Names & Numbers

Names & Numbers

The eco Names & Numbers Forum is one of the world’s largest advocacy groups in the domain industry. With more than 140 member companies that manage more than 70% of all domain names worldwide – including registries, registrars, back-end providers, consultants and experts from the secondary market – the forum encompasses the entire spectrum of the industry. The eco Names & Numbers Forum works with a broad network of partners. In 2025, Thomas Rickert, Director Names & Numbers Forum, and Lars Steffen, Head of International, Digital Infrastructures & Resilience, represented eco members at all ICANN meetings.

Names & Numbers Steering Committee

As of 2025, our steering committee comprised thirteen members. These include: 

  • Elizabeth Bacon, Senior Director, Policy & Privacy, Public Interest Registry
  • Jasmine Begg, EMEA Business Development Manager, GoDaddy Registry
  • Samantha Demetriou, Senior Director Policy, Verisign
  • Oliver Elste, CEO, Smart-NIC
  • Regina Fuchsova, Regional Manager Central Europe, EURid
  • Dirk Krischenowski, Founder & CEO, dotBERLIN
  • Martin Küchenthal, Founder & CEO, LEMARIT
  • Reg Levy, Head of Compliance, Tucows
  • Andreas Musielak, CEO, nic.at 
  • Michele Neylon, Co-Founder & CEO, Blacknight
  • Katrin Ohlmer, CEO, DOTZON
  • Gretchen Olive, Vice President, Policy & Strategic Account Management, CSC

ICANN Engagement and Leadership

As a long-standing member of the ICANN community, Thomas Rickert is a member of ICANN’s Registration Data Policy Implementation Review Team (IRT), which supports ICANN org in implementing the Registration Data Policy – an ICANN Consensus Policy that describes requirements for the processing of registration data by ICANN-accredited registrars and gTLD registry operators under contract with ICANN.

In 2025, Thomas Rickert also represented the Internet Service Providers and Connectivity Providers Constituency (ISPCP) in the GNSO Council (term running from 1 August 2024 to 11 December 2025) and participated in small teams addressing Board Readiness and the RDRS Standing Committee. Lars Steffen was elected as Vice-Chair of the ISPCP in October 2025.

ICANN Meetings 2025

82nd ICANN Meeting – Seattle, USA

The year’s first ICANN meeting, the Community Forum, took place in early March in Seattle. The community engaged in intensive discussions on policy implementation, security and stability matters, and governance developments. Key topics included preparations for the next round of new gTLDs and the Applicant Support Program, DNS abuse mitigation, registration data accuracy and the evaluation of the Registration Data Request Service (RDRS), as well as broader geopolitical and WSIS+20-related developments affecting the multistakeholder approach. eco Association and ICANN jointly organised a follow-on comprehensive readout webinar and a report summarising the outcomes.

83rd ICANN Meeting – Prague, Czech Republic

In June 2025, the ICANN83 Policy Forum convened in Prague. This brought together the community for focused discussions on governance reform, preparations for the next round of new gTLDs and DNS abuse mitigation. Exchanges addressed the Board’s decision to pause parts of the organisational review system, strategic coordination around the WSIS+20 process and progress on the Applicant Guidebook and Applicant Support Program. This included concerns regarding inclusivity and accessibility. Participants reaffirmed the importance of cross-community cooperation to strengthen DNS abuse prevention and ecosystem resilience. The outcomes were summarised in a readout webinar and a report organised by eco Association and ICANN.

84th ICANN Meeting – Dublin, Ireland

The ICANN84 Policy Forum took place in Dublin in late October 2025. Discussions addressed major policy, operational and governance priorities. Central topics included the future of the Registration Data Request Service (RDRS), with consensus recommendations on its continuation and authentication model, progress and outstanding concerns related to the next round of new gTLDs – particularly applicant support, geographic names and diacritics – and targeted policy development processes to strengthen DNS abuse mitigation. Further discussions focused on reforming ICANN’s review framework to enhance efficiency and accountability, preparations for WSIS+20, reinforced multistakeholder coordination, SSAC reports on open-source dependencies in the DNS and ongoing ICP-2 revisions. A comprehensive readout webinar and a report captured the meeting’s outcomes.

In June, we did a webinar on the Digital City Brands Study 2025 and we spoke at the Domain Summit by InterNetX. 

In November 2025, eco and DOTZON hosted a webinar presenting the findings of the “Digital Company Brands Study 2025”, the eighth annual analysis of how global corporations leverage their own brand top-level domains (e.g. .audi or .volkswagen). DOTZON outlined how brandTLDs are increasingly embedded in corporate digital strategies to strengthen trust, brand integrity and customer engagement. The session also addressed best practices for operating a .brand and strategic considerations for organisations evaluating participation in the upcoming ICANN application round.

