15 May 2012

As part of ICANN's review of its conflicts of interest and ethics practices, on 6 May 2012 the ICANN Board approved revisions to the Board Conflicts of Interest Policy, the Code of Conduct and Expected Standards of Behavior. The Board also approved new Corporate Governance Guidelines, a flexible framework document that collects the sources of corporate governance requirements that ICANN follows. For more information on how each of these documents applies within ICANN, please refer to this explanatory memo [PDF, 128 KB].

These four documents were prepared after a review of ICANN's corporate governance documents, and the resulting recommendations as to how the documents could be improved in light of best practices in corporate governance, while still reflecting the needs of ICANN. Each of the documents were posted for public comment in March 2011. They represent just the first stage of ICANN's approach to the Conflicts of Interest and Ethics review. The ongoing work within ICANN on conflicts of interest and ethics practices may result in identification of additional changes to these exact documents. Further, in approving these revised or newly created documents, the Board has recognized that further modifications may be necessary – these are living documents that should be reviewed and amended from time to time to reflect changes within ICANN, as well as to best practices in corporate governance.

Other Work on Conflicts of Interest and Ethics

As reported by ICANN, there are two other portions of its review of conflicts of interest and ethics practices. One of those portions was asking Cooley LLC, a law firm with expertise in corporate governance issues and that is new to ICANN, to perform a review of ICANN's corporate governance practices. Cooley produced two reports:

• First Report on Corporate Governance [PDF, 401 KB] (3 October 2011, revised on 27 April 2012) and
• Second Report on Corporate Governance [PDF, 767 KB] (17 April 2012)

The action items arising out of the first report, including compiling ICANN's corporate governance document in one section of the ICANN website, providing dates of amendment for documents such as the Code of Conduct, have been adopted. In addition, ICANN asked Cooley to undertake recommended research, which resulted in the Second Report.

In the Second Report, Cooley conduced a comparative review of ICANN's documentation to the governance documentation of leading institutions. While Cooley noted that ICANN's policies are aligned with essential governance principles, it also noted that there may be room for improvement. Two specific recommendations for improvement followed: ICANN should consider revising its guidebook for employees to ensure that policies covering unethical behavior and complaints are satisfactorily covered; and ICANN should consider adopting a policy to deal with repeat offenders of its ethical and governance standards. ICANN has already begun work with outside counsel to review its employee policies and procedures, which will take Cooley's recommendation into account, and work is ongoing to determine how the recommendation to address "repeat offenders" can be implemented.

15 May 2012

The ICANN Board has ratified the Global Policy Proposal for Post Exhaustion IPv4 Allocation Mechanisms by the IANA as sent by the Address Supporting Organization (ASO) Council to the ICANN Board on 13 March 2012. The proposal was posted for public comment from 14 March 2012 through 4 April 2012, during which time no comments were submitted. The Global Policy allows the Regional Internet Registries to return IPv4 address space to an IANA-managed pool from which equal parts will be allocated to all five RIRs in a deterministic manner on a regular schedule, once triggered. http://www.icann.org/en/news/in-focus/global-addressing/allocation-ipv4-post-exhaustion. ICANN staff will be taking all necessary steps to implement the Global Policy.

14 May 2012

ICANN is delighted to announce that Professor Alain Pellet has agreed to serve as the Independent Objector for the New Generic Top-level domain program. The Independent Objector will act solely in the interests of the public who use the global Internet.

Professor Pellet's credentials and experience are an ideal fit for this key role. He is a highly regarded professor and practitioner of law and has represented governments as Counsel and Advocate in the International Court of Justice in many significant and well-known cases. He is widely published and holds several significant honors.

ICANN's formal search for an Independent Objector began with the posting of a Request for Proposals in November 2011. We also advertised, utilized the services of a global recruiting firm and welcomed word-of-mouth recommendations. Numerous candidates were interviewed and considered throughout the search process.

Acting solely in the best interests of global Internet users, the Independent Objector may lodge Limited Public Interest and Community objections in cases where no other objection is made to an application that the Independent Objector deems to be objectionable.

More information about the Independent Objector role can be found in the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook.

More information about Professor Pellet, including his curriculum vitae, can be found at: http://www.alainpellet.eu

We are honored by Professor's Pellet's agreement to participate in ICANN and this program.

11 May 2012

The Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br), in cooperation with ICANN has completed an improvement to the Internet infrastructure that increases the resilience to potential abuse or attacks on Domain Name Service (DNS) by boosting name resolution capacity.

NIC.br has installed 14 new anycast copies of ICANN's L-Root server, which were originally installed in California.

