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What you don't want to do, is leave the impression that this is just a joke for you and let your customers play (rather silly) games for it (like ican did).

Ah, BTW, this wasn't new and shouldn't take the applicants by surprise: visit the "Batching information" page, scroll to the bottom and read the date for the "Update on New gTLD Batching"
(spoiler: it reads "Mar 30 2012". If you follow the link, you'll discover that a video was made available early April this year).

How was that silly again?

There are three options that come to mind:
1) First come, first serve (though this requires that you don't mess up the registration process) (fair, if done right)

Not different from "archery", just at an earlier stage: assuming that you want to be absolutely fair, you advertise the "T-zero for application lodging" and it's up to the applicants to hit as close as possible that moment (even harder than the current approach, since any application lodged before T0 should be discarded).

2) Highest Bidder (profitable)

3. This Corporation is a nonprofit public benefit corporation and is not organized for the private gain of any person.

3) Lottery / Random process (fair)
The third requires an audit/verification process to prove it was truly random, but it's not that difficult to do. If done right, this is the fairest option.

Why develop a "random generator system" that need to be audited, instead of putting "the faith of their application into the applicants' own hands" (by "digital archery")?

What you don't want to do, is leave the impression that this is just a joke for you and let your customers play (rather silly) games for it (like ican did).

Why does this appear to you as "silly"? (because it was you to rally on the "rather silly... as ican did" accusation).

I remember that, when generating a private/public key pair, some applications asked me to type something/anything at the keyboard: doesn't matter what, only the key-press timing info was used in seeding the RandGen. Now, maybe because I'm closer to an engineer mindset, but I didn't consider the request as "silly"... on the contrary.

I used to work for a company that prepared applications for New gTLDs, and left right after the submission deadline. I prepared several myself. The reason why they are going with this "digital archery" technique is to get around California lottery laws. ICANN did not want the New gTLDs to go through the same mess that ".biz" did:

Official ICANN Link

You mean... http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-05may10-en.htm ?

This article is full of beans. The delay has been confirmed by multiple sources to be caused by a data breach at ICANN, with GTLD applicant data possibly stolen. but By all means keep lying to make ICANN look better.

ICANN's confirmation of the breach: http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/announcement-2-12apr12-en

is here.

We have learned of a possible glitch in the TLD application system software that has allowed a limited number of users to view some other users' file names and user names in certain scenarios.

Out of an abundance of caution, we took the system offline to protect applicant data. We are examining how this issue occurred and considering appropriate steps forward.

Does current time code even have the sufficient smarts currently to handle specific countries CHANGING their TZ on a particular date?

Yes. Linux/Unix has a long history of tracking timezone changes for specific countries, states, provinces, etc. It's called the Olsen Timzone Database. It was recently taken over by IANA, and is hosted here http://www.iana.org/time-zones

They are discussing this specific issue here:
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2011-December/008458.html

This makes me wonder. Are people going to be paid/charged interest for a non-existing 12-30-11 there?

It depends. I work for a time and attendance company as software developer, so I have some insight. Basically, this is handled just like a DST change, but for a much longer period.

Many timekeeping systems (hardware and software alike) just keep track of "local time". Some have the ability to keep a list of DST changes that need to be applied at specific times, and some use NTP or other protocols to sync their clocks and pickup timezone changes that way. While these systems handle "spring-forward" changes ok, they are usually flawed in the way they handle "fall-back". If someone clocks in or out DURING the fall-back period, there is no way to tell if they get an extra hour or not, because there is no recorded distinction between the two times that are both called the same thing. The good thing about DST is that the change usually happens in the middle of the night, which minimizes the number of manual corrections that have to be made.

The solution to all of this, of course, is recording time as UTC and converting it for proper display depending on context. Some systems out there caught on early, but really this idea is just now making its way into the market. This is where the timezone database is very valuable. Windows also has a timezone database (different than the Olsen DB), but Microsoft only pushes it out every few months (via windows update), so it is often behind in various parts of the world. Microsoft timezone info here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dst2007

Since Samoa and Tokelau are skipping a day, this is a "spring-forward" scenario - which is very easy to calculate. It is highly unlikely that they will have issues with paying an extra day (or charging an extra day's interest), as long as they consider the change like any other DST change. I would think that this is big news there, so anyone with custom code will probably be aware of the situation and make the correction.

Of course, if you have a bank account in another country, they are going to say a big "screw you" to your request to be charged one day's less interest just because your homeland is skipping a day. :)

For the next year (or so), this will be my counter-example when I debate politics with people who argue that a centrally regulated economy is better than the free market -- as in, "I will happily agree with you, if first you explain this one annoying fact please."

