The proposals for the implementation of a redemption grace period were discussed on the last day of the body’s quarterly meeting, and received broad support.
The new system will give domain name owners a 30-day grace period to renew their registration contracts. It aims to create a safety net for expired domain names, reducing the risk of legitimate parties losing their names to cybersquatters.
Under the current system, organisations and individuals who fail to renew their subscriptions automatically lose their domain names. Cybersquatters can use the lost domain names to bring internet users to their own sites.
Dann Halloran, ICCAN’s chief registrar, said:
“You would have a church site that got deleted and suddenly it now pointed users to a porn site or the new registrar wants $5,000 to get the name back.”
In the same vote, ICANN authorised its president and general counsel to conduct negotiations toward appropriate revisions to technical aspects of agreements between ICANN and registry operators, in order to implement the new domain name system.
However, no decision was made regarding another proposal to introduce a waiting list for newly available domain names. This measure will be discussed later this summer.
ICANN approved structural changes that allow businesses, government and community representatives to be members of its board. It also agreed that, in the future, disputes could be settled by international arbitration.