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Not to be confused with Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
Icann logo.svg
Abbreviation ICANN
Founded September 18, 1998; 24 years ago
Focus Manage Internet Protocol numbers and Domain Name System root
Headquarters Los Angeles, California,
United States
Key people Sally Costerton (Interim CEO and president), Tripti Sinha (Chair of the
Board), Jon Postel (founder)
Employees 388
Website ICANN.org
[1]
Internet
Visualization of Internet routing paths
An Opte Project visualization of routing paths through a portion of the Internet
General
Governance
IGFNROIANAICANNIETFISOC
Information infrastructure
Services
History
Guides
icon Internet portal
vte

ICANN headquarters in the Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN /ˈaɪkæn/ EYE-kan) is
an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for
coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the
namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, ensuring the network's stable and
secure operation.[2] ICANN performs the actual technical maintenance work of the
Central Internet Address pools and DNS root zone registries pursuant to the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function contract. The contract
regarding the IANA stewardship functions between ICANN and the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the United States
Department of Commerce ended on October 1, 2016, formally transitioning the
functions to the global multistakeholder community.[3][4][5][6]

Much of its work has concerned the Internet's global Domain Name System (DNS),[7]
including policy development for internationalization of the DNS, introduction of
new generic top-level domains (TLDs), and the operation of root name servers. The
numbering facilities ICANN manages include the Internet Protocol address spaces for
IPv4 and IPv6, and assignment of address blocks to regional Internet registries.
ICANN also maintains registries of Internet Protocol identifiers.

ICANN's primary principles of operation have been described as helping preserve the
operational stability of the Internet; to promote competition; to achieve broad
representation of the global Internet community; and to develop policies
appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.[8] The
organization has often included a motto of "One World. One Internet." on annual
reports beginning in 2010, on less formal publications, as well as their official
website.[9]

ICANN's creation was announced publicly on September 17, 1998,[10] and it formally
came into being on January 15, 1997, incorporated in the U.S. state of California.
[11] Originally headquartered in Marina del Rey in the same building as the
University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (ISI), its
offices are now in the Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles.

History
Before the establishment of ICANN, the IANA function of administering registries of
Internet protocol identifiers (including the distributing top-level domains and IP
addresses) was performed by Jon Postel, a Computer Science researcher who had been
involved in the creation of ARPANET, first at UCLA and then at USC-ISI.[12][13] In
1997 Postel testified before Congress that this had come about as a "side task" to
this research work.[14] The Information Sciences Institute was funded by the U.S.
Department of Defense, as was SRI International's Network Information Center, which
also performed some assigned name functions.[15]

As the Internet grew and expanded globally, the U.S. Department of Commerce
initiated a process to establish a new organization to perform the IANA functions.
On January 30, 1998, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration
(NTIA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, issued for comment, "A
Proposal to Improve the Technical Management of Internet Names and Addresses." The
proposed rule making, or "Green Paper",[16] was published in the Federal Register
on February 20, 1998, providing opportunity for public comment. NTIA received more
than 650 comments as of March 23, 1998, when the comment period closed.[17]

The Green Paper proposed certain actions designed to privatize the management of
Internet names and addresses in a manner that allows for the development of
competition and facilitates global participation in Internet management. The Green
Paper proposed for discussion a variety of issues relating to DNS management
including private sector creation of a new not-for-profit corporation (the "new
corporation") managed by a globally and functionally representative board of
directors.[18] ICANN was formed in response to this policy.[19] ICANN managed the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) under contract to the United States
Department of Commerce (DOC) and pursuant to an agreement with the IETF.[20]

ICANN was incorporated in California on September 30, 1998, with entrepreneur and
philanthropist Esther Dyson as founding chairwoman.[11] It is a nonprofit public
benefit corporation "organized under the California Nonprofit Public Benefit
Corporation Law for charitable and public purposes."[21] ICANN was established in
California due to the presence of Jon Postel, who was a founder of ICANN and was
set to be its first Chief Technology Officer prior to his unexpected death. ICANN
formerly operated from the same Marina del Rey building where Postel formerly
worked, which is home to an office of the Information Sciences Institute at the
University of Southern California. However, ICANN's headquarters is now located in
the nearby Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Per its original by-laws,[22] primary responsibility for policy formation in ICANN
was to be delegated to three supporting organizations (Address Supporting
Organization, Domain Name Supporting Organization, and Protocol Supporting
Organization), each of which was to develop and recommend substantive policies and
procedures for the management of the identifiers within their respective scope.
They were also required to be financially independent from ICANN.[23] As expected,
the regional Internet registries and the IETF agreed to serve as the Address
Supporting Organization and Protocol Supporting Organization respectively,[24][25]
and ICANN issued a call for interested parties to propose the structure and
composition of the Domain Name Supporting Organization.[26] In March 1999, the
ICANN Board, based in part on the DNSO proposals received, decided instead on an
alternate construction for the DNSO which delineated specific constituencies bodies
within ICANN itself,[27][28] thus adding primary responsibility for DNS policy
development to ICANN's existing duties of oversight and coordination.