"This new infrastructure reduces response time in Brazil for domains from all over the world," said Frederico Neves, director of technology services at the NIC.br. "But its most relevant impact is greatly increasing security, by distributing international connectivity to the name resolution service independently and at the root of the Internet in the country."

As of today, L-Root copies operate together with .br servers at Internet Exchange Points (PTTMetro) across Brazil. Of the 20 current locations for those points, 14 will reap benefits from this latest infrastructure improvement.

"Root name servers are a critical part of the Internet's infrastructure," said Joe Abley, Director of ICANN's DNS Group. "These new servers distributed across Brazil are part of a global effort to improve DNS response time, security and general stability for all users."

11 May 2012 Forum Announcement: Comment Period Opens on Date: 11 May 2012 Categories/Tags:

Reviews/Improvements
WHOIS Policy
Transparency/Accountability

Purpose (Brief): The WHOIS Policy Review Team, constituted under ICANN's Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, submitted its Final Report and Recommendations [PDF, 1.44 MB] to the ICANN Board and this document has been posted for public comment. Public Comment Box Link: http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/whois-rt-final-report-11may12-en.htm

10 May 2012

The Following Public Comment periods are approaching their Comment or Reply Period Close dates, May 10-20 2012. As a member of the ICANN community, your timely feedback is critical to our accountability and transparency efforts. For your convenience, we have included direct links below to comments that will soon close.

During the Reply period for Public Comments, participants should only address previous comments submitted and new posts concerning the topic should not be introduced. When constructing Replies, contributors are asked to cite the original poster's name, comment date, and any particular text that is pertinent.

Please note that comments submitted after the posted Close Date/Time are not guaranteed to be considered in any final summary, analysis, reporting, or decision-making that takes place once that period ends.

For more information please refer to the ICANN Public Comments page at: http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment

Title Comment Period Close Date [UTC Time] Reply Period Close Date [UTC Time] Security, Stability & Resiliency of the DNS Review Team (SSR RT) - Draft Report 8 April 2012 Extended to 15 April 2012 [23:59] 7 May 2012 [23:59] Extended to 14 May 2012 [23:59] Fake Renewal Notices Report 20 April 2012 [23:59] 11 May 2012 [23:59] .com Registry Agreement Renewal 26 April 2012 [23:59] 17 May 2012 [23:59] .post Agreement Amendment 9 May 2012 [23:59] 30 May 2012 [23:59]

Statement by Akram Atallah, COO 9 May 2012

As we announced yesterday, ICANN has provided notice to all users to let them know whether they may have been affected by the technical glitch in the TLD application system, or TAS.

We sent an email [PDF, 41 KB] to each TAS user asking them to log in to the notification system and view whether they may have been affected. Notifications were delivered to the 1,275 registered TAS users in four categories.

The categories, along with links to the corresponding notification template, break down as follows:

1. Users who did not have file names or usernames viewed [PDF, 72 KB]: 1,163
2. Users who had one or more file names and/or user names that may have been viewed by another user [PDF, 73 KB]: 72.
3. Users who may have seen the file names and/or usernames of one or more other users [PDF, 73 KB]: 30.
4. Users who had one or more file names and/or user names that may have been viewed, and who also may have been able to see file name and/or username information of other users [PDF, 75 KB]: 10.

Users whose file names and/or user names may have been viewed were provided with the details of the relevant information.

As we announced yesterday, we are targeting 22 May 2012 as the intended reopening date for TAS, and anticipate a 30 May closing.

We understand and regret the inconvenience that the glitch has caused.

Statement by Akram Atallah, COO 8 May 2012

ICANN is targeting 22 May 2012 as the intended reopening date for the TLD Application System. It is anticipated that the system would remain open for five business days and close on 30 May. This takes account of the 28 May Memorial Day holiday in the United States.

We took TAS offline following a technical glitch that may have allowed some users to see some file names and user names of other users. We have seen no evidence that any TAS user intentionally did anything wrong in order to be able to see other users' information.

We have met our commitment to provide notice to all users on or before 8 May 2012 by sending out notifications today.

The large majority of users are unaffected by the glitch. We continue to review the extensive database of system logs and system traffic, and any new and relevant information that emerges from this analysis will be shared with applicants in a timely way.

Even as late as yesterday, 7 May 2012, our packet-level research uncovered a new set of instances (in addition to those previously announced) where another applicant might have viewed a set of system-generated file names. It is possible that further analysis will also show that some of the parties that we have notified were not affected, but notice was provided out of an abundance of caution.

We thank everyone for your patience and apologize for the inconvenience the delay has caused.

