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ICANN
ICANN governance intelligence tracks institutions, policy processes, standards activity, registry operations, accountability disputes, and implementation signals that affect internet infrastructure.
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Latest from ICANN
441 articles
ICANN
Five ICANN Consultations Took 39% of FY26 Comments
ICANN opened 32 public-comment proceedings and counted 375 submissions. Five files drew 146 of them. The annual report shows where attention gathered; the next test is what each decision maker did with the record.
ICANN
A Government Letter Can Gate a Domain. ICANN Marks It Not Public.
The 2026 application form requires a government letter for geographic names, then labels that answer nonpublic. Governments now want the evidence made available where disclosure permits.
ICANN
ICANN Opened 32 Comment Boxes. Five Took 39% of the Mail.
ICANN’s FY26 report counts 375 public submissions. Its busiest dockets show where people wrote; the UA file shows why the path from argument to decision deserves its own ledger.
ICANN
ICANN Put the Diplomat and the Contract Referee Under One Boss
ICANN put government engagement and contract compliance under one boss. Its FY26 report makes the enforcement decision trail the next test.
ICANN
.kids Wrote the Rules on the Door. Researchers Read 176 Nameplates.
The .kids contract makes the domain name itself part of the child-safety test. A new study found 176 apparent problems without opening a site.
ICANN
The .kids Safety Promise Met a One-at-a-Time Complaint Form
The registry can suspend a domain. A researcher had hundreds of candidates to report and found a form built for one at a time. Where is the case clock?
ICANN
.kids Put Safety on the Gate. The Complaint Desk Needs a Clock.
The registry agreement gives .kids a child-safety rule and a complaints portal. A RIPE 93 study shows how much of the work between an external warning and a registry decision remains invisible.
ICANN
ICANN Reached 1,063 Students. The Sign-Up Form Gets the Final Exam
Six universities and 23 courses now teach Universal Acceptance. The useful graduation test lies in software that lets a valid multilingual address pass from the first form to the final message.
ICANN
ICANN Says .nissay Can Sail Without a Successor—For Now
Nippon Life has asked to end the registry agreement. ICANN’s preliminary answer is that .nissay does not need a successor to protect the public interest, while the Brand TLD terms leave its operator a two-year consent gate on any handoff.
ICANN
The GAC sketches a draft room for new domains. Who signs the warning?
Governments are preparing to compare notes on the 2026 domain applications. The interesting moment comes when a shared concern needs a named sender: one member can warn an applicant, while advice from the whole committee needs consensus.
ICANN
ICANN is moving the audit. The GAC wants its question to arrive intact.
Two review rooms can share a corridor and still lose a file between them. Governments want ICANN's redesign to say exactly who will examine how their advice reaches the Board, while leaving the committee's own internal review in its own hands.
ICANN
ICANN counts the whistles. The GAC wants to see the whole DNS-abuse field
A complaint can tell a referee where to look. It cannot describe every play on the pitch. Governments at ICANN87 want a reproducible view of how registries and registrars actually handle DNS abuse across the contracted industry.
ICANN
RootViz rang the L-Root alarm. The broken road had the story
For four days in January, thousands of measurement probes struggled to reach one root-server identity over IPv4. A presentation at RIPE 93 shows why the first name on an alarm is often the wrong name on the repair ticket.
ICANN
The privacy service left the building. GAC still wants the registrar to answer
A domain complaint can reach the registrar while the customer details sit with another company. Governments want the handoff to have an owner, especially when the clock is running.
ICANN
A city name may need a letter. The GAC wants to open the envelope
The paperwork behind a new domain ending can decide whether an application moves forward. Governments in Bali now want the supporting letters brought into the light wherever disclosure rules allow.
ICANN
ICANN can put a safeguard in the contract. Who checks the lock?
A new domain ending can clear its application while acquiring extra duties on the way to a registry agreement. In Bali, governments asked the question that begins after the ink dries: who watches those duties in practice?
ICANN
ICANN Counted 1,615 Applications. The IDN Question Found Its Own Microphone.
The new gTLD round has a splendidly precise total and an awkwardly timed question about who is represented inside it. The Governmental Advisory Committee has supplied an early answer for internationalized domain names. ICANN's fuller category table is still on the calendar.
ICANN
Bali elected a GAC vice-chair. His start date has two calendars.
Thiago Dal-Toe won the seat vacated by the committee's new chair. The Bali communiqué puts him on the leadership team at ICANN87's close; the published election rules and earlier notice point to the close of ICANN88. An office needs one first day.
ICANN
GAC's rulebook was still waiting for a new ICANN. It got one in 1998.
A sentence in the GAC's operating rules kept saying the IANA functions “are being transferred.” ICANN was founded in 1998 and took its first standalone IANA-functions contract in 2000. Governments have now voted to clean up the rulebook that tells their advisory committee how to…
ICANN
ICANN's sign-language plan is waiting for the host's wallet
The meeting has a standard plan for spoken-language interpretation. The GAC says further sign-language provision now depends, for the moment, on what a host country is willing to support. That makes access a budget decision with a change of venue attached.
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