Talking About Domains and Internet Policy In Arizona

The internet is a constantly changing landscape and those of us who are lucky enough to work in the industry face new and exciting challenges every single day.

With that in mind I like to try and keep up to date with what is going on so that we can best serve our clients’ needs both now and in the future.

This week I’ve been in Scottsdale, Arizona at the 5th annual Registrar Summit, which is hosted by GoDaddy.

Over the course of the last two days I’ve been able to learn a lot about some of the current challenges and issues that face industry and it’s been incredibly useful.

The kind of topics we’ve been discussing cover a fairly broad range of topics including:

• Anti-trust. Quite important when you put a bunch of competitors in the same room!
• Abuse issues. Everything from compromised websites and CMS, network security and fraud
• Registrar liability. Registrars and hosting providers get pulled into court cases all the time
• Fake pharmaceuticals. This is a very big issue in the US and a growing one in Ireland and other European countries.
• Tax issues. The US has an incredibly complex tax system which makes ours look really really simple by comparison
• New TLDs. With the “big reveal” next week the timing of this discussion couldn’t have been better.
• Intellectual property theft. While it’s probably not news to anyone that there are a lot of “knock offs” being sold online the sheer volume of them is a bit of an eye opener
• Updates on the RAA and other ICANN policies.

So what are the lessons from this event?

I guess the key takeaway is that registrars, no matter how big or small they are, all face similar challenges.

As the internet matures and the industry changes we’re all going to have to deal with more demands from rights holders, law enforcement and government. Hopefully, however, we can work together towards an online environment which isn’t overly regulated.

With both the RAA discussions ongoing and the new TLD program in full swing there was also quite a lot to talk about informally with other attendees.

After a couple of intense, but productive, days here I feel that I’ve learnt a lot and I’ve also learnt that I still know very little.

Big thanks to GoDaddy’s legal team for organising the event in such a fantastic location and with such a nice group of people!

Related articles

• RAA Negotiations Update – Is Anyone Going To Be Happy? (internetnews.me)
• The ICANN Hunger Games (circleid.com)