Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICANN

An international non-profit organization created on September 18, 1998 with the participation of the US government to regulate issues related to domain names, IP addresses and other aspects of the Internet.

2024:7% staff cut to eliminate budget deficit

ICANN Corporation is forced to take tough measures in the face of a budget deficit. This was reported to TAdviser on June 4, 2024 by representatives of the Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF with reference to the resource Domain Incite. According to the acting head of ICANN, Sally Costerton, the corporation is laying off 33 employees, which is 7% of the corporation's total staff.

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Costerton also added that in the current economic environment, such measures are used in all industries and around the world. ICANN has to go to them due to a budget deficit of about $10 million. Other measures designed to improve the financial situation include reducing travel costs and redistributing the workload in order to more actively use regional offices, the maintenance of which is cheaper.

However, ICANN may not be limited to this either. Sally Costerton noted that the corporation is studying the compliance of the deductions received with the inflation rate. ICANN annually receives 18 cents from each domain name under the management of all registrar companies and 25 cents for each transaction (registration, renewal or transfer of domain name) from all registrations. The main source of deductions is VeriSign, which manages the.COM domain, and the fact that it has been noting a decrease in the number of registrations for several quarters in a row could not but negatively affect ICANN's financial situation.

If the revision of the amount of deductions nevertheless takes place, then the registrars and registrars will automatically shift its burden to their customers. At the same time, as noted, the most sensitive price increase may be for two categories of registrants. The first is individuals and legal entities whose financial capabilities are quite limited, the second is holders of large domain portfolios.

At the same time, representatives of the domain community are also concerned about the fact of the reduction of employees of the corporation. They fear that staff cuts could slow work on ICANN's current projects, including the preparation of the next stage of the new domains program.

2022

The departure of Göran Marby as chairman of the board

President of ICANN Corporation Göran Marby left his post. This was officially announced on December 22, 2022 by the chairman of the board of ICANN Tripti Sinha. Sally Costerton, the corporation's senior vice president of stakeholder engagement, has been appointed interim acting president of ICANN. Read more here.

Submission of the draft budget for the next fiscal year

ICANN Corporation presented a draft of its budget for the next fiscal year (it starts on July 1, 2023). As the Domain Incite resource notes, reporting this news, it follows from the document that the corporation's financiers are rather pessimistic. They forecast a nearly two and a half million dollar decline in ICANN's revenue. If the budget of the current financial year includes revenues in the amount of $147.7 million, then next year the corporation plans to receive only 145.3 million. This was announced by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC) on December 19, 2022.

The main source of revenue to the ICANN budget is deductions from each transaction (actual registration of the name, extension of registration or transfer domain under the control of another registrar). Accordingly, analysts at the corporation expect a decrease in the number of transactions. First of all, it will affect the "old" common top-level domains and specifically the largest domain zone.COM. Earlier, its registry VeriSign also worsened its own annual forecast, now ICANN Corporation has done the same: next financial year it plans to receive $87.1 million from registration operations with domains in the.COM zone - against 88.3 million budgeted for 2022. In terms of the number of registration transactions, this means their decrease from 187.9 million to 185.8 million.

ICANN also expects a decrease in the total number of new registrations in common top-level domains and a decrease in the number of accredited registrations - from 1,146 to 1,127 by the end of next year. True, the financiers of the corporation expect that the number of accredited domain registrars will slightly increase over the same period - from 2,447 to 2,452. But such a slight increase, of course, does not compensate for the decline in all other areas.

Refusal to disable Russian domain names

The President and CEO of the Internet Name and Number Corporation (ICANN) rejected Ukraine the request to disable the root servers domain name system serving the domain zone, .ru revoke SSL certificates and allocated names. This became known on March 14, 2022. ICANN said in a letter that the organisation's "globally agreed policies" do not allow the requested actions to be carried out. ICANN plays the role of a technical coordinator unique to identifiers , the Internet letter notes, and it does not have the authority to impose. sanctions In addition, ICANN cannot fulfill some of the requirements - in particular, the revocation of SSL certificates and the disconnection of root servers - in principle, since these issues are under the jurisdiction of other organizations that ICANN does not control.