OK, I'll try: domain registrars do not operate in a free market. They are regulated by ICANN. If they were in a truly free market, GoDaddy could (and almost certainly would) simply refuse to transfer any domains away from themselves.

When you hear talk of a free market working and really look at it, you almost always find that the market isn't TRULY free; it needs regulation, and if that regulation weren't there it would be a disaster.

I agree that domain registration is a relatively free market and this is an example of where a relatively free market works well. However it's not truly free; there's your explanation. In fact I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find any market that needs literally no regulation, to protect people's safety, or prohibit companies from screwing customers over.

Just the owners of registered trademarks.

Not so... It's "a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights" and trademarks do not require registration for the owner to have rights. See Lanham Act, sec. 43(a), which deals with rights in unregistered marks.

In fact, you could even just go to the UDRP:

Any of the following circumstances, in particular but without limitation, if found by the Panel to be proved based on its evaluation of all evidence presented, shall demonstrate your rights or legitimate interests to the domain name for purposes of Paragraph 4(a)(ii):

... (ii) you (as an individual, business, or other organization) have been commonly known by the domain name, even if you have acquired no trademark or service mark rights

Does ICANN offer any assistance with this matter? Can't they just yank the domain back?

Yup, there is a process for this. Unfortunately a bit slow, but better than nothing.

The registrar the domain is with now must provide proof the owner submitted it that can be challenged. No proof in 5 days, ICANN reverses the transfer.

At that point they have two weeks to argue that the transfer was not authentic.
I believe a court order would cause the action to be taken immediately in reversing it, and ICANN states they will comply.

http://www.icann.org/en/transfers/
All the forms and the policy itself (Items 1-4 on that page) plus some FAQ's that mention this type of thing.

I've never had to do a transfer dispute, so am not sure if their policy matches reality, but there it is.

and secondly, godaddy can't actually do anything about it because they don't own the domain anymore.

There are things they can do about it, the ICANN Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy says so, so does the ICANN Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy,

The Gaining Registrar must retain, and produce pursuant to a request by a Losing Registrar, a written or electronic copy of the FOA. In instances where the Registrar of Record has requested copies of the FOA, the Gaining Registrar must fulfill the Registrar of Records request (including providing the attendant supporting documentation) within five (5) calendar days. Failure to provide this documentation within the time period specified is grounds for reversal by the Registry Operator or the Dispute Resolution Panel in the event that a transfer complaint is filed in accordance with the requirements of this policy.

If either a Registrar of Record or a Gaining Registrar does not believe that a transfer request was handled in accordance with the provisions of this policy, then the Registrar may initiate a dispute resolution procedure as set forth in Section C of this policy.

Registry Operator must undo the transfer within fourteen calendar days unless a court action is filed. The notice required shall be one of the following:

Agreement of the Registrar of Record and the Gaining Registrar sent by email, letter or fax that the transfer was made by mistake or was otherwise not in accordance with the procedures set forth in this policy;

and secondly, godaddy can't actually do anything about it because they don't own the domain anymore.

There are things they can do about it, the ICANN Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy says so, so does the ICANN Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy,

The Gaining Registrar must retain, and produce pursuant to a request by a Losing Registrar, a written or electronic copy of the FOA. In instances where the Registrar of Record has requested copies of the FOA, the Gaining Registrar must fulfill the Registrar of Records request (including providing the attendant supporting documentation) within five (5) calendar days. Failure to provide this documentation within the time period specified is grounds for reversal by the Registry Operator or the Dispute Resolution Panel in the event that a transfer complaint is filed in accordance with the requirements of this policy.

If either a Registrar of Record or a Gaining Registrar does not believe that a transfer request was handled in accordance with the provisions of this policy, then the Registrar may initiate a dispute resolution procedure as set forth in Section C of this policy.

Registry Operator must undo the transfer within fourteen calendar days unless a court action is filed. The notice required shall be one of the following:

Agreement of the Registrar of Record and the Gaining Registrar sent by email, letter or fax that the transfer was made by mistake or was otherwise not in accordance with the procedures set forth in this policy;

Thanks for accepting the article. ICANN is still reviewing the proposal. If folks share my concerns, please do send them your comments by emailing registryservice@icann.org (from the top of ICANN's Registry Services Evaluation Process page). You can view comments by others here. EasyDNS has submitted their concerns too.

At a minimum, they should open up a formal 30 day public comment period that is widely advertised, in order that domain name registrants can be heard.

