Re: [ga] Dates and Shananigans

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ram Mohan has pointed out to me that Afilias is not a predominantly American company; the company is headquartered in Ireland, its primary technical and operations centre (with the largest number of employees) is in Canada, and it has offices in India, London and Germany.

This doesn't alter the point I'm making - that it is disappointing to see the re-delegation of .net to Verisign when so many gTLDs are run from the United States already.

Incidentally, the original delegation of .info to Afilias was itself one of the classic "insider" operations of ICANN. Key players in setting up Afilias as a concept were already deeply involved and integrated with ICANN, and there was a perception at the time that ICANN could not really distance itself from a delegation to members of its own community.

Afilias from the outset was a cartel of registrars, and it was symptomatic that some of these registrars abused the ICANN agreements and broke their own rules when the chance arose to make money in the "Sunrise" fiasco. For example, Speednames was part of the Afilias cartel, and yet in their capacity as a registrar they sold 4981 fake Sunrise registrations to Konrad Plankenstein, which had wholly spurious trademark data, and took in the region of $500,000 for the provision of ineligible domains. Precisely what service were they providing either to Plankenstein or the Internet community when they took that money?

Similarly, Hal Lubsen of DomainBank (one of the Afilias cartel of registrars) was also CEO of Afilias at the time when DomainBank sold over 90 ineligible .info domains in the 'Sunrise' period to William Lorenz, even though the rules for the Registrars and Registry clearly stated that mandatory data was required in four key Trademark datafields. They knew that the domains were therefore ineligible and yet they charged Lorenz $15000 for an ineligible commodity which they subsequently took off him. They did not, however, return his money!

The ICANN Agreement placed the responsibility with the registrar to sponsor only applications which met the mandatory requirements for those data fields, but DomainBank (and Afilias who registered them) consciously ignored their own rules... why? ... presumably because there was $15000 to be made?

The fact that Hal Lubsen was both a long-term executive of DomainBank and CEO of Afilias highlighted the danger of delegating TLDs to people who could be described as "insiders" of ICANN's registrar constituency. The motivation for cartel members to make money in their separate capacities as registrars could be said to compromise the fair and objective administration of a Registry, according to the rules and principles through which it was set up.

In the same way, ICANN's selection and delegation of further gTLDs could be said to be compromised, both by their close relationship with many applicants and by their dependence on the US for their very existence.

The outcome, questionable delegations which largely favour US applicants, could be argued to stem from processes which lack real openness, objectivity and accountability.

But then ICANN is not representative. It excludes registrants and ordinary internet users from its Boardroom (indeed it expelled the democratically elected Board Members of the At Large). What hope, then, of ever getting a process which can be made truly accountable and truly fair?

There was every opportunity to 'internationalise' amd 'diversify' the gTLD registries, when the time came to re-delegate .net... but what do we get? ... more of the same... the dinosaur Verisign to be offered "more of the same" and the domain industry further entrenched under the control of a US corporation.

There are over 200 other countries in the world, you know?

Yrs,

Richard Henderson

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Richard Henderson 
  To: General Assembly of the DNSO 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 7:34 PM
  Subject: Re: [ga] Dates and Shananigans


  ICANN = US quango

  .NET = being delegated to ...  the US ... again ... Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

  .ORG = 1775 Wiehle Avenue, Suite 102A, Reston, VA 20190, USA

  .COM = 487 East Middlefield Road, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

  .INFO = 300 Welsh Road, Horsham, PA 19044, USA

  .BIZ = 46000 Center Oak Plaza, Sterling, VA 20166, USA

  Um... there are actually 200 other countries in the world ...

  The continual delegation of gTLDs to predominantly American companies is a farce.

  This whole industry is run by insiders
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Hugh Dierker 
    To: ga 
    Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 4:49 PM
    Subject: [ga] Dates and Shananigans


    Upon further research into Telcordia and .NET I find the dates and lack thereof interesting.
    ICANNS posted on May 3rd. with apparently no date of authorship;
    ICANN Posts Telcordia Review of Findings
    Telcordia published a review of their evaluation report in light of letters received from .NET applicants and responded to the questions raised.
    3 May 2005

    Telcordias revision dated May 2nd. Posted some 20+ days later. If I were suspicious I would conclude that there was a preordained conclusion with public knowledge and input being a facade. Colusion in the writing and preparing and release of data in order to give the appearance of propriety and openness and transparency and actually listening to input. Well orchestrated stage presence but faulty in execution. But then again who cares until they are screwed by a fate complete?

    e