Also in November 2025 eco in collaboration with ICANN held the annual business stakeholder lunch in Berlin, followed by a event in the evening with a panel discussion on Email Security and Digital Sovereignty: Opportunities through your own Domains and Top-Level Domains.

topDNS Initiative

Launched in 2021, the topDNS Initiative of the Names & Numbers Forum Competence Group continues to unite members in the fight against DNS abuse. The initiative not only closely collaborates with the Anti-Abuse Competence Group and the Security Competence Group, but also with numerous partners such as the NetBeacon Institute and the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network.

The topDNS Initiative brings together registries, registrars and hosting providers with the shared mission of ensuring the stable, reliable and secure operation of the Domain Name System (DNS). Current participants include Cloudflare, Public Interest Registry, Verisign, iQ Global, Realtime Register, Team Internet, SWITCH and nic.at. In 2025, two new supporters joined the initiative: FIRST.org and Dutch Cloud Community, further strengthening its cross-sector reach.

With the report “State of the DNS in 2025”, developed following a workshop in Brussels on 6 February 2025, eco’s topDNS Initiative published an up-to-date assessment of progress in combating DNS abuse. The report captured discussions between representatives from the European Union and the Internet industry on the measurable impact of ICANN’s DNS abuse contract amendments, the role of automation versus manual review in abuse handling, and the need for broader coordination across infrastructure providers.

It also highlighted the emerging Internet Infrastructure Forum (IIF) as a venue to strengthen cross-sector cooperation beyond the DNS layer. The topDNS Initiative has been instrumental in supporting the creation of the IIF by bringing together members from the different parts of the industry.

At the Nordic Domain Days in April 2025, eco’s topDNS Initiative co-hosted the annual Abuse Workshop in Stockholm together with iQ Global. The session was co-hosted and moderated by eco’s Thomas Rickert and Lars Steffen, alongside Su Wu, COO of iQ Global.

Bringing together registries, registrars, hosting providers, ISPs and policy experts, the workshop focused on strengthening cross-industry cooperation to address the growing scale and complexity of online abuse. Discussions emphasised standardised reporting formats such as XARF, automation and AI-supported workflows, improved feedback loops and more coordinated action across infrastructure layers.

Further information is available at: https://topdns.eco

Knowledge Sharing: Webinars & Videos

In February 2025, eco’s topDNS Initiative hosted the webinar “Best Practices for Handling Abuse Reports and Takedowns” as part of its Best Practice Series. Experts from Team Internet and Spamhaus outlined common challenges in abuse reporting and presented five practical recommendations to improve efficiency and response times. The session emphasised the importance of clear, evidence-based reporting, the use of reputation data, coordinated communication with responsible parties, and scalable reporting mechanisms such as APIs. 

In April 2025, eco’s topDNS Initiative, together with Freename, hosted the webinar in the Best Practice Series entitled “Navigating Web3 Domains”. CTO of Freename introduced the emerging landscape of blockchain-based Web3 domains and outlined key differences from the traditional DNS, including decentralised ownership models and namespace fragmentation across multiple platforms. The session addressed associated challenges such as domain collisions, security risks and abuse mitigation, and discussed the need for interoperable standards and structured resolution mechanisms to enhance reliability and trust in decentralised naming systems.

In October 2025, eco’s topDNS Initiative also hosted a webinar “topDNS Best Practice Series: How is DNS Abuse actually measured?” in cooperation with KOR Labs, NetBeacon Institute and URLAbuse. The webinar addressed methodological challenges such as data sources, distinguishing malicious from compromised domains and time to mitigation, and introduced the NetBeacon Measurement & Analytics Platform (MAP) for benchmarking mitigation performance. The focus was on improving transparency and comparability in DNS abuse mitigation.

Following each ICANN meeting, ICANN and eco continued to offer concise summaries via readout webinars, in which representatives from various steering and advisory committees reported on current topics.

New gTLD Provider Directory

In preparation for the next round of new gTLDs scheduled for 2026, eco facilitated a series of expert video discussions and text interviews, led by Thomas Rickert and featuring backend providers and registry service specialists, including Hello Registry, Lexsynergy, AFNIC and DENIC Services. The sessions addressed application requirements, operational readiness, backend infrastructure and strategic considerations for prospective applicants. 

eco also launched a new gTLD Provider Directory featuring more than 32 service providers offering legal, technical, strategic and operational expertise. The directory supports prospective applicants in identifying experienced partners for application drafting, registry backend services, compliance, abuse management and related services. Several listed providers offer pro bono support within the framework of ICANN’s Applicant Support Program.