Thanks for accepting the article. ICANN is still reviewing the proposal. If folks share my concerns, please do send them your comments by emailing registryservice@icann.org (from the top of ICANN's Registry Services Evaluation Process page). You can view comments by others here. EasyDNS has submitted their concerns too.

At a minimum, they should open up a formal 30 day public comment period that is widely advertised, in order that domain name registrants can be heard.

Bullcrap.

Oh really?

The UDNDRP can be done without a lawyer.

There are two methods of dispute resolution here: file a claim in a court of competent jurisdiction, (for a corporation, this cannot be done without a lawyer, "but small claim", you made that argument, it is addressed below) or file with a dispute-resolution service provider. The later is an arbitration process, and so, yeah, it's possible they might not demand a lawyer for representation. But really, who is Disney likely to send to an arbitration session?

Additionally, ICANN recognizes judgments from courts - including small claims courts. Just get a judgement from one of them for less than $100.

You do realize that small claims courts cannot grant equity, (they can only provide legal remedies) and thus cannot return an order stating that the defendant must forfeit their domain registration, right? Also, in some jurisdictions, corporations still must obtain a lawyer if they are bringing a small claims suit. You know, because corporations as legal persons do not actually exist, and thus cannot actually represent themselves pro se... you know, kind of by definition.

And the first thing I would do, if someone brought me to small claims court for a trademark infringement, would be to remove the case to Federal courts, as trademarks are Federal law, and not state law. Also, for reasons that have been previously mentioned, because the damages sought by the plaintiff cannot be adequately satisfied in that venue. (No amount of money could adequately restore someone to the state prior to a purported infringement. Rather, the only remedy appropriate for trademark infringement is for someone to stop using the offending mark. Otherwise saying, "yeah, $100 would cover my damages for you using the offending mark" is almost a bit like saying "it's ok if you keep using the offending mark in the future." Congratulations, welcome to trademark forfeiture.)

Once the case was moved to Federal court, there isn't any corporation in the US that would be able to represent itself pro se then.

it certainly is not possible for them to handle and objections to a C&D, or refusal to C&D without obtaining a lawyer. Bullcrap. The UDNDRP can be done without a lawyer. Additionally, ICANN recognizes judgments from courts - including small claims courts. Just get a judgement from one of them for less than $100.

Because their trademark is no longer enforceable, they have no rights to the domain, but ICANN may not heed that fact and so force the register to hand the domain over to Atari.

They're not supposed to according to the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy:

All registrars must follow the the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (often referred to as the "UDRP"). Under the policy, most types of trademark-based domain-name disputes must be resolved by agreement, court action, or arbitration before a registrar will cancel, suspend, or transfer a domain name. Disputes alleged to arise from abusive registrations of domain names (for example, cybersquatting) may be addressed by expedited administrative proceedings that the holder of trademark rights initiates by filing a complaint with an approved dispute-resolution service provider.

To invoke the policy, a trademark owner should either (a) file a complaint in a court of proper jurisdiction against the domain-name holder (or where appropriate an in-rem action concerning the domain name) or (b) in cases of abusive registration submit a complaint to an approved dispute-resolution service provider (see below for a list and links).

They can't steal atari2600.org just because they feel like it's theirs. Make them take it to arbitration, they have no case.

ICANN has really dropped the ball on new TLDs. Folks like Tim Berners-Lee were explicitly against new top level domains. The W3 even wrote a position paper New Top Level Domains Considered Harmful. They used the examples of .xxx and .mobi, but the reasoning applied to all new TLDs.

ICANN hand-picked economists to examine the costs and benefits, and their own experts could not come up with anything close to definitive as to whether the benefits exceeded the costs. ICANN is supposed to act in the public interest, and only approve policies where the net benefit (i.e. benefits MINUS costs) are positive. ICANN doesn't even know the *sign* (i.e. positive or negative) of this policy change's impact, let alone know the magnitude. Their pathetic reports didn't even attempt to put a monetary figure on the costs vs. the benefits, i.e. are we talking about millions of dollars of benefits, billions, etc? However, many individuals and companies commented in each of the relevant comment periods pointing out how there would be grave consequences, as there would be huge costs associated with such a change. As is typical, ICANN ignored these concerns, attempting to win a war of attrition, to "tire out" opponents.

Fortunately, the US Department of Commerce / NTIA may not renew its contract with ICANN. There is a pending Notice of Inquiry regarding the renewal. I would encourage people to send comments, to voice their concerns about the bad policymaking from ICANN.

