Slashdot Mirror

What are the rules for registration of .net and .org names?

They are the same as for .com. Traditionally, however, ... .org is frequently used by not-for-profit organizations.

-dB

yeah and have you noticed a suspicious amount of the companies on the ICANN board have links to the RIAA and the MPAA. Do the research yourself its all there.

Quote: "Honeyman says existing steganography cannot be completely undetectable and adds that the key used to hide messages in images can be revealed with brute force computing power."

Any weakness of steganographic systems can be overcome.

For example; to beat brute force computing power only requires to have the message as an image of obfuscated text. There are several ways to do this; for one - think red-green colourblind eye test charts. It can also be multi-layered - each with seperate key. This would require manual viewing at every single attempt to crack it. The man hours required are too large to estimate.

P.S. The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization and the United States Department are hiding the simple solution to uniquely identify all registered trademarks on the Internet. The answer to this problem has been ratified by honest Lawyers. I believe UN WIPO and US DoC to be corrupt.

If you have heard of the respected Dr. Milton Mueller, you may be interested in the conclusion of his recent report, Domain Name Trademark Disputes under ICANN's UDRP. My comments and link to it on ICANN forum. His conclusion matches what I told UN WIPO and Nominet UK over a year ago.

Please visit World Intellectual Piracy Organization - Not associated with visit United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization

Quote: "Honeyman says existing steganography cannot be completely undetectable and adds that the key used to hide messages in images can be revealed with brute force computing power."

Any weakness of steganographic systems can be overcome.

For example; to beat brute force computing power only requires to have the message as an image of obfuscated text. There are several ways to do this; for one - think red-green colourblind eye test charts. It can also be multi-layered - each with seperate key. This would require manual viewing at every single attempt to crack it. The man hours required are too large to estimate.

P.S. The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization and the United States Department are hiding the simple solution to uniquely identify all registered trademarks on the Internet. The answer to this problem has been ratified by honest Lawyers. I believe UN WIPO and US DoC to be corrupt.

If you have heard of the respected Dr. Milton Mueller, you may be interested in the conclusion of his recent report, Domain Name Trademark Disputes under ICANN's UDRP. My comments and link to it on ICANN forum. His conclusion matches what I told UN WIPO and Nominet UK over a year ago.

Please visit World Intellectual Piracy Organization - Not associated with visit United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization

Coincidentally Vint Cerf, currently the ICANN Board of Directors chairman, is a WorldCom Vice President.

IMO - I believe we know most of it:

"ICANN is secretive, slow, inefficient and, worst of all, firmly in the pocket of special interests."

From ICANN Forum: Vint has become crooked and does not answer emails any more.

ICANN wants more money to further increase their corrupt powers and for their Lawyers; JONES, DAY, REAVIS & POGUE.

Karl should be allowed to see the books, with gagging preconditions. ICANN are supposed to be OPEN, for flips sake.

ICANN use spin to say critics are just trying to tear down ICANN.

Personally, I have always said ICANN (or similar) is necessary - as John Gilmore says, "No, we're trying to make ICANN accountable to its public for its actions."

Those responsible should pay with time in jail for any illegal acts. Not fines like corrupt fat cats pay - money that will come from us - the consumer.

We learn some new things, like it cost less than 25 cents per year per name to run domain name registry - are we all being screwed or what?

It should cost should cost the huge NSI less than 1 cent per year to do the work. Screwing everybody harder still - car dealers would love that percentage markup.

Mr Mueller, Mr Gilmore and myself all agree on about trademark abuse of power by the greedy corporations:

Milton Mueller's account of Internet governance, portrays ICANN primarily as a tool for trademark protection.

John Gilmore says "I do agree that ICANN and domain name policy has been perverted from the start by the machinations of trademark interests. Actual trademark law gives zero power to cancel or seize domain names, prevent their issuance, etc. Actual trademark law lets hundreds of people use the same name, both in different jurisdictions, and for different kinds of trades (e.g., computers vs. soap vs. ships). Trademark owners only have power over others when the others misrepresent themselves as the trademark owner."

The authorities IGNORE National and Classification boundaries - this is unlawful - ask any (honest) Lawyer. These authorities know the solution to these trademark/domain problems - it is easier than using the telephone.

My fellow posters - these corrupt people in the US DoC, UN WIPO and ICANN are aiding and abetting this abuse. They prevent all registered trademarks from using their mark - an illegal act.