On July 26, 2006, the United States government renewed the contract with ICANN for
performance of the IANA function for an additional one to five years.[29] The
context of ICANN's relationship with the U.S. government was clarified on September
29, 2006, when ICANN signed a new memorandum of understanding with the United
States Department of Commerce (DOC).[30] This document gave the DOC oversight over
some of the ICANN operations.[30][31]

During July 2008, the DOC reiterated an earlier statement[32] that it has "no plans
to transition management of the authoritative root zone file to ICANN". The letter
also stresses the separate roles of the IANA and VeriSign.[33]

On September 30, 2009, ICANN signed an agreement with the DOC (known as the
"Affirmation of Commitments") that confirmed ICANN's commitment to a
multistakeholder governance model,[34] but did not remove it from DOC oversight and
control. The Affirmation of Commitments, which aimed to create international
oversight, ran into criticism.[35]

On March 10, 2016, ICANN and the DOC signed a historic, culminating agreement to
finally remove ICANN and IANA from the control and oversight of the DOC.[36] On
October 1, 2016, ICANN was freed from U.S. government oversight.[37]

Since its creation, ICANN has been the subject of criticism and controversy.[38]
[39] In 2000, professor Michael Froomkin of the University of Miami School of Law
argued that ICANN's relationship with the U.S. Department of Commerce is illegal,
in violation of either the Constitution or federal statutes.[40]

Notable events
On March 18, 2002, publicly elected At-Large Representative for North America board
member Karl Auerbach sued ICANN in Superior Court in California to gain access to
ICANN's accounting records without restriction. Auerbach won.[41]

During September and October 2003, ICANN played a crucial role in the conflict over
VeriSign's "wild card" DNS service Site Finder. After an open letter from ICANN
issuing an ultimatum to VeriSign, later endorsed by the Internet Architecture
Board,[42] the company voluntarily ended the service on October 4, 2003. After this
action, VeriSign filed a lawsuit against ICANN on February 27, 2004, claiming that
ICANN had exceeded its authority. By this lawsuit, VeriSign sought to reduce
ambiguity about ICANN's authority. The antitrust component of VeriSign's claim was
dismissed during August 2004. VeriSign's challenge that ICANN overstepped its
contractual rights is currently outstanding. A proposed settlement already approved
by ICANN's board would resolve VeriSign's challenge to ICANN in exchange for the
right to increase pricing on .com domains. At the meeting of ICANN in Rome, which
took place from March 2 to 6, 2004, ICANN agreed to ask approval of the U.S.
Department of Commerce for the Waiting List Service of VeriSign.[citation needed]

On May 17, 2004, ICANN published a proposed budget for the year 2004–05. It
included proposals to increase the openness and professionalism of its operations,
and greatly increased its proposed spending from US$8.27 million to $15.83 million.
The increase was to be funded by the introduction of new top-level domains, charges
to domain registries, and a fee for some domain name registrations, renewals and
transfers (initially US$0.20 for all domains within a country-code top-level
domain, and US$0.25 for all others).[citation needed] The Council of European
National Top Level Domain Registries (CENTR), which represents the Internet
registries of 39 countries, rejected the increase, accusing ICANN of a lack of
financial prudence and criticizing what it describes as ICANN's "unrealistic
political and operational targets". Despite the criticism, the registry agreement
for the top-level domains jobs and travel includes a US$2 fee on every domain the
licensed companies sell or renew.[43]

After a second round of negotiations during 2004, the TLDs eu, asia, travel, jobs,
mobi, and cat were introduced during 2005.