ICANN is also about to renew the .NET agreement with VeriSign despite numerous comments in opposition. VeriSign will be allowed to continue to raise prices by 10% per year, despite falling technology costs, and without facing a competitive tender process (which would certainly result in much lower prices for consumers). The US Department of Justice should investigate both ICANN and VeriSign for anti-trust violations, as consumers are being harmed by these no-bid contracts. Toll-free numbers costs less than $1.50 per year at the wholesale level, yet .com/net/org fees are above $7/yr, due to lack of regular competitive tender processes.

Why has ICANN been consistently making decisions against the public interest? The reason is obvious -- it has been captured by the registries and registrars, who only care about selling more and more domain names, even if they are not needed (i.e. "defensive registrations"). They don't care about confusing users or making it harder to navigate the internet.

ICANN has really dropped the ball on new TLDs. Folks like Tim Berners-Lee were explicitly against new top level domains. The W3 even wrote a position paper New Top Level Domains Considered Harmful. They used the examples of .xxx and .mobi, but the reasoning applied to all new TLDs.

ICANN hand-picked economists to examine the costs and benefits, and their own experts could not come up with anything close to definitive as to whether the benefits exceeded the costs. ICANN is supposed to act in the public interest, and only approve policies where the net benefit (i.e. benefits MINUS costs) are positive. ICANN doesn't even know the *sign* (i.e. positive or negative) of this policy change's impact, let alone know the magnitude. Their pathetic reports didn't even attempt to put a monetary figure on the costs vs. the benefits, i.e. are we talking about millions of dollars of benefits, billions, etc? However, many individuals and companies commented in each of the relevant comment periods pointing out how there would be grave consequences, as there would be huge costs associated with such a change. As is typical, ICANN ignored these concerns, attempting to win a war of attrition, to "tire out" opponents.

Fortunately, the US Department of Commerce / NTIA may not renew its contract with ICANN. There is a pending Notice of Inquiry regarding the renewal. I would encourage people to send comments, to voice their concerns about the bad policymaking from ICANN.

ICANN is also about to renew the .NET agreement with VeriSign despite numerous comments in opposition. VeriSign will be allowed to continue to raise prices by 10% per year, despite falling technology costs, and without facing a competitive tender process (which would certainly result in much lower prices for consumers). The US Department of Justice should investigate both ICANN and VeriSign for anti-trust violations, as consumers are being harmed by these no-bid contracts. Toll-free numbers costs less than $1.50 per year at the wholesale level, yet .com/net/org fees are above $7/yr, due to lack of regular competitive tender processes.

Why has ICANN been consistently making decisions against the public interest? The reason is obvious -- it has been captured by the registries and registrars, who only care about selling more and more domain names, even if they are not needed (i.e. "defensive registrations"). They don't care about confusing users or making it harder to navigate the internet.

.com "belongs" to Verisign. I suspect it doesn't matter what sub-registrar you buy your domain from; if it's .com, it's easily in the reach of US law enforcement action, by virtue of ultimately being controlled by a U.S. company whose headquarters is practically within walking distance of the headquarters of the DoJ and ICE.

Why, in that case, did they not defend their name against he previous owners of the cloud domain ?

I have the same exact situation with my own company. I own the .net analogue of my company's name, and someone owns the .com. They've owned the .com for several years, and have a 10-year registration according to GoDaddy. The site currently doesn't do anything - it doesn't resolve at all.

The best thing to do in this case is not to approach the person, but establish yourself and make the name worth something. Then, the cybersquatter will attempt to monetize the name and hopefully do something which can be used in a UDRP claim against them, like setting up an advert site or something.

In any case, it appears the trademark was owned by someone else and maybe iCloud didn't want to pay up. You can't go based on domain names at all - you have to use established business use as the guideline.

ICANN does not assign domain names but TLDs. The .kz TLD was assigned to some government body in Kazakhstan and Google paid that body (not ICANN) to get their google.kz domain.

Moreover, paying for that google.kz doesn't mean it is owned by Google, only merely assigned. I am quite sure the national registrar retains full rights over the domain itself (just like the government still owns the passport, while you and me are only passport "holders").

Basically the Kazakhstan government can do whatever they want about .kz domains and Google decided not to comply (assuming the consequences, obviously).

Amazing what I learn by posting my mistaken opinions on this forum! I kinda wish the learning process was more dignified...oh well, better than not learning at all.