The Truth will win in the end - and the corrupt will be named and shamed.

Please visit World Intellectual Piracy Organization - Not associated with United Nations WIPO.org !

http://www.icann.org/financials/.

TO ICANN LAWYERS - JONES, DAY, REAVIS & POGUE

Why do ICANN stick with Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue? Is it because of certain old ICANN links with them? Are JDRP profiteering? They are very costly - have ICANN looked for other Law firms?

Have you checked out JDRP.com - and their people involvement with ICANN?

A quote from a Karl Auerbach:

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue is ICANN's law firm, and has been so since the day of ICANN's birth. Indeed Jones-Day actually performed the incorporation ceremony in its Los Angeles offices.

Jones, Day, in the person of its principle man-on-the-ICANN-scene, Joe Sims, was present for at least half a year before ICANN was born, working in the shadows, responding to unknown interests and possibly making unknown deals. About all we know about that period is that those who were not insiders to Joe Sims process were ignored and that those who objected were treated with condescension and abuse.

Over the life of ICANN, Jones, Day has been the the dominant creditor of ICANN.

Even now Jones, Day continues to receive a lion's share of every dollar that flows into ICANN.

And one of Jones, Day's partners, Louis Touton, left the firm to become ICANN's Vice-President, Secretary, and General Counsel.

There is in my mind a question about the appearance of propriety.

Karls platform.

***End quote.

In a good two month period, October and November 2000, they got $465,553.67 from ICANN.

ICANN minutes.

As it one of the largest intellectual property practice groups in a general-practice law firm - with more than 85 intellectual property lawyers, I would imagine Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue make a lot of money on trademarks problems on the Internet.

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.

Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu - even common words you learnt with your A B C's - apple, ball and cat - most many times over.

MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - U.S. alone (please check). Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.

The solution to this problem has been ratified by experts - so that ALL registered trademarks can be identified on the Internet.

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue know this solution.

They would lose a lot of money, if there was less trademark problems on the Internet - wouldn't they?

Draw your own conclusions - but it is my opinion they do not want the solution to 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off' problems on the Internet.

There is in my mind certainly no question about the appearance of corruption - it is beyond doubt.

Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see. No connection with the United Nations WIPO.org.

The proposal has the potential to be a massive money-earner for both Verisign and Snapnames, at the expense of consumers.

Under the proposal, people will be able to "subscribe" to a waiting list a bit like Snapname's current service (www.snapnames.com). Unfortunately, under the scheme, subscriptions are likely to cost US$40-70 *PER YEAR*. Yes, that means if a domain name doesn't expire for 10 years, you'll be paying, say, US$50 every year just for the chance of owning it. This contrasts with other expiring-name services like www.namewinner.com that only charge you in the event that you get the name. One aim of the proposal is to address the massive speculation that occurs for expiring domain names. However, a WLS would just create speculation in WLS subscriptions!

From ICANN's "About ICANN" page:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities.

Link is here

I have to ask: Why is a non-profit organization levying taxes? What's next? Make-a-wish foundation taxes terminally ill patients who haven't progressed very far in their illnesses to pay for trips to Disneyland for those kids who are very very sick? It's absurd!

Liechtenstein is a tiny principality nestled between Switzerland aus Austria. The NIC is here. Registration is CHF 35 per year (~ USD 24), and if they make a profit, they reduce next year's fees accordingly (this has actually happened twice in the last 5 years). The registrar, Switch, is also bidding for the .org gTLD.

Liechtenstein is a tiny principality nestled between Switzerland aus Austria. The NIC is here. Registration is CHF 35 per year, and if they make a profit, they reduce next year's fees accordingly (this has actually happened twice in the last 5 years). The registrar, Switch, is also bidding for the .org gTLD.

ICANN's Mission lies in the nexus between ICANN's technical coordination role, its operational role, and its policy role

Why isn't ICANN structured this way? How can they be a group that decides policy AND a group that implements policy? Doesn't this create an room for conflict of interest that ultimately leads to abuse of the system?

You can read "Principles for Delegation and Administration of ccTLDs" on ICANN's site.

A little further down we read :-

• 4.4 The delegee should recognise that ultimate public policy authority over the relevant ccTLD rests with the relevant government or public authority.
• 4.5 The delegee should work cooperatively with the relevant government or public authority of the country or territory for which the ccTLD has been established, within the framework and public policy objectives of such relevant government or public authority.