ICANN meeting, Los Angeles USA, 2007. The sign refers to Vint Cerf, then chairman
of the board of directors, who is working on the so-called Interplanetary Internet.
On February 28, 2006, ICANN's board approved a settlement with VeriSign in the
lawsuit resulting from SiteFinder that involved allowing VeriSign (the registry) to
raise its registration fees by up to 7% a year.[44] This was criticised by a few
members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Small Business Committee.[45]

During February 2007, ICANN began procedures to end accreditation of one of their
registrars, RegisterFly amid charges and lawsuits involving fraud, and criticism of
ICANN's management of the situation. ICANN has been the subject of criticism as a
result of its handling of RegisterFly, and the harm caused to thousands of clients
as a result of what has been termed ICANN's "laissez faire attitude toward customer
allegations of fraud".[46]

On May 23, 2008, ICANN issued enforcement notices against ten accredited registrars
and announced this through a press release entitled "'Worst Spam Offenders'
Notified by ICANN, Compliance system working to correct Whois and other
issues."[47] This was largely in response to a report issued by KnujOn, called "The
10 Worst Registrars" in terms of spam advertised junk product sites and compliance
failure.[48] The mention of the word "spam" in the title of the ICANN memo is
somewhat misleading since ICANN does not address issues of spam or email abuse.
Website content and usage are not within ICANN's mandate. However, the KnujOn
report details how various registrars have not complied with their contractual
obligations under the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA).[49] The main point
of the KnujOn research was to demonstrate the relationships between compliance
failure, illicit product traffic, and spam. The report demonstrated that out of 900
ICANN accredited registrars, fewer than 20 held 90% of the web domains advertised
in spam. These same registrars were also most frequently cited by KnujOn as failing
to resolve complaints made through the Whois Data Problem Reporting System (WDPRS).

On June 26, 2008, the ICANN Board started a new process of TLD naming policy to
take a "significant step forward on the introduction of new generic top-level
domains." This program envisioned the availability of many new or already proposed
domains, as well a new application and implementation process.[50]

On October 1, 2008, ICANN issued breach notices against Joker and Beijing
Innovative Linkage Technology Ltd.[51] after further researching reports and
complaints issued by KnujOn. These notices gave the registrars 15 days to fix their
Whois investigation efforts.

In 2010, ICANN approved a major review of its policies with respect to

accountability, transparency, and public participation by the Berkman Center for
Internet and Society at Harvard University.[52] This external review was an
assistance of the work of ICANN's Accountability and Transparency Review team.[53]

On February 3, 2011, ICANN announced that it had distributed the last batch of its
remaining IPv4 addresses to the world's five regional Internet registries, the
organizations that manage IP addresses in different regions. These registries began
assigning the final IPv4 addresses within their regions until they ran out
completely.[54]

On June 20, 2011, the ICANN board voted to end most restrictions on the names of
generic top-level domains (gTLD).[55][56][57] Companies and organizations became
able to choose essentially arbitrary top-level Internet domain names. The use of
non-Latin characters (such as Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, etc.) is also allowed in
gTLDs. ICANN began accepting applications for new gTLDS on January 12, 2012.[55]
The initial price to apply for a new gTLD was set at $185,000[58] and the annual
renewal fee is $25,000.[59][60]

During December 2011, the Federal Trade Commission stated ICANN had long failed to
provide safeguards that protect consumers from online swindlers.[61]

Following the 2013 NSA spying scandal, ICANN endorsed the Montevideo Statement,[62]
although no direct connection between these could be proven.[63]

On October 1, 2016, ICANN ended its contract with the United States Department of
Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and
entered the private sector.[64]

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (active since May 25, 2018)
impacted on ICANN operations, which the latter tried to fix through last-minute
changes.[clarification needed][65]

Structure
From its founding to the present, ICANN has been formally organized as a nonprofit
corporation "for charitable and public purposes" under the California Nonprofit
Public Benefit Corporation Law. It is managed by a 16-member board of directors
composed of eight members selected by a nominating committee on which all the
constituencies of ICANN are represented; six representatives of its Supporting
Organizations, sub-groups that deal with specific sections of the policies under
ICANN's purview; an at-large seat filled by an at-large organization; and the
president / CEO, appointed by the board.[66]

There are currently three supporting organizations: the Generic Names Supporting
Organization (GNSO) deals with policy making on generic top-level domains (gTLDs);
[67] the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) deals with policy
making on country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs); the Address Supporting
Organization (ASO) deals with policy making on IP addresses.[68]