You're right about how assigning domain names works—"registrars" accredited by ICANN actually assign individual domain names within top-level domains to which they have access. Here is the info from ICANN about registrar accreditation. In my defense, I do believe that, once upon a time, back in the ancient days, ICANN actually assigned all the domain names. But there weren't many domains back then. And they all belonged to us Americans...

The .kz domain is actually registered to:

Association of IT Companies of Kazakhstan
6/5 Kabanbai Batyra
Office 3
Astana AST 010000
Kazakhstan

To get more info about the AoITCoK, I had to go to the IANA (which is actually run by ICANN...isn't this fun?). I found this interesting report from 2005 about the management of the .kz domain:

The Association is a non-profit, and organizes activities regarding the Information Technology needs of Kazakhstan. It was established in April 2004 and as of November 2004 incorporated 32 companies including software companies, system integrators, Internet providers, telecommunications companies, and others involved in the sector.

KazNIC is a member of the Association, and has been subcontracted by the Association to continue providing services for the ccTLD.

In 2004 the Kazakhstan Government chose to take a more active role in the management of the ccTLD, and during meetings with Mr. Gusev it was agreed that the Government would be given control of the domain...

From reading this, you'd think that the AoITCoK pretty much has the ICANN/IANAsanctioned right to assign and govern the .kz domain name. But then there's this bit:

The GAC Principles serve as "best practices" to guide governments in assuming proper roles with respect to the Internet's naming system, which the GAC has observed is a public resource to be administered in the public interest. In general, they recognize that each government has the ultimate responsibility within its territory for its national public-policy objectives, but also that ICANN has the responsibility for ensuring that the Internet domain-name system continues to provide an effective and interoperable global naming system.

So the "GAC principles" (Government Advisory Committee) somewhat limit the powers of national governments, should it conflict with the "effective and interoperable global naming system". Also, what does it mean to "control" a TLD? As far as I know, it means you can issue rights to domain names within that TLD, and that's about it. It's not clear you can revoke the rights to those domain names, once you've issued them, unless a time limit was part of the agreement. Domain names aren't like passports, which are, by long-standing practice and tradition, internationally recognized legal documents owned by the issuing governments. They're more like radio station frequencies or cal

if you go buy from such an independent private reseller, when they flop, your domain goes poof.

That is absolutely not true. Who told you that? Your babysitter?

There is an established mechanism for dealing with these situations; I've been through it a few times already and never had any problems. Feel free to read about it here: http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-09nov07.htm

Now that Google, following Blekko's lead, is hammering the well-known "content farm" sites, expect Demand Media to respond by spreading their content across large numbers of junk domains. Demand Media owns eNom, the spammer's registrar.

Not really law, but convention. .xxx is a Sponsored TLD, which means there is a consortium of sorts who will approve or deny applications for the domain name. There are rules and regulations for the registrants of the domain, and I suspect that part of those rules would be a registration fee of some sort -- a token one at a company level, but painful for an individual, say $2500 or so -- in addition to the normal domain registration fee of $10 or whatever it is. I also imagine that while there most likely will be an ibm.xxx, it will be a redirect to ibm.com.

One of the reasons that this has taken so long to be placed into action is how inefficient a system this will become. No one is required to register a particular tld. There are more rules keeping registrants out of tlds or forcing them to give up their current tld than there are forcing registrants to adopt a particular tld. Tlds were never meant to be implemented as a way to filter content.

Also, currently successful sexually themed sites are very unlikely to forego brand recognition. Why should mostviewedsite.com switch to mostviewedsite.xxx when the .com is the recognized brand name? Yes, they'd probably buy their .xxx counterpart, only to have it redirect to .com. In a very real sense, this new tld will likely double the number of adult-content sites, but not necessarily double the content. However, groups opposed to this sort of content will now be able to cry louder than ever that the internet is "full of filth."

It seems to me that the only winners in this are the registrars and the certifying authority. I doubt little else will change.

Someone has - the .kids TLD has already been proposed.

If you didn't already know, ICANN is under contract to the United States government. So Obama's policy would effectively globalize the approval of new TLDs, in effect giving the US less power.

Oh my God! New world order! The Caliphate! International Jewry!

Pyschos always have a response.

The Obama administration is proposing (PDF) that domain approval procedures be changed to include a mandatory "review" by an ICANN advisory panel comprised of representatives of roughly 100 nations. The process is open-ended, saying that any government "may raise an objection to a proposed (suffix) for any reason." Unless at least one other nation disagrees, the proposed new domain name "shall" be rejected.

This would create an explicit governmental veto over new top-level domains. Under the procedures previously used in the creation of .biz, .name, and .info, among others, governments could offer advice, but the members of the ICANN board had the final decision.

