to servers being hacked or people using weak passwords, though there have been exceptions!


Ultimately as a service provider we have to be answerable to our clients as well as the law. So if someone gets a court order we will act on it, however we will not share client data with $random 3rd parties.

If you have an issue with one of our clients for whatever reason then get a court order - sending us silly threats isn't going to work. Seriously.

Demanding that ISPs act as a replacement for the judicial system, due process and all those lovely things that we expect in a democracy, is unreasonable. Apart from anything else the privacy issues cannot be ignored.

From a purely business perspective.. it's a bit like David taking on Goliath in some respects.. While there are several large ISPs being targetted, others wouldn't be much bigger than ourselves in terms of staff numbers etc., It's highly doubtful that any of the smaller providers could really afford to engage in a lengthy and costly legal battle.

I guess we'll see how things progress in the coming days and weeks ....

Comreg, the Irish Communications Regulator, has published their report on the consultation on the IEDR / IE namespace.

You can download the various documents including the submissions from their site.

For convenience here is their press release:

The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) has today published its
Response to Consultation on a new framework for the regulation and management of .ie,
Ireland's Top Level Domain (TLD), which is part of the Internet's global Domain Name
System.
Under the Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act 2007, ComReg is responsible
for making regulations to ensure the effective management and administration of .ie in the
best interests of Irish consumers who use this national resource. The .ie domain is
currently managed by IE Domain Registry Ltd. (IEDR).
In June 2008, ComReg consulted on a wide range of issues and simultaneously conducted
a comprehensive independent review and due diligence analysis of IEDR's activities. The
Response to Consultation now describes the outcome of that process and outlines
ComReg's conclusions and decisions on a suitable regulatory framework for the .ie
domain. The main points are:
- ComReg will, by way of regulation, appoint IEDR as the authority authorised to
register .ie domain names in accordance with Section 32(4)(a) of the Act of 2007,
- IEDR will set up and maintain a Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) representative of
all stakeholders with a focus on more transparent policy development,
- IEDR will continue to adopt the "managed approach" to .ie registrations to ensure
continued protection for .ie domain name holders and consumers,
- ComReg will implement a monitoring framework and will participate in the PAC to
keep abreast of activities in the marketplace,
- Further regulatory measures may be considered in the future, as warranted.

Leo Vegoda posted an interesting article today on CircleID about ipv6 deployment and adoption.

While Leo admits that measuring ipv6 isn't an exact science he was able to identify that the African region (AfriNIC) is announcing more ipv6 space than any of the other regions, including Europe.

So what about Ireland?

Sixxs maintain statistics of networks announcing IPv6 addresses globally on a per country basis.

The table for Ireland is quite interesting.

Of the 24 Irish networks with an IPv6 allocation, only 13 are active and of those only 10 are being announced globally (if my interpretation of the table is correct).

The Irish government has an allocation, but doesn't seem to have announced it ever!

Of course HEAnet is making use of theirs, but they're not a commercial ISP.

The problem for widespread adoption of IPv6 is going to lie in encouraging commercial ISPs to make IPv6 available.

When this is likely to happen, however, is anyone's guess.

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