legal

ICANN 87

Publishers call for better verification of domain name registrants, and ICANN is on the job with a new policy

A website registered by “David Beckham” was the world’s second-most-visited source of pirated Japanese manga in February 2025, leading publishers to call for better verification of who buys domain names to address the problem.

The “Beckham” who registered the site was of course not the famous footballer and spokesmodel. However Tatsuo Ninoseki, an attorney with the Shin Hirakawa-Cho Law Office who represents the Japan Publishers manga Anti-Piracy Conference (JPMAC), put fake Becks in play today during a session on DNS abuse at ICANN’s annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

Ninoseki said miscreants routinely create unauthorized English translations of manga and post them on websites that include ads.…