Statement by Akram Atallah, COO 7 May 2012

In recognition of the inconvenience caused by the temporary suspension of the TLD application system, ICANN will provide a full refund of the application fees paid by any new gTLD applicant that wishes to withdraw its application prior to publication of the list of applied-for new top-level domain names.

A resolution authorizing full refunds was adopted during a Board of Directors workshop in Amsterdam on Sunday, 6 May 2012.

We recognize that this represents an increase of only US $5000 over the refund that withdrawing applicants would otherwise receive, but we believe it is an important part of fulfilling our commitment to treat applicants fairly.

We regret the difficulties that we know the temporary suspension of TAS is causing.

4 May 2012 Forum Announcement: Comment Period Opens on Date: 4 May 2012 Categories/Tags: Top-Level Domains Purpose (Brief): The purpose of this project is to resolve many of the issues necessary to delegate variant TLDs. The first IDN Variant Issues Project explored the issues associated with the potential inclusion of IDN variant TLDs in the DNS root zone, at the request of the ICANN Board and the community. The first two phases of the project have been completed with the publication of the final Integrated Issues Report on 20 February 2012 and the project is now entering its next phase. ICANN created a program plan for next steps, posted it for public comment, and presented it in a session at the ICANN meeting in Costa Rica in March 2012. Based on the comments received to date, the project plan has been updated, and the team is seeking input on the revised plan during this public comment period. Public Comment Box Link: http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/idn-variant-tld-revised-program-plan-04may12-en.htm

Statement by Akram Atallah, COO 4 May 2012

The TLD Application System, or TAS, held 2091 applications - either submitted or in progress - when it was taken offline on 12 April 2012.

In addition, there are 214 potential applications that were registered prior to the 29 March cut-off date, but whose payments have not yet been received or reconciled.

ICANN has received approximately USD $350 million in fees for applications for new gTLDs.

As we have reported, we are in the process of notifying applicants whether they were affected by the software glitch, and plan to complete this process on or before Tuesday, 8 May. Shortly after that process is complete, we will announce the schedule for reopening TAS and completing the application period. Once the system is reopened, we will keep it open for at least five business days.

We appreciate your understanding as we work to bring the TLD application system back online.

3 May 2012

The Following Public Comment periods are approaching their Comment or Reply Period Close dates, May 03-13 2012. As a member of the ICANN community, your timely feedback is critical to our accountability and transparency efforts. For your convenience, we have included direct links below to comments that will soon close.

During the Reply period for Public Comments, participants should only address previous comments submitted and new posts concerning the topic should not be introduced. When constructing Replies, contributors are asked to cite the original poster's name, comment date, and any particular text that is pertinent.

Please note that comments submitted after the posted Close Date/Time are not guaranteed to be considered in any final summary, analysis, reporting, or decision-making that takes place once that period ends.

For more information please refer to the ICANN Public Comments page at: http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment

Title Comment Period Close Date [UTC Time] Reply Period Close Date [UTC Time] Draft Advice Letter on Consumer Trust, Consumer Choice, and Competition 3 April 2012
17 April 2012 [23:59] 24 April 2012
8 May 2012 [23:59] Fake Renewal Notices Report 20 April 2012 [23:59] 11 May 2012 [23:59] .post Agreement Amendment 9 May 2012 [23:59] 29 May 2012 [23:59]

Statement by Akram Atallah, COO 2 May 2012

ICANN is in the process of notifying applicants whether they were affected by the software glitch that caused us to take the TLD Application System, or TAS, offline. As we announced earlier this week, we plan to complete this notification process on or before 8 May.

As we notify applicants, we want to share some data that gives insight into the scope of the problem and the number of applicants affected.

At the time we took the system offline, there were 1268 registered users and some 95,000 file attachments in the system. Of these, there were approximately 455 instances where a file name and the associated user name might have been viewed by another applicant. We are continuing to review system logs and packet-level traffic to confirm how many viewings actually did occur.

Our review has determined that approximately:

• 105 applicants might have had file names and user names viewed by another applicant.
• 50 applicants might have viewed file names and user names from one or more other applicants.

Work continues on enhancing system performance and testing the fix for the glitch.

We recognize and regret the inconvenience to applicants as they try to plan their schedules and resources in anticipation of TAS reopening. As we have previously announced, we will keep the system open for at least five business days to allow applicants to assure themselves that their applications remain as they intended.

Friday, 11 May 2012 at 11:00 UTC and again at 19:00 UTC 2 May 2012

On 15 March 2012, the Security, Stability & Resiliency of the DNS Review Team (SSR RT), constituted under the Affirmation of Commitments (AoC), published its Draft Report and Recommendations [PDF, 2 MB] for public comment to inform their work in producing a Final Report.

