In February of 2009 a Registration Abuse Policies Working Group (RAPWG) was chartered by ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization Council (GNSO), to present findings and concrete recommendations in addressing domain name registration abuse in generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). Upon chartering the RAPWG, the GNOS Council committed not to commit to a decision on whether or not to initiate a Policy Development Process (PDP).
However, the terms of GNSO Council’s commitment not to commit was fulfilled! The RAPWG has at long last, and after a public comment period where the RAPWG received comments/criticisms on its Initial Report, released its Final Report on May 29th.
• Cybersquatting: recommending the initiation of a Policy Development Process to investigate the current state of the UDRP .
• WHOIS access problems: seeking ways to ensure that WHOIS data is accessible in an appropriately reliable, enforceable, and consistent fashion; and requesting that the ICANN Compliance Department publish data about WHOIS accessibility.
• Malicious use of domain names: recommending the creation of best practices to help registrars and registries address the illicit use of domain names.
• Front-running: recommending possible enforcement actions by ICANN Compliance
• Cross-TLD registration scam: recommending to monitor and co-ordinate research with the community
• Uniformity of contracts: recommending the creation of an Issues Report to evaluate whether a minimum baseline of registration abuse provisions should be created for all in-scope ICANN agreements.
• GNSO-wide practices for the collection and dissemination of best practices, and for uniformity of reporting.
• Fake renewal notices
• Domain kiting
• Deceptive and/or offensive domain names
Further information about the RAPWG, ICANN, and registration abuse;
Registration Abuse Policies Working Group Final Report,
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