ICANN President Goran Marby has written a newsletter in the corporate blog. He says that the internet is still playing an ever greater role in the lives of people and has become important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost everything depends on the internet: from work and training to social communications. In such a situation the global net integrity, stability and safety, the provision of which is ICANN’s main job, becomes vital.
Goran Marby noted that ICANN is terribly worried about domain names being used maliciously, which has been happening regularly since the outbreak of the pandemic – for instance to create websites for distributing fake medicines or vaccines. Referring to the US Federal Trade Commission, the ICANN President reported that such fraudulent schemes in the United States alone had inflicted financial losses estimated at over $5 mln.
He reminded people that ICANN has neither legal powers nor the physical capability to oppose illegal internet content. Nonetheless, the corporation just cannot stand aloof from the general efforts to overcome the crisis. It supports the initiatives of numerous accredited registries and registrars intended to block the use of domain names for illegal purposes and to prevent their registration. The working group of the domain registrars’ community at ICANN has worked out and published a list of recommendations for registrars during the crisis caused by COVID-19. Goran Marby also points out that ICANN joined the COVID-19 Cyber Threat Coalition which unites cyber threat experts, domain business people and developers. This group of people are prepared to work together to prevent and rebuff cyber threats caused by the pandemic.
