[ga] ICANN's staff is inept -- deja vu

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

ICANN doesn't seem to really want people to comment on the new .biz,
.info, and .org contracts. See the bounced email I received below, when
I *tried* to submit comments (and I got more than 1 bounce message, so
more than 1 of those email addresses is bad at

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-28jul06.htm

where none of my comments appear, 3 hours after I submitted them.

The first time, it is just amusing:

http://blog.lextext.com/blog/_archives/2006/5/24/1982288.html

When it happens repeatedly, it demonstrates ICANN's staff is simply and
utterly incompetent (which is no surprise given that the terms of these
and past contracts that these people "negotiated" on our behalf). I
invested the time to make comments. The least ICANN's staff can do is
pretend that they are listening, by testing their submission email
addresses to see that they in fact work!

Get your act together, really. Incompetence might be a prerequisite to
work at ICANN, but unless you're a "lifer", you'll have little chance
of doing well outside this organization in the real world.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/

P.S. The GA list works, at least. My comments made it to:

http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga/msg04185.html

--- Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 09:27:47 -0700
> From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details
> 
> The original message was received at Sat, 29 Jul 2006 09:27:47 -0700
> from web50015.mail.yahoo.com [206.190.39.87]
> 
>    ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
> info-tld-agreement@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>     (reason: 550 5.1.1 <info-tld-agreement@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>...
> User unknown)
>     (expanded from: <info-tld-agreement@xxxxxxxxx>)
> 
>    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> ... while talking to greenriver.icann.org.:
> >>> DATA
> <<< 550 5.1.1 <info-tld-agreement@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>... User
> unknown
> 550 5.1.1 info-tld-agreement@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx User unknown
> <<< 503 5.0.0 Need RCPT (recipient)
> > Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 07:40:57 -0700 (PDT)
> From: George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: .biz, .info and .org want to be like .tv?
> To: biz-tld-agreement@xxxxxxxxx, info-tld-agreement@xxxxxxxxx,
>         org-tld-agreement@xxxxxxxxx
> 
> The proposed changes to the .biz, .info and .org registry agreements
> are entirely unacceptable, for all the same reasons that have been
> expressed in the past over the .com proposed settlement with VeriSign
> (see www.cfit.info or the comment board for the .com settlement
> proposal). While the existing ICANN Board might have foolishly
> accepted
> those terms, over the nearly unanimous protest of the broader
> community, the .com proposed agreement has yet to even be approved by
> the Department of Commerce. It is amusing to see the registry
> operators
> for .biz, .info and .org racing to try to capitalize upon a lame duck
> ICANN Board. The composition of the ICANN Board will change due to
> the
> end of term of various board members, and next year the votes that
> approved the .com settlement might by very different. These registry
> operators have not even waited to see if the changes to the .com
> agreement will be formally accepted by the DoC, and stand up to
> litigation. 
> 
> This should be a lesson to the Board that bad decision-making has
> many
> consequences. This is further justification for continuing oversight
> of
> ICANN.
> 
> Furthermore, if ICANN accepts these contractual changes before the
> DoC
> has spoken, all hell will break loose, because VeriSign will then
> have
> the argument that they're only seeking what other registries have
> been
> granted. But, isn't that the argument of the .biz, .info, and .org
> operators? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
> 
> ICANN should not be in the business of creating perpetual unregulated
> monopolies via the granting of presumptive renewal without price
> caps.
> As has been said before by others, registry operators can have a
> choice. They can have presumptive renewal, but with price controls
> based on cost recovery (i.e. like a utility). Or, they can have no
> price controls, but be subject to a regular rebidding process (where
> a
> fixed price during the term of the contract exists). But, to give the
> registry operators both presumptive renewal AND no price controls
> boggles the mind. Have ICANN staff and Board members ever taken a
> single business course? Have they ever studied economics? This is
> basic
> first principles stuff. It is clear that the people negotiating on
> behalf of the registry operators have studied economics, as they are
> winning big with these proposed changes, and will see their profits
> rise substantially, at the community's expense. ICANN loses its
> legitimacy as a representative of the community when it knowingly
> permits this to happen to the detriment of registrants.
> 
> Essentially, these new agreements have the effective of SELLING .biz,
> .info, and .org gTLDs to the existing registry operators, without any
> form of auction, but simply through a poor negotiation. Even Tuvalu
> *sold* .tv, yet ICANN simply gives away the TLD!
> 
> Just to see how terrible the new proposed contracts are, which
> entirely
> lift price controls (which is more freedom than even VeriSign gets,
> who
> can't raise prices more than 7% per year), I could not find anything
> in
> the new contract to even compel the registries to charge a fixed
> price
> per domain name! There is reference to "Exhibit E", but there is
> nothing preventing the registry operators from changing the simple
> formula in Exhibit E into a more complex formula or a
> domain-by-domain
> list, to price discriminate on the basis of the quality of the domain
> name, or any other basis (e.g. maybe the registry does not like the
> current registrant, and wants to charge them more money). Thus, the
> registries could emulate .tv, and charge more for sex.biz or sex.info
> or business.info or games.info than lesser quality domains. The
> registry could put into Exhibit E that sex.info or sex.biz or sex.org
> are $100,000 per year. Since section 3.1(b)(v)(B) prohibits consensus
> policies from touching upon "pricing", it's .TV all over again. 
> 
> This is what happens when you have a staff and Board which is out of
> touch with registrants.
> 
> For all the above reasons, these proposed agreements should be
> rejected.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> George Kirikos
> http://www.kirikos.com/
>