It is questionable that Mike Lawrie is following those directives.

Cheers, Andy!

Ok ... YOU, and every other fuckwit who suggests that a government can create its own root servers, or that taking over a ccTLD involves creating its own root servers, or that government has no right to be involved in ccTLD administration ... LISTEN UP.

4.1 The delegee of a ccTLD is a trustee for the delegated domain, and has a duty to serve the residents of the relevant country or territory in the context of ISO 3166-1, as well as the global Internet community (as that term is interpreted in the Preamble to this document). Its policy role should be distinguished from the management, administration and marketing of the ccTLD. These functions may be performed by the same or different entities. However the delegation itself cannot be sub-contracted, sub-licensed or otherwise traded without the agreement of the relevant government or public authority and ICANN.

You can read "Principles for Delegation and Administration of ccTLDs" on ICANN's site.

RFC-1591 and IANA don't apply - the RFC washes its hands of ccTLD determination and administration, placing the determination in ISO's hands, and ignoring policy issues.

Because the (old) government was not interested in DNS at the time, and ICANN wasn't even around, Mike Lawrie was given the job of managing the .za namespace. He has never received government sanction for this. He never even received industry sanction, because there was only an academic network at the time he started managing the namespace.

Everyone knows ICANN is scum. See also this and this.

And of course the UDRP is dreadful.

However, this proposal reads to me less like a solution to ICANN's well documented track records of cronyism and broken promises, and more like a US powergrab, orchestrated by Republicans who oppose international institutions on principle - a position which has certain merits but which ought to be promoted honestly. Of course, I may be jumping to conclusions since no specifics of the bill are yet available.

For all u eurotrash: In the US, instead of Eurosceptics, we have Republicans, who, instead of hating the EU, hate the UN. American leftists generally support the UN and oppose the WTO. We don't have an international umbrella organisation for both ends of the political spectrum to despise (unless you count the federal guvmint.)

Of course, this statement is entirely at odds with the way DNS is run in practice, anywhere in the world. Domain names are property,

Yes, perhaps unfortunately, although they're still the stated ideals of IANA (who have acted on them in the not-too-distant past).

Indeed. I don't think you're likely to find anyone who disagrees with you on that.

People elsewhere in this thread have said (though I have no way of knowing whether truly or not) that the SA government have a poor track record in contracting suitable institutions to perform other functions related to communications infrastructure, and so were unlikely to perform any better with the DNS. Many of the concerned comments to this story have been about this question, separately from questions over how and why the SA government have any right to take this step.

Then, ICANN can tell the root servers to stop accepting updates from them.

And do you think ICANN would be so stupid to do that? I hope they do so we can finally get rid of ICANN once and for all.

All country code TLDs should be under the control of the specific country identified. That seems to be the case with many, and maybe most. I think that the government of South Africa has the right to designate who (be it a government department, a corporation, or even an individual) runs the zone, and even specify the policies under which it operates. The fact that some governments already do have that control just makes the case all that much stronger.

I run a DNS server and I can do anything I want with it. I can add domain names to it that someone else owns, nothing is stopping me. However, only people that use that DNS server will see my mapping. Everyone else will see the correct mapping.

What makes you say that any one name space is the correct one? How do you define correct? Is it correct if it's what you think is right? Is it correct just because ICANN runs it?

If I wanted, I could even setup a root with my own TLDs.

Been there, done that.

My real point is, however, that if it comes down to two different sources of .za TLD zone data, people will demand to use the officially government sanctioned source, as opposed to the one that the current operator runs. If ICANN fails to use the government one, I predict it will be the final stake through the heart of an organization that should have been terminated years ago.

And yes, I will put the South African government sanctioned .za zone delegation in my root zone as soon as they set one up.

Then, ICANN can tell the root servers to stop accepting updates from them.

And do you think ICANN would be so stupid to do that? I hope they do so we can finally get rid of ICANN once and for all.

All country code TLDs should be under the control of the specific country identified. That seems to be the case with many, and maybe most. I think that the government of South Africa has the right to designate who (be it a government department, a corporation, or even an individual) runs the zone, and even specify the policies under which it operates. The fact that some governments already do have that control just makes the case all that much stronger.