If you didn't already know, ICANN is under contract to the United States government. So Obama's policy would effectively globalize the approval of new TLDs, in effect giving the US less power.

And if the story is to be believed, a TLD is only automatically rejected if one or more countries object and no countries disagree. If countries disagree or cannot form a consensus, the TLD isn't automatically rejected. Or specifically, from the PDF:

String Evaluation: The GAC advises the ICANN Board to instruct ICANN staff to amend the following procedures related to the Initial Evaluation called for in Module 2 to include review by governments, via the GAC. Any GAC member may raise an objection to a proposed string for any reason. If it is the consensus position of the GAC not to oppose objection raised by a GAC member or members, ICANN shall reject the application. (Note that the application fees should be refunded to the applicant).

Explanation: This proposal meets a number of compelling goals. First it will diminish the potential for blocking of top level domain strings considered objectionable by governments, which harms the architecture of the DNS and undermines the goal of universal resolvability. Second, affording governments the opportunity, through the GAC, to advise the ICANN Board that there is consensus GAC advice regarding particular proposed strings that should not be processed is supportive of ICANN’s commitment to ensure that its decision are in the global public interest.

(Emphasis added.)

So, in effect, it's creating an international body where members can object, but other members can block an objection. To my understanding, that's pretty much the opposite of veto power, and it's certainly not a US government takeover of DNS TLDs (in as much as they didn't own the process already).

Really, it all depends on how much faith you have that the other, saner countries will block objections instead of being pussies.

http://meetings.icann.org/remote-participation

I was thinking more or less the same thing.

The point is that a good domain name system implementation needs to be secure against protocol attacks. DNSSEC secures it against hackers, but makes it more vulnerable to political attacks.

You do know that DNS root servers are located (and co-located) around the world (20+ countries I believe off the top of my head), and they are all equal. The only US-centric part is that the designated maintainers (ICANN and IANA) are US based organizations, in large part due to historically originating in the US, and this does have the benefit being one of the best legal protection for free-speech in the world.

If you want an alternate system, edit your DNS root hints file.

Join the Internet Society, ICANN, and your national domain registrar if you want to make difference.

I was thinking more or less the same thing.

The point is that a good domain name system implementation needs to be secure against protocol attacks. DNSSEC secures it against hackers, but makes it more vulnerable to political attacks.

You do know that DNS root servers are located (and co-located) around the world (20+ countries I believe off the top of my head), and they are all equal. The only US-centric part is that the designated maintainers (ICANN and IANA) are US based organizations, in large part due to historically originating in the US, and this does have the benefit being one of the best legal protection for free-speech in the world.

If you want an alternate system, edit your DNS root hints file.

Join the Internet Society, ICANN, and your national domain registrar if you want to make difference.

I was thinking more or less the same thing.

The point is that a good domain name system implementation needs to be secure against protocol attacks. DNSSEC secures it against hackers, but makes it more vulnerable to political attacks.

You do know that DNS root servers are located (and co-located) around the world (20+ countries I believe off the top of my head), and they are all equal. The only US-centric part is that the designated maintainers (ICANN and IANA) are US based organizations, in large part due to historically originating in the US, and this does have the benefit being one of the best legal protection for free-speech in the world.

If you want an alternate system, edit your DNS root hints file.

Join the Internet Society, ICANN, and your national domain registrar if you want to make difference.

Addresses are assigned to the RIRs by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, NOT the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. I know, all of these acronyms made up of Is, As, and Ns blur together.

And why didn't ICANN start the process of "firing" VeriSign immediately after the incident?

That was what was going to happen. Instead, something very strange happened. The final outcome was that ICANN SETTLED with VeriSign. But this was kind of like the Google books settlement, in that the settlement was EXTREMELY FAVORABLE to VeriSign.

Prior to this settlement, the .COM / .NET registry was a FOR BID contract that would come up for bidding and renewal every 6 years. The registry price was capped at $6 per domain per year under the contract at the time.

In the settlement ICANN agreed to guarantee to renew their contract at the end of the term, unless it is proven that VeriSign substantially breaches the new contract, they have the contract perpetually. [paraphrasing], "For the sake of Internet stability" (as ICANN people put it)

The settlement from the SECSAC process also Gave NSOL the right to raise prices. The settlement gave them the right to raise prices 7% 4 out of 6 years of every contract term after 2007, with no cost justification needed.