ICANN also relies on some advisory committees and other advisory mechanisms to
receive advice on the interests and needs of stakeholders that do not directly
participate in the Supporting Organizations.[69] These include the Governmental
Advisory Committee (GAC), which is composed of representatives of a large number of
national governments from all over the world; the At-Large Advisory Committee
(ALAC), which is composed of individual Internet users from around the world
selected by each of the Regional At-Large Organizations (RALO)[70] and Nominating
Committee; the Root Server System Advisory Committee, which provides advice on the
operation of the DNS root server system; the Security and Stability Advisory
Committee (SSAC), which is composed of Internet experts who study security issues
pertaining to ICANN's mandate; and the Technical Liaison Group (TLG), which is
composed of representatives of other international technical organizations that
focus, at least in part, on the Internet.[71]

Governmental Advisory Committee

Governmental Advisory Committee representatives

Representatives
The Governmental Advisory Committee has representatives from 179 states and 38
Observer organizations, including the Holy See, Cook Islands, Niue, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, Bermuda, Montserrat, the European Commission and the African Union
Commission.[72]

Observers
In addition the following organizations are GAC Observers:[73]

African Telecommunications Union

Asia-Pacific Telecommunity
Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU)
Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO)
Council of Europe
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
European Broadcasting Union
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
European Space Agency
International Labour Office
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL)
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
Latin American Association of Telecom Regulatory Agencies (REGULATEL)
League of Arab States
New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The Organization for Islamic Cooperation
Organization of American States
Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)
Pacific Islands Forum
Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)
Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL)
International Criminal Court
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Universal Postal Union
World Bank
World Health Organization (WHO)
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
World Meteorological Organization
World Trade Organization
Trusted Community Representatives
As the operator of the IANA domain name functions, ICANN is responsible for the
DNSSEC management of the root zone. While day-to-day operations are managed by
ICANN and Verisign, the trust is rooted in a group of Trusted Community
Representatives. The members of this group must not be affiliated with ICANN, but
are instead members of the broader DNS community, volunteering to become a Trusted
Community Representative. The role of the representatives are primarily to take
part in regular key ceremonies at a physical location, organized by ICANN, and to
safeguard the key materials in between.[74]

Democratic input
In the Memorandum of understanding that set up the relationship between ICANN and
the U.S. government, ICANN was given a mandate requiring that it operate "in a
bottom up, consensus driven, democratic manner." However, the attempts that ICANN
have made to establish an organizational structure that would allow wide input from
the global Internet community did not produce results amenable to the current
Board. As a result, the At-Large constituency and direct election of board members
by the global Internet community were soon abandoned.[75]

ICANN holds periodic public meetings rotated between continents for the purpose of
encouraging global participation in its processes. Resolutions of the ICANN Board,
preliminary reports, and minutes of the meetings, are published on the ICANN
website, sometimes in real time. However, there are criticisms from ICANN
constituencies including the Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC)[76] and the
At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) that there is not enough public disclosure and
that too many discussions and decisions take place out of sight of the public.[77]

During the early 2000s, there had been speculation that the United Nations might
assume control of ICANN,[78] followed by a negative reaction from the U.S.
government[32] and worries about a division of the Internet.[79] The World Summit
on the Information Society in Tunisia during November 2005 agreed not to get
involved in the day-to-day and technical operations of ICANN. However it also
agreed to establish an international Internet Governance Forum, with a consultative
role on the future governance of the Internet. ICANN's Government Advisory
Committee is currently established to provide advice to ICANN regarding public
policy issues and has participation by many of the world's governments.[80]

Some have attempted to argue that ICANN was never given the authority to decide
policy, e.g., choose new TLDs or exclude other interested parties who refuse to pay
ICANN's US$185,000 fee, but was to be a technical caretaker. Critics[who?] suggest
that ICANN should not be allowed to impose business rules on market participants,
and that all TLDs should be added on a first-come, first-served basis and the
market should be the arbiter of who succeeds and who does not.[81]

Activities
Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)
One task that ICANN was asked to do was to address the issue of domain name
ownership resolution for generic top-level domains (gTLDs). ICANN's attempt at such
a policy was drafted in close cooperation with the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO), and the result has now become known as the Uniform Dispute
Resolution Policy (UDRP). This policy essentially attempts to provide a mechanism
for rapid, cheap and reasonable resolution of domain name conflicts, avoiding the
traditional court system for disputes by allowing cases to be brought to one of a
set of bodies that arbitrate domain name disputes. According to ICANN policy,
domain registrants must agree to be bound by the UDRP—they cannot get a domain name
without agreeing to this.