I run a DNS server and I can do anything I want with it. I can add domain names to it that someone else owns, nothing is stopping me. However, only people that use that DNS server will see my mapping. Everyone else will see the correct mapping.

What makes you say that any one name space is the correct one? How do you define correct? Is it correct if it's what you think is right? Is it correct just because ICANN runs it?

If I wanted, I could even setup a root with my own TLDs.

Been there, done that.

My real point is, however, that if it comes down to two different sources of .za TLD zone data, people will demand to use the officially government sanctioned source, as opposed to the one that the current operator runs. If ICANN fails to use the government one, I predict it will be the final stake through the heart of an organization that should have been terminated years ago.

And yes, I will put the South African government sanctioned .za zone delegation in my root zone as soon as they set one up.

Then, ICANN can tell the root servers to stop accepting updates from them.

And do you think ICANN would be so stupid to do that? I hope they do so we can finally get rid of ICANN once and for all.

All country code TLDs should be under the control of the specific country identified. That seems to be the case with many, and maybe most. I think that the government of South Africa has the right to designate who (be it a government department, a corporation, or even an individual) runs the zone, and even specify the policies under which it operates. The fact that some governments already do have that control just makes the case all that much stronger.

I run a DNS server and I can do anything I want with it. I can add domain names to it that someone else owns, nothing is stopping me. However, only people that use that DNS server will see my mapping. Everyone else will see the correct mapping.

What makes you say that any one name space is the correct one? How do you define correct? Is it correct if it's what you think is right? Is it correct just because ICANN runs it?

If I wanted, I could even setup a root with my own TLDs.

Been there, done that.

My real point is, however, that if it comes down to two different sources of .za TLD zone data, people will demand to use the officially government sanctioned source, as opposed to the one that the current operator runs. If ICANN fails to use the government one, I predict it will be the final stake through the heart of an organization that should have been terminated years ago.

And yes, I will put the South African government sanctioned .za zone delegation in my root zone as soon as they set one up.

Then, ICANN can tell the root servers to stop accepting updates from them.

And do you think ICANN would be so stupid to do that? I hope they do so we can finally get rid of ICANN once and for all.

All country code TLDs should be under the control of the specific country identified. That seems to be the case with many, and maybe most. I think that the government of South Africa has the right to designate who (be it a government department, a corporation, or even an individual) runs the zone, and even specify the policies under which it operates. The fact that some governments already do have that control just makes the case all that much stronger.

I run a DNS server and I can do anything I want with it. I can add domain names to it that someone else owns, nothing is stopping me. However, only people that use that DNS server will see my mapping. Everyone else will see the correct mapping.

What makes you say that any one name space is the correct one? How do you define correct? Is it correct if it's what you think is right? Is it correct just because ICANN runs it?

If I wanted, I could even setup a root with my own TLDs.

Been there, done that.

My real point is, however, that if it comes down to two different sources of .za TLD zone data, people will demand to use the officially government sanctioned source, as opposed to the one that the current operator runs. If ICANN fails to use the government one, I predict it will be the final stake through the heart of an organization that should have been terminated years ago.

And yes, I will put the South African government sanctioned .za zone delegation in my root zone as soon as they set one up.

Then, ICANN can tell the root servers to stop accepting updates from them.

And do you think ICANN would be so stupid to do that? I hope they do so we can finally get rid of ICANN once and for all.

All country code TLDs should be under the control of the specific country identified. That seems to be the case with many, and maybe most. I think that the government of South Africa has the right to designate who (be it a government department, a corporation, or even an individual) runs the zone, and even specify the policies under which it operates. The fact that some governments already do have that control just makes the case all that much stronger.

I run a DNS server and I can do anything I want with it. I can add domain names to it that someone else owns, nothing is stopping me. However, only people that use that DNS server will see my mapping. Everyone else will see the correct mapping.

What makes you say that any one name space is the correct one? How do you define correct? Is it correct if it's what you think is right? Is it correct just because ICANN runs it?

If I wanted, I could even setup a root with my own TLDs.

Been there, done that.

My real point is, however, that if it comes down to two different sources of .za TLD zone data, people will demand to use the officially government sanctioned source, as opposed to the one that the current operator runs. If ICANN fails to use the government one, I predict it will be the final stake through the heart of an organization that should have been terminated years ago.

And yes, I will put the South African government sanctioned .za zone delegation in my root zone as soon as they set one up.

