ICANN

It looks like ICANN is gearing up for the next round of new gTLD applications. The non-profit organization posted a job listing on LinkedIn for Senior Director, New gTLD Subsequent Procedures. The new hire will play a major role when ICANN begins accepting applications for the second round of new gTLD applications.

Here’s an excerpt from the listing describing the job function:

I received an email from a representative from the ADR Forum / NAF notifying me that the ICANN public comment period related to the UDRP has opened. The comment period is related to the policy status report that “provides an overview of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) to support the assessment of the effectiveness of the UDRP in meeting its intended purposes.”

Domain investors who are familiar with the UDRP will want to read the prepared report pdf found on the ICANN website. If they wish, they can offer up their own comments on the report, which will be available for the public and ICANN community to read and note.

The comment period began today, and it will run through April 19th. I am sure there will be plenty of comments from the IP constituency, so domain investors who have made comments about the UDRP can provide their input as well. People who wish to comment can do so on ICANN’s website.

In a blog post earlier today, ICANN announced that it will assist domain name registrants in Ukraine and the surrounding area to ensure their domain names do not accidentally expire during these horrific times:

Read #ICANN VP Russ Weinstein’s latest blog about how ICANN is enacting relief for registrants in Ukraine and the surrounding region > https://t.co/bHUtKkzEdX #ICANN73 pic.twitter.com/stRPzic766

— ICANN (@ICANN) March 7, 2022

I regularly receive emails from domain registrars I use asking me to confirm my email address to stay in line with ICANN requirements. Typically, I either ignore these emails if I know my information is up to date, or I will click the email to confirm when I know the email is legitimate. For instance, I regularly receive Whois update emails from Network Solutions following NameJet auction wins.

None of these types of emails request a payment of any kind, and they are always (as far as I can recall) from the domain registrar of record rather than ICANN.

Yesterday afternoon, I received the first email like this purporting to be from ICANN. The email instructed me to confirm my email and make a payment. It had the ICANN logo on the top of the email, but the email was clearly not from ICANN.