Global Amendment to the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA)
As we have informed you previously the global amendment to the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA Global Amendment) becomes effective on 05 April 2024.
There are new obligations and processes coming for responding to domain name abuse for gTLD domains, and registrars will need to promptly take action to stop or otherwise disrupt DNS Abuse.
- “DNS Abuse” is defined as “malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, and spam (when spam serves as a delivery mechanism for the other forms of DNS Abuse listed in this Section) as those terms are defined in Section 2.1 of SAC115.”
- When an ICANN-accredited registrar receives “actionable evidence” of a registered name under its management being used for DNS Abuse, the registrar is obliged to “promptly take the appropriate mitigation action(s) that are reasonably necessary to stop, or otherwise disrupt, the Registered Name from being used for DNS Abuse.”
Please refer to the 2024 Global Amendment webpage for a more detailed explanation of these changes.
What will change?
- If Com Laude receives an abuse complaint in respect of one of your registered domain names, we must push you to be prompt and responsive in dealing with that complaint. Previously our Domain Strategist team would have notified you of an abuse complaint and left this for you to address via your usual processes, usually without follow-up.
- The new obligations will require us to follow up with you within a short period of time to confirm that you have evaluated the complaint and taken steps, where reasonably necessary, “to stop, or otherwise disrupt” the abusive activity.
- Quite simply, our failure to follow up in this manner could put Com Laude’s ICANN accreditation at risk. The compliance burden for you and us increases, but we are in this together and will work with you to evolve.
From the perspective of managing and enforcing intellectual property rights we consider these changes to be beneficial for our clients, as abuse complaints you and your organizations make against activity falling within the definition of “DNS Abuse” above should receive more prompt and responsive attention.
While the new obligations described above are targeted at gTLDs, combatting abuse appears to be a worldwide trend. Some ccTLDs have already begun taking more aggressive stances, and we anticipate that more will do so in the future. This is very likely to be a major theme in the domain name world throughout 2024.
If you have any questions or concerns about these changes, please contact your Domain Strategist to discuss further.