Almost, not quite.

ICANN stands for "Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers". It is a non-profit set up a few years back to take over the duties of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.

One of these is the clerical duty of assigning /8 blocks of global IPv4 address space and /16 blocks of IPv6 address space to each Regional Internet Registry as needed. The users of the address space decide policy, and it's this policy that the RIRs implement.

Another duty ICANN took over is maintenance of the DNS root (which has been the controversial part), and a third duty is maintenance of the list of protocol numbers (imagine a link to your /etc/services just here - something's stopping me posting triple-slash).

[...] the inability of DNS to support multi-lingual characters requires fixing, and that right now ONLY RealNames fixes this natively in the browser that is on 90% + desktops.

I read a paper about the risk of homeomorphic attacks but I can't get my grubby little hands on it anymore :(

The application to ICANN refers to a $6.00 wholesale price. They were able to win the contract using that price point. To have the price go to $300 is unethical. link

I find it despicable that ICANN, an organisation that is supposed to act within the best interests of the Internet as a whole, has bowed to special interests in ways unseen outside the United States congress.

ICANN is supposed to promote competition but they grant responsibility of entire domains to single organisations, and with that we end up with abuses such as .pro serving three special professions and charging out the eye for it.

Why the hell do we need .pro? What is with these restricted domains? How does a restricted domain benefit me or just about any average everyday Internet user, the people that ICANN is supposed to be representing but are ultimately getting shafted by these inane policies.

And don't even get me started on .aero, .coop, and .museum.

Screw ICANN. Until today, I did not fully realise the scope of their abuses, but now I will work to dismantle it and someday, God willing, return the Internet to the people. Viva la revoluccion! Viva! (sorry, Cinco de Mayo has inspired me. ;)

I find it despicable that ICANN, an organisation that is supposed to act within the best interests of the Internet as a whole, has bowed to special interests in ways unseen outside the United States congress.

ICANN is supposed to promote competition but they grant responsibility of entire domains to single organisations, and with that we end up with abuses such as .pro serving three special professions and charging out the eye for it.

Why the hell do we need .pro? What is with these restricted domains? How does a restricted domain benefit me or just about any average everyday Internet user, the people that ICANN is supposed to be representing but are ultimately getting shafted by these inane policies.

And don't even get me started on .aero, .coop, and .museum.

Screw ICANN. Until today, I did not fully realise the scope of their abuses, but now I will work to dismantle it and someday, God willing, return the Internet to the people. Viva la revoluccion! Viva! (sorry, Cinco de Mayo has inspired me. ;)

I really don't get what these guys are supposed to be doing, or how it affects anyone when they do their job poorly. Their website, between bits of quorn like "Statement Concerning Schedule and Process for Consideration of Restructuring Proposal (28 February 2002)" seems to indicate all they do is make sure IP addresses, DNS names, and port numbers (!) are unique.

Is that really it? I thought IP addresses were done by IANA, are they part of ICANN? and isn't DNS registration (mis)handled by network solutions or whoever owns them these days?

So, i guess what i'm asking is, what would i miss if ICANN just went away and wasn't replaced by anything...?

--
Benjamin Coates

One of the dates coming up on the ICANN calendar this summer or very early autumn is the renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding between ICANN and the Nat'l Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) [part of the US Dept of Commerce].

That MoU is the vehicle through which ICANN gains most of its authority over DNS. See http://www.icann.org/general/agreements.htm for a pointer to the MoU and its series of amendments.

Another vehicle is a contract with NIST for the "IANA Function":
http://www.icann.org/general/iana-contract-21mar01 .htm This is due for renewal about now.

One of the dates coming up on the ICANN calendar this summer or very early autumn is the renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding between ICANN and the Nat'l Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) [part of the US Dept of Commerce].

That MoU is the vehicle through which ICANN gains most of its authority over DNS. See http://www.icann.org/general/agreements.htm for a pointer to the MoU and its series of amendments.

Another vehicle is a contract with NIST for the "IANA Function":
http://www.icann.org/general/iana-contract-21mar01 .htm This is due for renewal about now.

I had asked the question before on ICANNs own forum: It seems to me difficulties are due to piss poor management and nothing to do with need for structural reform. For instance, why stick with Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue? Is it because of certain old ICANN links with them? Are JDRP profiteering? They are very costly - have you looked for other Law firms?