Examination of the UDRP decision patterns has caused some[82] to conclude that
compulsory domain name arbitration is less likely to give a fair hearing to domain
name owners asserting defenses under the First Amendment and other laws, compared
to the federal courts of appeal in particular.

Proposed elimination of public DNS whois

In 2013, the initial report of ICANN's Expert Working Group has recommended that
the present form of Whois, a utility that allows anyone to know who has registered
a domain name on the Internet, should be "abandoned". It recommends it be replaced
with a system that keeps most registration information secret (or "gated") from
most Internet users, and only discloses information for "permissible purposes".[83]
[84] ICANN's list of permissible purposes includes domain name research, domain
name sale and purchase, regulatory enforcement, personal data protection, legal
actions, and abuse mitigation.[85] Whois has been a key tool of investigative
journalists interested in determining who was disseminating information on the
Internet.[86] The use of whois by journalists is not included in the list of
permissible purposes in the initial report.

Proposals for reform

Proposals have been made to internationalize ICANN's monitoring responsibilities
(currently the responsibility of the US), to transform it into an international
organization (under international law), and to "establish an intergovernmental
mechanism enabling governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their role and
responsibilities in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet".
[citation needed]

IBSA proposal (2011)

One controversial proposal, resulting from a September 2011 summit between India,
Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA), would seek to move Internet governance into a "UN
Committee on Internet-Related Policy" (UN-CIRP).[87] The action was a reaction to a
perception that the principles of the 2005 Tunis Agenda for the Information Society
have not been met.[87][88] The statement proposed the creation of a new political
organization operating as a component of the United Nations to provide policy
recommendations for the consideration of technical organizations such as ICANN and
international bodies such as the ITU.[89] Subsequent to public criticisms, the
Indian government backed away from the proposal.[90]

Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation (2013)

On October 7, 2013, the Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation
was released by the managers of a number of organizations involved in coordinating
the Internet's global technical infrastructure, loosely known as the "I*" (or "I-
star") group. Among other things, the statement "expressed strong concern over the
undermining of the trust and confidence of Internet users globally due to recent
revelations of pervasive monitoring and surveillance" and "called for accelerating
the globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all
stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing". This
desire to reduce United States association with the internet is considered a
reaction to the ongoing NSA surveillance scandal. The statement was signed by the
managers of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the
Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architecture Board, the World Wide
Web Consortium, the Internet Society, and the five regional Internet address
registries (African Network Information Center, American Registry for Internet
Numbers, Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre, Latin America and Caribbean
Internet Addresses Registry, and Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre).
[91][92][93]

Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (2013)

During October 2013, Fadi Chehadé, former president and CEO of ICANN, met with
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff in Brasilia. Upon Chehadé's invitation, the two
announced that Brazil would host an international summit on Internet governance
during April 2014.[94] The announcement came after the 2013 disclosures of mass
surveillance by the U.S. government, and Rousseff's speech at the opening session
of the 2013 United Nations General Assembly, where she strongly criticized the
American surveillance program as a "breach of international law". The "Global
Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (NET mundial)" will
include representatives of government, industry, civil society, and academia.
[citation needed] At the IGF VIII meeting in Bali in October 2013 a commenter noted
that Brazil intends the meeting to be a "summit" in the sense that it will be high
level with decision-making authority.[95] The organizers of the "NET mundial"
meeting have decided that an online forum called "/1net", set up by the I* group,
will be a major conduit of non-governmental input into the three committees
preparing for the meeting in April.[93][96][97]

The Obama administration that had joined critics of ICANN during 2011[98] announced
in March 2014 that they intended to transition away from oversight of the IANA
functions contract. The current contract that the United States Department of
Commerce has with ICANN expired in 2015, in its place the NTIA will transition
oversight of the IANA functions to the 'global multistakeholder community'.[99]

NetMundial Initiative (2014)

The NetMundial Initiative is a plan for international governance of the Internet
that was first proposed at the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of
Internet Governance (GMMFIG) conference (April 23–24, 2014)[100][101][102] and
later developed into the NetMundial Initiative by ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé along with
representatives of the World Economic Forum (WEF)[103] and the Brazilian Internet
Steering Committee (Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil), commonly referred to as
"CGI.br".[104]