Revoking the delegation of the.ru domain would lead to the fact that servers with names in the.ru domain could not be accessed by name. However, direct access by IP address would continue to work. Large Russian companies often have servers in both the.ru and.com domains^[1].

2020: Appointment of Chris Mondini as Vice President, European Stakeholder Engagement and Managing Director, Brussels Office

On January 13, 2020, it became known that Internet the Corporation for the Assignment of Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the appointment Chris Mondini of the Vice President for Stakeholder Relations To Europe in and the Managing Director of ICANN's office in. Brussels More. here

2019: Maarten Botterman elected chairman of ICANN board

The board of ICANN Corporation held elections for the chairman of the board and his deputy. In the past two years, Sherin Shalabi has served as chairman of the corporation. However, ICANN rules limit any person's stay on the corporation's board to a nine-year term. Sherin Shalabi joined the board nine years ago, this circumstance dictated the need to elect a new chairman, the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF reported on September 11, 2019 with reference to Domain Incite.

Chris Dispane, Ron da Silva and Maarten Botterman all claimed the chairmanship. It was Botterman who eventually managed to get the largest number of votes of the board members. Leon Felipe Sanchez Ambia was elected deputy chairman of the board, who will replace Chris Dispane in this post.

Both newly selected executives will formally assume their positions following the formal approval process to be held during ICANN's annual meeting Canadian Monreale between November 2 and 7, 2019.

2018

US wants to regain control of the domain system

The National USA Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is ready to reconsider its decision to abandon the responsible management of IANA functions (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or "Address Space Administration Internet"). The question of whether this should be done and, if so, how, and if not why, was raised by the NTIA for discussion by all stakeholders, which will last until July 2, the National Internet Domain Coordination Center reported on June 6, 2018, citing Domain Incite. More. here

Sexual harassment at ICANN events

At the end of March 2018, information about cases of sexual harassment at ICANN appeared on the Domain Incite resource. A group of women who participated in ICANN events sent a letter to the management of the corporation. In their letter, they cited cases of inappropriate behavior of male participants in the events. The situations described are a violation not only of ethical standards, but also of ICANN's current policy on sexual harassment, which was adopted in 2017.

Five women shared their stories. One of them reported that a participant in ICANN meetings tried to break into her hotel room, and so persistently that she had to barricade the door from the inside. In two situations, men at parties unleashed a torrent of equivocal compliments on unfamiliar women and then let hands go. One woman complained about the man preventing her from leaving the party by standing in the doorway and refusing to let her through. Finally, another participant in ICANN meetings said that during a daytime coffee break during one of the meetings, an unfamiliar man approached her and, paying a compliment, asked if she was married.

The authors of the letter do not disclose their names or the names of men, but make it clear that they can do this if necessary. According to them, the main purpose of the letter is to draw attention not to specific people, but to the problem itself.

ICANN Corporation has the position of Ombudsman, whose responsibility is to consider such complaints. However, until the end of 2017, no such complaints were recorded. The authors of the letter explain this by the fact that the post of Ombudsman is occupied by a man - Herb Way, and women do not always have to just tell a man about cases of harassment. The women who signed the letter also insist that ICANN participants must be introduced to sexual harassment policy and certify it with their signature.^[2]

ICANNWiki Cost Reduction Plan

ICANN continues to look for opportunities to reduce budget spending. This need is caused by a decrease in the growth rate of the domain space, as well as the financial results of new common top-level domains, which in general turned out to be far from expected. One potential cost-cutting opportunity was a proposal to scrap ICANNWiki funding. This is an online project, which currently presents about 6 thousand articles on the activities of organizations and specific people included in the ICANN community.

The corresponding proposal was published on the ICANN website for public discussion and met with a very negative reaction. According to Domain Incite, of the several dozen published reviews, at least a quarter categorically reject the initiative. None of the commentators directly spoke in support. So Roland Laplant, marketing director of Afilias, noted in his commentary that "the complete and abrupt termination of funding for the project not only threatens its existence, but also devalues the efforts to support it over the years. The loss of ICANNWiki will be a loss of the community spirit that unites us. " The authors of many other comments agree with him.

