ICANN increases Registrar’s fee for due diligence

Global Internet coordinating agency, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number (ICANN) has increased the current registrar’s fee from $2,500 to $3,500, about N542,500, to offset the costs of increased due diligence.

ICANN said that the application fee for submitting an ICANN accreditation application will be increased from the current fee with effective from July 1, 2011.

“All applications received on or after that date will be subject to a non-refundable US $3,500 application fee,” a press statement endorsed by Director, Media Affairs at ICANN, Mr. Brad White informed. The press statement made available to ITRealms Online also indicated that the increased fee will offset the costs for ICANN to conduct additional due diligence checks on applicants during the registrar accreditation application process.

These, ICANN said would comprise the checks on criminal records, credit records, financial history and solvency, corporate cum company structure and ownership. The internet coordinating agency noted that in order to conduct these due diligence checks ICANN assured that it would enable it to perform inquiries through the use of external resources including reputable commercial third party information service providers. These steps, ITRealms Online gathered were the result of community input that called for the strengthening of the requirements for registrar accreditation, and to address changes that have arisen in the registrar marketplace.

The ICANN Board of Directors, therefore, recently voted to approve the fee increase for these purposes at its meeting on April 21, 2011.

Meanwhile, ICANN, on Thursday, posted its fifth and final status report to the Generic Name Support Organisation (GNSO) on the implementation of its recommendations for the Add Grace Period (AGP) Limits Policy.

ICANN noted that in prior status reports, the success of the Policy is evidenced by the 99.7 per cent reduction in AGP deletes since the Policy went into effect in April 2009, saying its committed to analyzing and reporting on the effects of the Policy to the GNSO at six-month intervals for two years after its implementation.

The first status report was issued on 10 June 2009, the second status report on 14 December 2009, while the third status report was on June 1, 2010, even as the fourth status report on 18 November 2010.

The purpose of these reports has been “to allow the GNSO to determine when, if ever, these recommendations and any ensuing policy require additional clarification or attention based on the results of the reports prepared by ICANN Staff.”

Presented in a prior report was that during GNSO calls in April and May 2010, following inquiry from ICANN Staff about whether or not additional Policy work should be considered, the GNSO decided that the success of the Policy and the low number of exemption requests demonstrated that modifications to the Policy were not warranted at that time.

Further, since the time of those calls there have not been any additional GSNO discussions about the Policy and the number and frequency of reported exemption requests from registrars has dropped considerably.

Remmy Nweke:
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