Have you checked out JDRP.com - and their people involvement with ICANN?

A quote from a Karl Auerbach:

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue is ICANN's law firm, and has been so since the day of ICANN's birth. Indeed Jones-Day actually performed the incorporation ceremony in its Los Angeles offices.

Jones, Day, in the person of its principle man-on-the-ICANN-scene, Joe Sims, was present for at least half a year before ICANN was born, working in the shadows, responding to unknown interests and possibly making unknown deals. About all we know about that period is that those who were not insiders to Joe Sims process were ignored and that those who objected were treated with condescension and abuse.

Over the life of ICANN, Jones, Day has been the the dominant creditor of ICANN.

Even now Jones, Day continues to receive a lion's share of every dollar that flows into ICANN.

And one of Jones, Day's partners, Louis Touton, left the firm to become ICANN's Vice-President, Secretary, and General Counsel.

There is in my mind a question about the appearance of propriety.

Karls platform.

***End quote.

In a good two month period, October and November 2000, they got $465,553.67 from ICANN.

ICANN minutes.

As it one of the largest intellectual property practice groups in a general-practice law firm - with more than 85 intellectual property lawyers, I would imagine Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue make a lot of money on trademarks problems on the Internet.

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.

Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu - even common words you learnt with your A B C's - apple, ball and cat - most many times over.

MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - U.S. alone (please check). Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.

The solution to this problem has been ratified by experts - so that ALL registered trademarks can be identified on the Internet.

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue know this solution.

They would lose a lot of money, if there was less trademark problems on the Internet - wouldn't they?

Draw your own conclusions - but it is my opinion they do not want the solution to 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off' problems on the Internet.

There is in my mind certainly no question about the appearance of corruption - it is beyond doubt.

Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see. No connection with the United Nations WIPO.org.

Analogies aside, I agree. A few reminders from their own fact sheet (I highlight for effect):

It is ICANN's objective to operate as an open, transparent, and consensus-based body that is broadly representative of the diverse stakeholder communities of the global Internet...

...a technical management and policy development body that is more formalized in structure, more transparent, more accountable, and more fully reflective of the diversity of the world's Internet communities...

...As a technical coordinating body, ICANN's mandate is not to "run the Internet."...

Perhaps they need to take a look at their own beginnings. No one should become so powerful or important as to forget where they started.

And this is because Ghana is a world Internet power, right?

For kripe's sake, just look at their "meeting" calendar - it looks like a travel agency billboard.

What additional proof do you need that ICANN is into frittering other people's money for their own entertainment?

BM> I'm refuting your post that suggests that you let your beliefs interefer with your findings.

My beliefs are based on reasoned logic - and have not been refuted. My findings are objective - and can be proven to be so. Please give evidence that the findings are not objective.

BM> I interpret this as if you think that your beliefs - in conjunction with your findings - have proven something, which of course is rubbish.

As my reply above shows - you misinterpret.

BM> I don't see corruptness or conspiracies here...

Just like there was no corruptness or conspiracies at Enron.

I see it to be just like there - they all gain - the Lawyers, ICANN, WIPO and US DOC.

You are either niave, stupid or somebody with vested interest (e.g. Lawyer or in Big Business).

I believe the corruption runs deep through ICANN right to the United States Department of Commerce.

For instance, checkout JDRP.com - and their people involvement with ICANN.

A quote from Karl Auerbach:

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue is ICANN's law firm, and has been so since the day of ICANN's birth. Indeed Jones-Day actually performed the incorporation ceremony in its Los Angeles offices.

Jones, Day, in the person of its principle man-on-the-ICANN-scene, Joe Sims, was present for at least half a year before ICANN was born, working in the shadows, responding to unknown interests and possibly making unknown deals. About all we know about that period is that those who were not insiders to Joe Sims process were ignored and that those who objected were treated with condescension and abuse.

Over the life of ICANN, Jones, Day has been the the dominant creditor of ICANN.

Even now Jones, Day continues to receive a lion's share of every dollar that flows into ICANN.

And one of Jones, Day's partners, Louis Touton, left the firm to become ICANN's Vice-President, Secretary, and General Counsel.

There is in my mind a question about the appearance of propriety.

***End quote.

In a good two month period in October and November 2000 they got $465,553.67 from ICANN.