The VeriSign/Network Solutions Internic can raise prices all 6 years of the contract term, if they provide a cost justification for 2 of those years. In 2010 they raised prices for .COM and .NET domains, and publicly someone indicated a cost justification of "Increased number of DNS lookups being performed" (against .COM and .NET registry servers)

I think 5 years from now, .COM and .NET TLDs will be prices by the registry at approximately $12 instead of approximately $8. We can look forward to paying $100 per year to the cheapest registries to renew .COMs, within this decade or the next, just like it used to be before competitive registrars.

Oh right... "competitive registrars" doesn't matter much, when there is a for-profit global registry everyone has to pay who has a guaranteed right to raise prices, and a guaranteed right to not get fired, because a legal settlement means ICANN legally cannot bring the contract up for bid, unless NSol screws up.

Get rid of domain tasting and other shenanigans and the problem will go away.

You're a good couple years behind. "Tasting" is long-dead.

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-12aug09-en.htm

So now would you like to try again to regail us with your extensive insight into the domain name system, and the answers to all our problems?

Iran, Islamic Republic of. ccTLDs: xn--mgba3a4f16a, xn--mgba3a4fra.

The Unicode whitelist on Slashdot is preventing us from having the Farsi reading, so see here.

An example is several levels deep in the links:

http://icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-i-en.htm#ir

You'll need browser/os support for the unicode glyphs in order to see it (Firefox on Windows works for me.)

Other countries are there too, like India, China, Egypt, etc.

It's here:

http://icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-i-en.htm#ir

No image, though. You will need a browser that supports the characters.

ICANN considered this option, but decided that it didn't extend the deadline out far enough to be worth the costs.

http://blog.icann.org/2008/02/recovering-ipv4-address-space/

Time for a Slashdot Poll... Pick a good one..

You're absolutely right; Greek, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean TLDs work fine. http://idn.icann.org/ is a good place to test things out, they've got links to many different language TLDs on the left.

The site in the ICANN blog worked for me in both Safari and Firefox, in the Windows XP and OSX versions of both. Both Safari and Firefox showed Arabic in the text on the tab, but only Safari showed Arabic in the address bar.

The ICANN blog has a working link.

We have too many TLDs already. Additional TLDs are just a racket for registrars. As Abacus wrote to ICANN when they applied for ".biz", ".fam", ".cool", and a few other TLDs back in 2000, "The more TLDs we are allowed to operate, and the better quality of those TLDs, the greater the total sales will be."

".biz" ended up as the "bad neighborhood" TLD. When you see a ".biz" domain, you visualize a storefront in a half-empty strip mall with trash in the parking lot. We have two vacant TLDs, ".aero" and ".museum". ".aero" is basically a collection of redirects from airport codes to the actual site. See JFK.aero, etc., most of which were created by the promoters of .aero, not the airports.) The ".museum" TLD has so few domains that the entire list fits on one page. We have the redundant TLD, ".info". What was that for, anyway?

All those TLDs could be closed to new registrations and phased out with no great loss.

Porno belongs in ".com", with other commercial enterprises.

They sort of do and the rules when they do so have become stricter. However, there is no economic incentive to find ways of doing things with fewer addresses. On the contrary, as long as there is IPv4 address space, it is wise to get as much of it as you can by offering applications to your users which justify IPv4 allocations. Then, when the IPv4 address space runs out, you can internally reallocate addresses to the most profitable applications, i.e. instead of giving several free IP addresses to DSL users, you could start charging for extra IP addresses (or even put DSL users behind NAT like on 3G networks) and use the reclaimed addresses for servers. When the IPv4 addresses run out, all major internet and hosting providers will have lots of IPv4 addresses stashed away in uses which technically justify the allocations but are really just excuses to hoard the space.

ARIN is the regional internet registry which is the most likely to run out of addresses first. Other RIRs use up their allocations more slowly. (At the time when the last but five /8 block is allocated to a RIR, each RIR gets one last /8 block and then they're on their own. Here's the policy.) The day ARIN runs out of IP addresses is not the day when the last available IPv4 address has been allocated. The other RIRs will still have addresses, some for a very long time. Existing ISPs affected by ARIN's running out of addresses will also be able to shift their addresses around. The only ones who will be (quite dramatically) burned on that date are new operators who need multihomed address space.

the problem I see with this though is it's not like the domain was stolen ... Now clearly they're being fraudulent WITH the domain, but they obtained it legally, so that makes it a lot harder to legally take away.

You should read the ICANN domain agreement you clicked OK to when registering a domain (All registrars for .com are required to pass that agreement on)

Registering a domain name in bad faith, and/or for the use of fraud, is grounds for domain revocation.