Translations of the report are available:

• العربية [PDF، 721 كيلو بايت]
• 简体中文 [PDF, 751 KB]
• English [PDF, 2 MB]
• Español [PDF, 683 KB]
• Français [PDF, 821 KB]
• Русский [PDF, 926 KB]

Consistent with its initial announcement, the SSR Review Team now invites the Community to participate in a public webinar with a view to presenting its draft report and recommendations and soliciting the Community's feedback on its findings and conclusions.

The public webinar will take place on Friday, 11 May 2012. Two sessions will be scheduled to accommodate different timezones i.e. at 11:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC. The sessions are expected to last 60 minutes. They are duplicates and will be conducted in English only. The meeting will be run in an Adobe Connect room with a slide presentation along with a dial-in conference bridge for audio.

Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of each session. During the course of the webinar, questions may be submitted using the chat function of Adobe Connect. If you are not able to participate in either of the live sessions, the recording of the session will be made available shortly after the meeting. Staff is always available to answer any questions that you email to alice.jansen@icann.org.

In order to participate, please RSVP via email to alice.jansen@icann.org by Thursday, 10 May – 23:59 UTC to receive the call details. Please indicate which call you would like to join, Friday at 11.00 UTC or Friday at 19.00 UTC (to convert those times into your local time, see: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html). We will send you an e-mail reminder before the event with log-in and dial-in details. Please DO NOT RSVP to any other ICANN staff members e-mail address.

For more information on the Security, Stability & Resiliency of the DNS Review Team (SSR RT), please refer to: http://www.icann.org/en/about/aoc-review/ssr

1 May 2012 Forum Announcement: Comment Period Opens on Date: 1 May 2012 Categories/Tags:

• Operations-Finances
• ICANN Board/Bylaws

Purpose (Brief): ICANN's annual operating plan and budget describes the planned activities and required resources for the fiscal year. These activities are based on ICANN's strategic objectives, fiscal year priorities and community input. The Bylaws require that the draft Operating Plan be posted by the 17th of May; it was determined to post earlier this year to ensure adequate opportunity for feedback on the various aspects of the proposed budget and implementation of ICANN resources for the coming fiscal year. Public Comment Box Link: http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/op-budget-fy13-01may12-en.htm

30 April 2012

On behalf of our Chairman of the Board, Steve Crocker:

"In our ongoing efforts to improve the ICANN Meeting experience for all participants, we are implementing some changes for the June meeting in Prague.

The Friday morning program, which in the past has comprised AC/SO committee reports, Board committee reports, and the public Board meeting, has been removed.

AC/SO committee reports and Board committee reports will now be published for review on the ICANN website.

The public Board meeting has been replaced with a one-hour session following the Public Forum on Thursday afternoon. In this session the Board will outline what they have heard during the week from their meetings with AC/SOs and their constituent parts and will identify those matters they expect to be dealing with between the Prague and Toronto Meetings.

The close of this session (expected to be around 18:00) will mark the official end of the ICANN meeting and will be immediately followed by a two-hour farewell reception for all ICANN Meeting participants.

It is intended that at the beginning of the Toronto meeting there will be a Board community session where the Board will report to the community on what they have dealt with since Prague.

We believe that the removal of the Friday public Board meeting and its replacement with two Board community sessions will improve the effectiveness of both the Board and the staff and increase the time that the Board has to interact with the community.

We hope you find these changes also make more effective use of your time and enhance the overall ICANN Meeting experience. The Public Participation Committee will hold a public session in Toronto to discuss and review them."

ICANN will notify all applicants within the next seven business days whether our analysis shows they were affected by the technical glitch in the TLD application system.

Many users have expressed concern that they are currently unable to view their applications in the TLD application system that has been temporarily suspended due to a technical issue.

We can confirm that when the application system reopens, users will be able to review their applications, including those already submitted, to assure themselves that their information remains as they intended.

The Following Public Comment periods are approaching their Comment or Reply Period Close dates, 26 April – 06 May 2012. As a member of the ICANN community, your timely feedback is critical to our accountability and transparency efforts. For your convenience, we have included direct links below to comments that will soon close.

ICANN's system for applying for new generic top-level domains, known as TAS, remains offline due to a technical glitch.

We are systematically combing through TAS logs and analyzing data for signs of access applicants may have had to file names and user names of others. We have narrowed the pool of affected applications and the associated posted documents. However, the integrity of each and every application is our number one priority, so we must be as thorough as possible.