Red faces at ICANN after it publishes home addresses of applicants for new top level domains

Rather embarrassingly for the domain name regulator, ICANN was forced to temporarily pull down the list of applicants for the new generic top level domains (gTLDs), after it accidentally published home addresses of many of those involved, The Register reports.

As we reported earlier this week, almost 2,000 applications were received for the new gTLDs, which will offer alternatives to the familiar .com, .org and the like in domain names. The applicants were a mixture of corporations registering their trademarks (.amazon, .google, .bbc etc) and registries competing to offer popular generic terms like .app to the public (although both Google and Amazon have their eyes on that one too).

When the list of applicants was published, personal details of applicants, often senior officials at the companies they represented, were included. This was despite the fact that they were supposed to be redacted.

“This was an oversight and the files have been pulled down,” ICANN’s manager of gTLD communications Michele Jourdan told The Register. “We are working on bringing them back up again without this information.” Indeed, earlier this morning, UK time, a replacement list was published with the offending details removed.

Given that it took over 24 hours after the list was published (despite some applicants having notified ICANN of the problem within hours, according to The Register), it’s a blight on ICANN’s reputation – especially as it was incredibly keen at its press conference on Wednesday to show that it was handling the process entirely fairly, transparently and by the book.

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