Being legally purchased, and not being stolen, do not factor into ICANNs rules. Those are more legal issues a court would need to address, and only after that happens would it be ICANNs concern.

ICANN can revoke any .com domain on the grounds it is registered in bad faith or used for fraud.
They HAVE done this in the past too.

If you register a domain that sounds similar to an existing business, and also use that website for business, odds are good they can have it revoked from you. If your business line is the same as the existing business, it is guaranteed to be revoked. Being local rules, that the end user agreed to, there is little recourse when ICANN chose to do so, even if they do abuse this vague rule.

http://www.icann.org/en/dndr/udrp/policy.htm

Section 4, subsection A, paragraph III

4. Mandatory Administrative Proceeding.

This Paragraph sets forth the type of disputes for which you are required to submit to a mandatory administrative proceeding. These proceedings will be conducted before one of the administrative-dispute-resolution service providers listed at www.icann.org/udrp/approved-providers.htm (each, a "Provider").

        a. Applicable Disputes. You are required to submit to a mandatory administrative proceeding in the event that a third party (a "complainant") asserts to the applicable Provider, in compliance with the Rules of Procedure, that

                (i) your domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and

                (ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and

                (iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

It astonishes me that anyone still uses Network Solutions. Their extensive list of blocks for transferring domain services (read: anytime you'd actually want to, you're prevented) is mind-boggling.

Agreed. It astonishes me even more, however, that an organization like this would do so, and doubly so that anyone in their right minds doing anything more than a personal vanity site would use the same provider for both hosting and domain name registration. That's just asking for a hard-to-fix DMCA shutdown of the site, loss of the site due to the ISP going bankrupt, loss of the domain due to any number of billing disagreements with the ISP that are unrelated to the domain name registration, etc.

AFAIK, the DMCA does *not* provide for locking the domain registration of a claimed-infringing site, only providing for the takedown of the content. However, if your ISP decides it is easier to kill your DNS and lock the domain to prevent transferring it than to muck with your server account, you're stuck. Why? Because you are using the same provider for hosting and (massively overpriced) domain name registration. Don't DO that.

If I were one of these folks, I'd register my domain in a neutral country. For example, you can register .com domains with Gandi.net in France or with NameForName in Russia, or... well, here's a list of ICANN-accredited registrars, most of which support the .com registry. Find one in a country that has as few ACTA-like agreements with the U.S. as possible. Even with the exchange rates as bad as they are, those two I mentioned still charge less than half what NetSol charges for a domain name, with the added security of making it much harder to attack the domain itself with a mere DMCA takedown notice.

This should be kind of interesting to the /.ers. The 2009 Public Comment Fourm meeting minutes produced an interesting document called the Standards for Morality and Public Order document. A summary of key points:

Legal research was conducted in selected jurisdictions in every region of the world in order to develop standards for the implementation of a dispute process for the GNSO recommendation on morality and public order.

Sitting and former judges on international tribunals, as well as attorneys and law professors who regularly appear before them, were consulted on appropriate limitations found in the legal research that could be incorporate into workable standards.

As a result of the legal research and consultations, the four identified standards are: (i) Incitement to or promotion of violent lawless action; (ii) incitement to or promotion of discrimination based upon race, color, gender, ethnicity, religion or national origin; (iii) Incitement to or promotion of child pornography or other sexual abuse of children; or (iv) a determination that an applied-for gTLD string would be contrary to equally generally accepted identified legal norms relating to morality and public order that are recognized under general principles of international law
I. Introduction and background

This should be kind of interesting to the /.ers. The 2009 Public Comment Fourm meeting minutes produced an interesting document called the Standards for Morality and Public Order document. A summary of key points:

Legal research was conducted in selected jurisdictions in every region of the world in order to develop standards for the implementation of a dispute process for the GNSO recommendation on morality and public order.

Sitting and former judges on international tribunals, as well as attorneys and law professors who regularly appear before them, were consulted on appropriate limitations found in the legal research that could be incorporate into workable standards.

As a result of the legal research and consultations, the four identified standards are: (i) Incitement to or promotion of violent lawless action; (ii) incitement to or promotion of discrimination based upon race, color, gender, ethnicity, religion or national origin; (iii) Incitement to or promotion of child pornography or other sexual abuse of children; or (iv) a determination that an applied-for gTLD string would be contrary to equally generally accepted identified legal norms relating to morality and public order that are recognized under general principles of international law
I. Introduction and background