ICANN’s 35th International Meeting drew to a close here on Friday, marking the end of a well-attended conference full of spirited discussion and important decisions.
The biggest news out of the conference on Friday was that ICANN had confirmed Rod Beckstrom would become the organization’s new President and CEO. Beckstrom is the former chief of the National Cyber Security Center and co-author of The Starfish and the Spider, which argues that leaderless, decentralized organizations are infinitely more powerful and effective.
Taking the helm of an organization like ICANN is not easy – it has many moving parts, which often don’t move harmoniously – but Beckstrom told the audience at the ICANN board meeting (which approved his appointment) that he was in awe of what the organization had been able to achieve to date, and seemed to genuinely mean it.
One thing that went largely unnoticed at the meeting but will have a significant impact on many web hosting companies was the signing of the new Registrar Accreditation Agreement. The RAA is the agreement all ICANN-accredited registrars are required to sign in order to remain in good standing with ICANN. It dictates the responsibilities of a registrar, and contains provisions around what ICANN expects registrars to do in order to ensure the rights of domain name registrants are protected at all times.
On Wednesday, I participated in a “signing ceremony” with many other industry-leading registrars to renew our RAA agreements with ICANN, as each registrar’s agreement with ICANN is individual and expires on a different date. What was interesting about this ceremony was that we were signing the NEW RAA, which has some new provisions web hosting companies should be aware of.
* Domain name resellers which operate their own proxy/whois privacy service (meaning they don’t use the one offered by the registrar) are required to either escrow the REAL registrant data, or put a conspicuous notice on their website stating the data is not being escrowed.
* Resellers are required to identify the sponsoring registrar upon inquiry from a registrant.
* Resellers need to ensure they identify the sponsoring registrar in their agreements or provide a means for identifying the sponsoring registrar, such as a link to the InterNIC Whois lookup service.
It’s interesting to note these modifications were done in consultation with registrars, and that the vast majority of large registrars were keen to sign these new provisions into existence. Although it adds additional rigor to the responsibilities of resellers, it also strengthens the rights of the average domain name holder, who often doesn’t have any knowledge of ICANN rules or policy.
And with that, I’m on my way home. ICANN’s next international meeting takes place October 25-30 in Seoul, South Korea.