In fairness, it should be noted that the ICANNWiki project has existed for 10 years, and only in the last 3 years has received financial support from ICANN. In addition, the project has other sponsors, and most of the content is created by volunteers at no cost. On the other hand, the amount of annual support from ICANN is 100 thousand dollars. It is hardly decisive in a situation where corporations need to make multimillion-dollar budget cuts. Critics suggest ICANN to think primarily about reducing the staff: the cost of a full-time ICANN employee is estimated to average 175 thousand dollars per year (taking into account not only wages, but also travel and other expenses).

2017

ICANN faces budget shortfall

ICANN Corporation intends to reduce staff and cut costs for its events and travel of employees due to the danger of a budget deficit. This was announced almost simultaneously in December 2017 in his blogs by ICANN President Göran Marby and Corporation Chairman Cherin Chalabi. Thus, Göran Marby noted that in the third quarter of this year, ICANN's revenues were $1 million lower than planned.

The main source of revenue for the corporation (64 percent of all revenues) is deductions from fees for registration actions performed with domain names, explains Domain Incite. Accordingly, the decline in the activity of the domain market in recent months has led to a decrease in revenue. Until the end of the current budget year (in June 2018), ICANN planned to receive revenues of $142.8 million, but taking into account current trends, Marby assumes that the result will be lower, and the corporation will not show any profit^[3].

At the same time, Cherin Chalabi reported a shortage of the ICANN reserve fund. It is assumed that this fund should contain an amount sufficient to maintain the corporation's activities in full throughout the year, even if all registrars and registrars cannot pay their contributions. At the moment, there are about $60 million in the reserve fund, and the corporation needs another 80 million. All this pushes ICANN to the need to cut costs - in particular, for events and business trips of employees. Staff reductions are also expected. However, we are not talking about layoffs yet: the corporation intends to consider the possibility of redistributing the load in order not to fill the existing and vacating vacancies.

Concept of a new UN convention from the Ministry of Communications

Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media developed the concept of a new convention UN, which deals with governance, Internet as well as its safety and development. The ministry announced this on its website. The agency notes that the concept should contribute to development, Internet increase its security and guarantee network users their rights and freedoms. In addition, the document stipulates equal international cooperation in Internet governance and proposes a number of principles on which this governance should be based by the^[4] and Mass^[5]

Russia intends to defend the strengthening of the role of governments in control over the Internet

Governments should have a more pronounced role in controlling the Internet, and Russia intends to promote this position in the Domain Name Management Corporation (ICANN).

"We insist that the role of governments should be clearly spelled out and that it cannot be just deliberative," RBC quotes Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Igor Shchegolev.

In October 2016, the rights to manage ICANN passed from the US Department of Commerce to the California-registered non-profit corporation Public Technical Identifiers (PTI). It was assumed that a change in leadership would contribute to the fact that the Internet will remain free. According to Shchegolev, however, there is no improvement in the situation.

"Before that, at least it was possible to make claims to the US government if something was happening. And now it is a kind of autonomous or non-profit organization that simply works under American law. And American officials might say, "We have nothing to do with it here. Go to court in California and sue these guys, "he said. -All the time there will be questions about how the Internet is managed, what happens to it. Countries will be forced to look for technical and legal solutions that protect them in this situation. "

Shchegolev believes that the bill of the Ministry of Communications on Runet can help resolve the issue by influencing foreign players. This document defines the critical infrastructure of the Russian segment of the Internet and regulates its security issues. The project, according to Shchegolev, can serve as an example for foreign colleagues and will make "think about still carrying out a real reform of international Internet governance."

The bill was previously recommended by the Duma committee for adoption in the first reading, taking into account improvements. Meanwhile, one of the main issues - sources of funding - has not yet been resolved.

2016

Washington refused to renew Internet management contract with ICANN

In early October 2016, it became known that he Washington refused to renew the management contract with ICANN. Internet Thus, the World Wide Web is out of control. USA

It follows from the ICANN message that on October 1, 2016, the contract with the National Information and Communications Administration (NTIA) of the US Department of Commerce for the performance by the corporation of the functions of IANA (Internet Address Space Administration) expired. Now these functions will be the exclusive prerogative of the ICANN public structure, managed by engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, etc.

This historic moment marks the transition of coordination and management of unique Internet identifiers to the private sector, ICANN said.

