The eco Names & Numbers Forum is one of the world’s largest interest groups for the domain industry. The forum has more than 130 member companies, which includes registries, registrars, back-end providers, consultants and experts from the secondary market, covering the entire spectrum of the industry. The eco Names & Numbers Forum works with a broad network of partners. Thomas Rickert and Lars Steffen represented eco members at all ICANN meetings throughout the year.

Names & Numbers Steering Committee

The Names & Numbers Steering Committee – i.e., the steering committee of the Competence Group – welcomed three new members in 2023:

• Regina Fuchsova, Regional Manager Central Europe, EURid
• Neal McPherson, Head of Product Management Domains, IONOS
• Richard Leaning, Director, Trust & Safety, Cloudflare

The eco Association would like to thank the outgoing members for their support and commitment over the past few years: Kristian Ørmen, Ulrich Retzlaff and Giovanni Seppia.

Judgement on the Sony vs. Quad9 case

Proceedings against the public DNS resolver and eco member Quad9 that were conducted in 2022 before the Regional Court of Hamburg and the Regional Court of Leipzig reached a favourable conclusion for the industry in 2023 before the Higher Regional Court of Dresden. For the time being, this has resolved liability issues for intermediaries. The Dresden Higher Regional Court ruled fully in favour of the DNS resolver in the Sony vs. Quad9 copyright dispute.

“This judgement is good news for a free and open Internet”, says eco Director Names & Numbers Thomas Rickert, whose law firm (rickert.law) represents Quad9 in these proceedings. eco has supported Quad9 since the beginning of the proceedings around two and a half years ago, with this including expertise from Board Member Klaus Landefeld.

ICANN

As a long-standing member of the ICANN community, Thomas Rickert represents the interests of eco members in the Generic Name Supporting Organization (GNSO). In 2023, as part of the work on the EPDP Phase 2 implementation, he also represented the Internet Service Providers and Connectivity Providers Constituency (ISPCP), both in the GNSO Council and in the small teams on the topics of DNS Abuse and the System for Standardised Access/Disclosure (SSAD) Review. To promote the latter, Rickert is now also active in the Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team. Lars Steffen has been a member of the ISPCP Executive Committee since the ICANN78 meeting in Hamburg.

76th ICANN Meeting – Cancún

The first ICANN meeting of the year, entitled the Community Forum, took place at the end of February in Cancún, Mexico. In this sector, the NIS2 policy was discussed intensively for the first time. Changes to the contracts for registries and registrars of generic TLDs were also vigorously discussed in order to strengthen the fight against DNS abuse. In addition, progress was made in developing a System for Standardised Access/Disclosure (SSAD) for “WHOIS data” and on the path to the next round of introducing new top-level domains. The results were summarised in a readout webinar and a report.

77th ICANN Meeting – Washington D.C.

The ICANN77 Policy Forum took place in Washington D.C. in June. The ccNSO made progress in various policy processes such as the retirement of ccTLDs and the appeals proceedings, as well as in IDN ccTLDs and in the DNS Abuse Standing Committee. In the context of the next round of new TLDs, discussions focused in particular on closed generic TLDs. The results were summarised in a readout webinar and a report.

78th ICANN Meeting – Hamburg

All information is available here.

topDNS Initiative

The topDNS Initiative of the Names & Numbers Forum Competence Group was a project launched in early 2022 to unite members in the fight against DNS abuse. The initiative not only closely collaborates with the Anti-Abuse Competence Group and the Security Competence Group, but also with numerous partners such as the NetBeacon Institute, the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network and the Global Cyber Alliance.

In the topDNS Initiative, registries, registrars and hosting providers have come together with the shared goal of ensuring the stable, reliable and secure operation of the DNS (Domain Name System): Verisign, Team Internet, Public Interest Registry (.ORG), IQ Global, IONOS, InterNetX, Leaseweb, CleanDNS, Cloudflare, nic.at and Realtime Register. We are very pleased that we have been able to significantly expand the group of supporters.

As the term “DNS abuse” was introduced in the NIS2 Directive, the topDNS Initiative gained a particular opportunity to contribute and have its voice heard throughout the year.

In addition, at the ICANN78 meeting in Hamburg, a Day Zero Workshop on the NIS2 Directive provided the opportunity for the topDNS Initiative to spend a full day discussing the impact of the directive on combatting DNS abuse with representatives of the European Commission and the NIS2 Cooperation Group. The results of the workshop were summarised in a comprehensive report.

At the Nordic Domain Days in May, topDNS was once again present as a partner on-site. Representatives from all parts of the domain industry gathered in Stockholm. As part of the programme, the initiative was featured with a presentation and a half-day DNS Abuse Workshop in collaboration with iQ Global.

Best practice webinar series

In 2023, the topDNS Initiative launched a series of best practice webinars. Every month, members and partners of topDNS get to present strategies and measures for preventing, combatting and controlling various types of online abuse:

1. How to Reduce Abuse through Quality
2. Standards and Frameworks for Evidencing Abuse Online
3. How to Investigate Online Abuse with Free Tools
4. Recognising Good Practice in the DNS – Towards Positive, Data-Driven Policy Discussions
5. DNSAI Compass Dashboards – Benchmarking the prevalence and persistence of malware and phishing for registries and registrars
6. Addressing, evidencing, and mitigating abuse in Web3

This series will be continued in 2024.

Further information is available at: https://topdns.eco.