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Join Strategic CircleGovernance / 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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441 articles

ICANN
Fifty-six organisations qualified for help entering ICANN’s new-domain round. Governments now want to know what happens after the discounted entrance: legal objections, competing strings and the cost of staying in the game.

ICANN
Governments want registrars checking an abuser’s other domains before the next batch of top-level names enters the DNS. The demand has a clear finish line; the policy process does not yet have a finished rule.

ICANN
The application counter is busy. The language counter, much less so. A new government-adviser tally puts internationalized names at a sliver of the 2026 domain round—and below the share recorded in 2012.

ICANN
ICANN is asking the public to review the security case for automating DNSSEC delegation-signature updates. The assessment it published still calls the IETF’s operational BCP a draft—even though RFC 10026 had been published by the time the comment window opened. The notice lists…

ICANN
JAS Global Advisors will inspect how the 2026 new gTLD applications are judged. The interesting question is what happens when its quality-control findings reach the people who run the evaluations.

ICANN
A proposed `.cymru` and `.wales` service would give registrants 15 days' notice before a portfolio handover, then offer no grace period to reverse it.

ICANN
The board has denied Nameshop’s challenge to a terminated domain application. It also told its review committee what to do if the same application comes knocking again.

ICANN
The outgoing Council faced a packed policy agenda before the new one elected Samantha Demetriou. One deputy choice was still open in the result letter.

ICANN
A 2024 member vote backed ccPDP4 by 94 to 3. Two years later, ICANN’s Board approved most of the policy and removed the one route that let a proposed internationalized country-code domain answer an uppercase-only similarity finding with a risk plan. The small exception carries…

ICANN
A PHP vulnerability shut the public doors of three ICANN sites. A tested patch reopened them on 22 October; the separate systems handling new-gTLD applications carried on through the interruption.

ICANN
The city wants to close its namesake top-level domain. ICANN has decided against finding a successor, after a public comment window drew no responses.

ICANN
In September, one member stepped aside during a leadership discussion to avoid a possible conflict. October brought two new voices to that same committee.

ICANN
The strategy chair already sits in Finance. A February argument over who handles annual priorities gives their new seating plan a job to do.

ICANN
Sebastien Ducos gets another two years between ICANN's policy council and government advisers. His own report explains why that corridor needs more than a calendar invitation.

ICANN
The Board has approved an IDN country-code rulebook that points certain disputes toward a dedicated review route. That route still needs implementation and a Bylaws decision.

ICANN
ICANN's new accountability committee has four voting directors. Its charter needs three for a quorum. One empty chair is the entire cushion.

ICANN
Miriam Sapiro takes the organizational-review chair as a second draft, another public hearing and a November work list wait on the table.

ICANN
The new domain round brought in roughly $110 million for implementation work priced to cost $70 million. ICANN expects to send the excess back. The receipt is going to need several columns.

ICANN
Catherine Adeya takes the Risk Committee gavel from Wes Hardaker, who remains at the table. A risk register, tolerance work and an audit plan sit in the handover folder.

ICANN
The Board cleared an enterprise software renewal while hiding both the supplier and the spending ceiling in its public resolution.
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