The contract under which the US authorities controlled part of the Corporation for managing domain names and IP addresses has expired

The terminated agreement between NTIA and ICANN formally means that the US authorities will not be able to directly influence the management of domain names and IP addresses.

This news was also commented on in Russia. Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov considered that the agreement created an "asymmetrical model of Internet governance."

Russia, like the entire international Internet community, expected a positive development in the process of transferring the implementation of IANA functions, he said.

The topic of control over the Internet has been discussed in the world for many years. This discussion became especially acute after a former employee of the US National Security Agency, Edward Snowden, published information about mass surveillance of American intelligence services for Internet users.

Earlier, the Internet community approved a multi-stakeholder global network management scheme - this model implies the participation of all stakeholders from around the world. The corresponding plan was developed at ICANN, but the US authorities instead decided in 2015 to extend the contract with the organization for another year.

China may begin to control the global Internet from October 1

Management functions Internet may move from USA China from October 1, 2016, Epochtimes reports^[6] the^[7]this day, the contract between the US Department of Commerce and the Internet Corporation for Domain and Number Names (ICANN) expires. After that, control over the regulator will pass to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) under, the UN leadership of which includes representatives. China

According to media reports, ITU, at the suggestion of the Chinese side, has already tried to draw up its own rules for regulating the Internet, including the introduction of a global tax on content. A number of international events were also organized for IT companies, which promoted the idea of ​ ​ strengthening control over the Internet. Observers assess China's activities in the union as attempts to gain control of the world network to the same extent as the Internet is regulated in the Middle Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Russia is also trying, regardless of international regulators, to take domestic resources under supervision. In August, it became known that control over the Coordination Center, which manages the domains of.ru and .rf, could be transferred to the state. At the same time, in the case of nationalization of the center, the likelihood of conflicts with the ICANN corporation, which manages international domains, is not excluded. Experts also fear destabilization in the Russian domain industry.

2013: Brand Protection Rules in Top-Level Domains

In October 2013, it became known that ICANN had identified brand protection mechanisms in new top-level domains (Rights Protection Mechanisms, RPM). The draft document appeared in April 2013. The approved version of the document defines the key rules and deadlines for priority registration (Sunrise) in all new top-level domains, the first of which may appear at the end of 2013. Among them are Russian applications:

• .RUS,
• .DETI,
• .MOSCOW/.MOSQUA

and others.

Only those who registered it with Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) − the trademark depository created by ICANN will be able to count on the protection of their trademark. They are the ones who will take precedence during the Sunrise period.

According to the published document, registrars will be able to choose whether they will additionally reserve domain names during priority registration or not. In the first case, "start-date sunrise" awaits them, in the second − "end-date sunrise."

The Registry shall notify ICANN 30 days prior to the commencement of priority registration of its intention to reserve names during this period. The 'start-date sunrise' period itself must last at least 30 days.

If the priority registration occurs according to the'end-date sunrise' script, the registry will be able to start this registration stage at any time after domain delegation. The 'end-date sunrise' duration must be at least 60 days.

Registrars will be able to impose additional restrictions on the owners of trademarks registered in TMCH: for example, by class of goods or territory of registration, as well as the period when a particular trademark was registered. It is worth noting that these restrictions should apply to everyone who will later register domain names in the new domain zone.

In addition, registrars are allowed to reserve up to 100 domains for their own needs. They can do this even before the start of priority registration.

How to protect the rights of owners of those brands that are not registered in TMCH are determined by the registrations themselves. To do this, they can provide for periods of limited registration. The priority registration (Sunrise) can be the same in time as the limited registration period.

The timing in this case is not regulated by ICANN. However, during this period, the Claims service mechanism should operate: the applicant for a domain affecting the interests of the copyright holder who has registered with TMCH receives an appropriate warning. If he ignores this warning, then the owner of the trademark will receive a notice of "encroachment" on his "property" and will be able to register the domain name as a priority.

"Of course, registration in TMCH will become an additional guarantee, and Russian copyright holders should already worry about this," commented Sergei Sharikov, director of Webnames.ru, "But no less important to protect the interests of brands, large companies, well-known projects will be those special rules that will establish registrations. In the.RUS domain, not only trademarks, but also corporate names, media, non-profit organizations and even owners of sites in the.RU domain can receive the right to priority. "

Notes