As it one of the largest intellectual property practice groups in a general-practice law firm - with more than 85 intellectual property lawyers; I would imagine Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue make a lot of money on trademarks problems on the Internet.

They would lose a lot of money, if there were less trademark problems on the Internet - wouldn't they?

Draw your own conclusions - but it is my opinion they do not want the solution to 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off' problems on the Internet.

There is in my mind certainly no question about the appearance of corruption.

does this apply to www.companynamesucks.com?

Cite from Andy Mueller-Maghun, ICANN director and Chaos Computer Club lead member:

"No intellectual property was stolen on 18C3 - it was augmented" (ok my bad direct translation from German..)

original link (German Heise newsticker article): 18C3: Hackernetzwerk war Europas größter File-Sharing-Knoten

Just to be pedantic: ICANN makes all new gTLDs "block" a special set of reserved names that can't be registered by normal joes off the street. Of course, they include "icann" in the list, thus protecting us from the potential horrors of "icann.museum".

For example, here's the reserved domain list from the .pro agreement. It's the same list they stick all the new gTLDs with.

Included in the list, by the way, are all the other ICANN gTLDs, so there will never be a "gov.sucks", even it there is a ".sucks" domain.

ICANN should be less worried about the CCtlds and focus on their own organization! The total personnel costs for ICANN are projected at $2.217 million dollars! I would like to know what EXACTLY the staff members do to deserve this type of money? ICANN is the biggest bunch of hypocrites to come along since the US Congress!

I am an Anti-Christ,
and I am an anarchist.
Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it,
I want to destroy, possibly?

Cause I want to be Anarchy. No dog's body.

Anarchy for the U.S.A.
It's coming sometime it maybe.
I give a wrong time, stop a traffic light.
Your future dream is a shopping spree.

Cause I want to be Anarchy, in the city.

Of many ways to get what you want
I use the best, I use the rest.
I use the enemy,
I use anarchy.

Cause I want to be Anarchy, it's the only way to be.

Is this the ICANN?
Is this the BSA?
Is this the ANP?

I thought it was the U.S.A., or just another country and other cunt-like tendencies.

Cause I want to be Anarchy, cause I want to be Anarchy, you know what I mean?

Cause I want to be an Anarchist, again I'm pissed, Destroy!

While the actual drop time of a particular domain name is not known, the general drop time is known. Are [you] suggesting that the exact drop time of a particular name should be published?

This is rather difficult because the deletion of a name from the registry is dependant on each registrar. Thus the registrar would have to delete a name and then the registry would have to hold that name while they determine an exact drop time, publish that drop time and then finally drop the name.

I believe that there are others who have suggested this as well to Verisign GRS but I don't think it would alleviate the problem - registrars would still whack the registry in that second because the even milliseconds make a difference between getting a dropped name and failing.

Look at GreatDomains.com. Skip the "list prices" for domains, and look at the "recent offers" listings, which are all in the few hundred dollar range. Realistically, that's where the prices are now. And those are offers for ".com" domains. Off-brand domains like ".ws" (Western Samoa), ".tv" (Tuvalu), and ".to" (Tonga) are almost worthless.

ICANN is now starting up a "registry escrow" program to back up the registrars, so that when registrars go bust, the domains don't disappear. It's good that they're thinking ahead. A registrar shakeout is due.

It's over.

Been spending alot of time on Mars? The Congess has considered implementing a FIT, however they've decided that the net is still maturing and they've decided to wait. Check out a simple google search Google: Internet tax moritorium and you can learn more.

Besides, where is the internet? It must have a physical location if the gov't owns it.

It sure does. Congress controls the IP addresses and the root nameservers. Check out ICANN

The internet exists wherever the root nameservers and IP address allocation are maintained. Since ICANN/IANA do this based on authority granted by Congess, I'd say that the internet is Americas.

Regardless of jurisdiction, he has an untenable case. The First Circuit Court of Appeals didn't rule on the merits of the case, simply ruling that the US courts have jursidiction, something that both US law and ICANN's UDRP agree on.

For background on the case, see this article on slashdot, or these cases on WIPO's site. In a nutshell, he registered domains for two Brazillian soccer teams, Cruizero and Corinthians. He approached Corinthians about selling the domain, they sent him a notice to hand it over. He then put up bible quotes, and claimed that they were stomping on his first amendment and freedom of religion rights, but lost in UDRP proceedings.. It doesn't help his case that the registrant for his domains was "prestige domains (for sale)", nor does it paint a good picture that he registered dowjonesupdate.com and tonimorrison.com, though he handed over both of those without ICANN interceding.

