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The ICANN Ombuds

The ICANN Ombuds' job is to make sure that ICANN community members are treated fairly. Acting as an impartial mediator, the Ombuds helps resolve disputes on issues involving the ICANN Board, staff, or supporting organizations. The Ombuds is here to help you!

Ask the Ombuds a Question

About Ombuds

Profile image for Elizabeth Field

Overview Of The Ombuds Office

Purpose of the Ombuds Office

The purpose of the ICANN Office of Ombuds (Ombuds Office) is to ensure that all ICANN community members are treated fairly, respectfully, and appropriately by the ICANN staff, Board, and ICANN constituent bodies.

The ICANN Ombuds

Elizabeth Field has served as ICANN Ombuds since October 2024. She is a member of the International Ombuds Association (IOA) and has two decades of international experience as a mediator, facilitator, conflict coach, restorative practitioner, and organizational development advisor.

Elizabeth is based in Geneva and speaks English, French, and Spanish.

You can read Elizabeth's blogs as ICANN Ombuds on the ICANN website.

Contact Elizabeth at [email protected]

Elizabeth Field

How the Ombuds Office Can Help

The Ombuds Office is a confidential, impartial, and independent resource developed by the ICANN community. The Office offers the following services:

Collaborative Conflict Resolution: The Ombuds Office uses collaborative methods (such as mediation) to help community members work through conflict and resolve disagreements.

Complaints About Unfairness: The Ombuds Office evaluates or investigates community member claims of unfair treatment by ICANN staff, Board, or ICANN constituent groups.

Complaints About Harassment: The Ombuds Office helps to resolve ICANN community members' concerns and complaints about harassment under the Community Anti-Harassment Policy.

Prevention Workshops and Webinars: The Ombuds Office provides workshops and webinars to help community groups handle conflict and prevent harassment. For more information, please visit this page.

See the full range of Ombuds Office services offered to ICANN community members.

What the Ombuds Office Cannot Do

The Ombuds Office has specific limits set out in the ICANN Bylaws. The Office cannot help community members with:

  • Complaints against domain registrars or registries
  • Complaints against people or organizations that are not a part of ICANN
  • Internal ICANN administrative or personnel matters
  • Issues relating to membership on the Board
  • Contract issues with vendor or suppliers
  • Inappropriate website content
  • Fishing, spam, cybersquatting or fraud

If you are unsure who to contact about your issue, you can contact ICANN Global Support. They will know if ICANN is able to handle your specific issue. If ICANN cannot help, they will try to suggest other ways for your to get support or answers.

How to contact the Ombuds Office

You can contact the Ombuds Office at any time.

Email the Office or the Ombuds directly to:

  • Ask a question
  • Raise a concern
  • Make a complaint
  • Request a Zoom meeting for a confidential, informal conversation

The Ombuds Office: [email protected]

The Ombuds: [email protected]

You can also meet the Ombuds at ICANN Public Meetings. Drop by the Ombuds Office at the meeting venue – there is no need to schedule an appointment.

The Ombuds Office Commitments

The Ombuds Office is committed to high-quality service and continuous improvement. Specifically the Office commits to:

  • Confidentiality
  • Independence
  • Impartiality
  • Fair Treatment
  • Dignity and Respect
  • Role Clarity
Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."