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Highlights from ICANN66 Montreal

Montreal in November is not as bad as it sounds; the weather is crisp and clear, the snow isn’t too deep yet, and it doesn’t get dark until a reasonable time in the evening. It’s still not my top choice for a travel destination at this time of year, but the ICANN conference definitely made […]

Tiered Access data disclosure update

It has been more than a year since Tucows, Enom’s parent company, launched our Tiered Access Compliance & Operations portal, sometimes called “Gated Whois,” and it’s been around six months since we shared our first set of statistics on how and by whom this platform is being used. Today’s update brings our statistics current through […]

people exchanging keys

The evolution of the Domain Transfer Process

ICANN’s Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (IRTP) defines the procedures and rules for domain name transfers. When it was first introduced in 2004, the Policy was limited to inter-registrar transfers. Over the years, it has been revised by Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Groups and expanded to include governance of domain ownership transfers and a transfer dispute […]

woman looks over EPDP Phase 1 Final Report

ICANN updates: EPDP Phase 1 final report

ICANN’s Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) team has issued their Phase 1 Final Report, marking the end of this stage of the project. The recommendations from this Report will become mandatory as of February 29, 2020, but contracted parties (registrars and registries) are permitted to implement them sooner. We’re still determining what specific changes we’ll […]

Enom’s Tiered Access Directory: eight months later

Tucows’ Tiered Access Compliance & Operations portal (which we commonly refer to as a “Tiered Access Directory” or “gated Whois”) launched at the end of May 2018. With its launch, our public Whois “went dark.” From that date forward, all personal registrant data has been redacted from the public Whois by default and made accessible […]