SAN FRANCISCO — The Internet domain name "revolution" was on hold Friday due to an apparent flaw that let some aspiring applicants peek at unauthorized information at the registration website.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will resume taking applications on April 17 from those interested in running new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) online.
"We have learned of a possible glitch in the TLD application system software that has allowed a limited number of users to view some other users' file names and user names in certain scenarios," ICANN chief operating officer Akram Atallah said in a message posted at the organization's website.
"Out of an abundance of caution, we took the system offline to protect applicant data," he continued. "We are examining how this issue occurred and considering appropriate steps forward."
ICANN in January began taking applications from those interested in operating Internet domains that replace endings such as .com or .org with nearly any acceptable words including company, organization or city names.
Outgoing ICANN president Rod Beckstrom has championed the change as a "new domain name system revolution."
The new system will allow Internet names such as .Apple or .IMF or .Paris.
ICANN says the huge expansion of the Internet, with two billion users around the world, half of them in Asia, requires the new names.
ICANN said the software glitch “allowed a limited number of users to view some other users’ file names and user names in certain scenarios.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether that included proprietary information on the names of the bidders and their proposed suffixes. ICANN officials said Friday they had no immediate comment beyond the posted statement.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we took the system offline to protect applicant data,” Chief Operating Officer Akram Atallah wrote on ICANN’s website. “We are examining how this issue occurred and considering appropriate steps forward.”
The glitch did not affect general availability of the Internet’s domain name system — the databases that let Internet-connected computers know where to send email and locate websites. It also did not affect the ability to register new names under existing suffixes.
Rather, the glitch was with the software ICANN had set up to take applications for new suffixes.
After several years of discussion, ICANN opened a three-month application window in January. Names of bidders and proposed suffixes were to remain confidential until April 30, when ICANN had been scheduled to release the list for public comments and objections. It’s not clear whether that date will be changed because of the deadline extension.
The delay shouldn’t have a major effect on the availability of new suffixes, as the new names wouldn’t appear in general use until at least next spring anyhow.
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