This guy is a domain speculator, pure and simple. He (rightfully) lost two cases to the trademark holders, and he's not happy that he didn't get paid for being first to register the domains. Personally, I'm surprised the low-life found the nickles to rub together to retain a lawyer to put it to the courts.

I'm not sure that I understand all of this. If the person filing the complaint can choose an arbitrator, then why isn't Slashdot an arbitrator? Or Stallman? Or Lessig? Or an Anonymous Coward?

Hmmmmm.
4.f. Selection of Provider The complainant shall select the Provider from among those approved by ICANN by submitting the complaint to that Provider.

OK. How do you become an approved provider? Well, the Approved Providers list is here. It says: "Additional providers may be approved soon. The above approvals are in effect until further notice at this web page" Nothing on how to become one.

Anybody have any ideas? I'd like to become a "Provider".

I'm not sure that I understand all of this. If the person filing the complaint can choose an arbitrator, then why isn't Slashdot an arbitrator? Or Stallman? Or Lessig? Or an Anonymous Coward?

Hmmmmm.
4.f. Selection of Provider The complainant shall select the Provider from among those approved by ICANN by submitting the complaint to that Provider.

OK. How do you become an approved provider? Well, the Approved Providers list is here. It says: "Additional providers may be approved soon. The above approvals are in effect until further notice at this web page" Nothing on how to become one.

Anybody have any ideas? I'd like to become a "Provider".

As a matter of civic.. er... communal pride, this cannot be tolerated.

To quote ICANN's own website:
Decisions under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy are subject to challenge by court action. The long list of their outrageous abuses of power can, still, be found here although the text of this particular decision isn't on that page yet, it's back, as I'm sure someone else has posted and I just missed it here.

So, we collect some money and make some phone calls to the ACLU and bring ICANN to court. This is a surrealistic violation of ICANN's own charter, not to mention of our sensibilities, and even if we lose (which we probably will) we should take it to court to generate bad press for them.

Is it my imagination or is ICANN actually working on getting their job done rather than horribly complex politics (more complex than needed to solve the problem), or trademark/legal craziness? There's some background at the page of the ICANN DNS Root committee.

Now, I'm pretty skeptical that a closed source DNS server from Register.com is going to be a big part of the solution, but even that I don't really mind so much. Having a few alternatives is good if for no other reason than helping to keep BIND from stagnating.

The article didn't talk much about DNSsec (or this older page) which has got to be part of the solution (to try to give the 10 second summary, when a client makes a DNS query and gets a response, it is kind of tricky to ensure that the response is really from the correct server, and DNSsec uses crypto to solve this and other problems).

The big problem here, which a few other people touched on, is that it costs from $1250-$4000 to petition for a domain name dispute. (The different providers set their own fees.)

This is ridiculously expensive for not-for-profits and individuals, but chump change for big companies. What would make much more sense is a pay scale depending on who you are and who you're going up against...obviously, we don't wnat to make it trivial for every yahoo to claim they have a stake in coke.com for something like $19.95, but it's hardly logical that a broke organization should need to cough up $1250 to fight a porn operation.

This is near and dear to my heart right now, because there's an anti-muslim hate site at projectgutenberg.com (I'm the CEO of Project Gutenberg (the real site), and we really don't have the dough to go through the domain dispute process.

• Greg

I'm currently involved in a domain name dispute, as a guy who has been accused unfairly.

Contrary to what some of the folks here seem to be saying, you do have a legitimate beef. Especially since these guys are clearly intending to sell the domain - hence, the nondescript porn and the "click here to buy this domain" link.

Ask around any lawyer friends you know, and see if they know anyone who does trademark / domain name dispute cases. Then contact that person and ask if they know anyone who would be willing to take such a case on a pro bono basis, or for a "de minimus" fee.

As a final note: brush up on ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy. The policy makes it pretty clear that a domain can be considered registered in bad faith if:

(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or...

(iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.

The "click here to buy" link is clear evidence of (i), and the selection of name is a pretty clear evidence of (iv), unless these people are seriously going to make an argument that they just liked the name.

Oh - IANAL, but I know far more about the law now than I ever wanted to.