The meeting produced a nonbinding statement in favor of consensus-based decision-

making. It represented a compromise and did not harshly condemn mass surveillance
or support net neutrality, despite initial endorsement for that from Brazil. The
final resolution says ICANN should be controlled internationally by September 2015.
[105] A minority of governments, including Russia, China, Iran and India, were
unhappy with the final resolution and wanted multilateral management for the
Internet, rather than broader multistakeholder management.[106]

A month later, the Panel on Global Internet Cooperation and Governance Mechanisms
(convened by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and
the World Economic Forum (WEF) with assistance from The Annenberg Foundation),
endorsed and included the NetMundial statement in its own report.[107]

During June 2014, France strongly attacked ICANN, saying ICANN is not a fit venue
for Internet governance and that alternatives should be sought.[108]

TLD expansion and concerns about specific top-level domains

During 2011, seventy-nine companies, including The Coca-Cola Company, Hewlett-
Packard, Samsung and others, signed a petition against ICANN's new TLD program
(sometimes referred to as a "commercial landgrab"[109]), in a group organized by
the Association of National Advertisers.[110] As of September 2014, this group, the
Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight, that opposes the rollout of
ICANN's TLD expansion program, has been joined by 102 associations and 79 major
companies.[111] Partly as a response to this criticism, ICANN initiated an effort
to protect trademarks in domain name registrations, which eventually culminated in
the establishment of the Trademark Clearinghouse.

.sucks domain
ICANN has received more than $60 million from gTLD auctions,[112] and has accepted
the controversial domain name ".sucks" (referring to the primarily US slang for
being inferior or objectionable).[113] sucks domains are owned and controlled by
the Vox Populi Registry which won the rights for .sucks gTLD in November 2014.[114]

The .sucks domain registrar has been described as "predatory, exploitive and
coercive" by the Intellectual Property Constituency that advises the ICANN board.
[113] When the .sucks registry announced their pricing model, "most brand owners
were upset and felt like they were being penalized by having to pay more to protect
their brands."[115] Because of the low utility of the ".sucks" domain, most fees
come from "Brand Protection" customers registering their trademarks to prevent
domains being registered.[116]

Canadian brands had complained that they were being charged "exorbitant" prices to
register their trademarks as premium names. FTC chair Edith Ramirez has written to
ICANN to say the agency will take action against the .sucks owner if "we have
reason to believe an entity has engaged in deceptive or unfair practices in
violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act".[117] The Register reported that
intellectual property lawyers are infuriated that "the dot-sucks registry was
charging trademark holders $2,500 for .sucks domains and everyone else $10."[118]

U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte has said that trademark holders are "being shaken
down" by the registry's fees.[119] Jay Rockefeller says that .sucks is "a predatory
shakedown scheme" and "Approving '.sucks', a gTLD with little or no public interest
value, will have the effect of undermining the credibility ICANN has slowly been
building with skeptical stakeholders."[113]

.islam, .halal top level domains

In a long-running dispute, ICANN has so far declined to allow a Turkish company to
purchase the .islam and .halal gTLDs, after the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
objected that the gTLDs should be administered by an organization that represents
all the world's 1.6 billion Muslims.[120] After a number of attempts to resolve the
issue the domains are still held "on hold".[121]

.org price cap removal

In April 2019, ICANN proposed an end to the price cap of org domains[122] and
effectively removed it in July in spite of having received 3,252 opposing comments
and only six in favor.[123] A few months later, the owner of the domain, the Public
Interest Registry, proposed to sell the domain to investment firm Ethos Capital.
[124]

.amazon gTLD dispute

In May 2019, ICANN decided in favor of granting exclusive administration rights to
amazon.com for the .amazon gTLD after a 7 year long dispute with the Amazon
Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO). [125][126]

See also
Alternative DNS root
Domain name scams
Domain Name System
Domain name
Domain name registrar
Internationalized domain name
Top-level domain
Country code top-level domain
Generic top-level domain
Geographic top-level domain (GeoTLD)
IEEE Registration Authority
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
InterNIC
List of ICANN meetings
List of United States quangos
Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation
NetMundial Initiative, a plan for governance of the Internet
Network Solutions
OneWebDay
OpenNIC
Trademark Clearinghouse
Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy
WHOIS
References
ICANN 2020 annual report: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/annual-
report-2020-en.pdf
"ICANN Bylaws". July 30, 2014. Retrieved June 30, 2015.
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