Editing ICANN (section)

==Notable events==
On March 18, 2002, publicly elected At-Large Representative for North America board member [[Karl Auerbach]] sued ICANN in the [[Los Angeles County Superior Court|Superior Court of Los Angeles County]], California, to gain access to ICANN's accounting records without restriction. Judge Dzintra Janavs ruled in Auerbach's favor on July 29, 2002.<ref name="eff"/>

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]],<ref name="Wildcard entries in DNS entries" /> 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 [[United States Department of Commerce|U.S. Department of Commerce]] for the [[Waiting List Service]] of VeriSign.{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}}

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 increased its proposed spending from US$8.27&nbsp;million to $15.83&nbsp;million.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.icann.org/financials/proposed-budget-14may04.pdf|title=ICANN Proposed Budget - Fiscal Year 2004-2005|publisher=ICANN|date=May 17, 2004}}</ref> The increase was to be funded by the introduction of new [[top-level domain]]s, charges to [[Domain name registry|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|date=September 2009}} The [[Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries]] (CENTR), which represents the [[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority|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 {{mono|jobs}} and {{mono|travel}} includes a US$2 fee on every domain the licensed companies sell or renew.<ref name="theregister" />

After a second round of negotiations during 2004, the TLDs {{mono|[[.eu|eu]]}}, {{mono|[[.asia|{{not a typo|asia}}]]}}, {{mono|[[.travel|travel]]}}, {{mono|[[.jobs|jobs]]}}, {{mono|[[.mobi|mobi]]}}, and {{mono|[[.cat|cat]]}} were introduced during 2005.

[[Image:Cerf's Up-marquee-20071031.jpg|thumb|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.<ref name="icann" /> This was criticised by a few members of the [[U.S. House of Representatives]]' [[United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship|Small Business Committee]].<ref name="com" />

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".<ref name="TheRegisterICANNCriticism1" />

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."<ref name="icann1" /> 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.<ref name="knujon" /> The mention of the word "[[Spam (electronic)|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).<ref name="icann2" /> 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 [[.events|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.<ref name="32nd International Public ICANN Meeting" />

On October 1, 2008, ICANN issued breach notices against Joker and Beijing Innovative Linkage Technology Ltd.<ref name="icann3" /> 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]].<ref name="icann4" /> This external review was an assistance of the work of ICANN's Accountability and Transparency Review team.<ref name="icann5" />

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.<ref name="icann6" />

On June 20, 2011, the ICANN board voted to end most restrictions on the names of [[generic top-level domain]]s (gTLD).<ref name="VOA" /><ref name="yahoo" /><ref name="zdnet" /> 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.<ref name="VOA" /> The initial price to apply for a new gTLD was set at $185,000<ref name="bbc" /> and the annual renewal fee is $25,000.<ref name="icann7" /><ref name="mashable" />

During December 2011, the [[Federal Trade Commission]] stated ICANN had long failed to provide safeguards that protect consumers from online [[Charlatan|swindlers]].<ref name="CNN 2011-12-21">{{Cite web |last=Milian |first=Mark |date=December 21, 2011 |title=Keepers of the Internet face their greatest challenges ever |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/22/tech/web/icann/ |access-date=September 20, 2014 |publisher=[[CNN]]}}</ref>

Following the 2013 [[NSA spying scandal]], ICANN endorsed the [[Montevideo Statement]],<ref name="montevideo">[https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2013-10-07-en Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation], ICANN, October 7, 2013. Retrieved November 27, 2016.</ref> although no direct connection between these could be proven.<ref name="igdstatement">[http://www.internetgovernance.org/2014/02/19/do-the-nsa-revelations-have-anything-to-do-with-internet-governance/ Do the NSA revelations have anything to do with Internet governance?], Internet Governance Project, February 19, 2014. Retrieved November 27, 2016</ref>

On October 1, 2016, ICANN ended its contract with the United States Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (<abbr>NTIA</abbr>) and entered the private sector.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stewardship of IANA Functions Transitions to Global Internet Community as Contract with U.S. Government Ends – ICANN |url=https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2016-10-01-en |access-date=October 1, 2016 |website=icann.org}}</ref>

The [[European Union]]'s [[General Data Protection Regulation]] (active since May 25, 2018) has had an impact on ICANN's operations, which had to be fixed via some last minute changes.{{clarify|date=June 2018}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Vaughan-Nichols |first=Steven J. |title=ICANN makes last minute WHOIS changes to address GDPR requirements - ZDNet |website=[[ZDNet]] |url=https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/icann-makes-last-minute-whois-changes-to-address-gdpr-requirements/}}</ref>