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Look, the whole point of the RFCs is that there are commonly accepted standards. If they aren't complying, then why on EARTH would you want to accomodate them? This shows that goDaddy didn't do an adequate job of testing, otherwise this would have shown up before they deployed it. You cannot 'outsource' testing to your vendors, that's a job you should be doing yourself. Back in the day, we even tested using AOL's browser, even though the clueful subscribers used the real deal. Now, I always put an RFC compliance clause in my vendor contracts, otherwise you could be forced to pay for crap. Even ICANN does that http://www.icann.org/cctlds/au/proposed-sponsorshi p-agmt-04sep01.htm (Appendix F, section 3) Next, they'll violate an RFC that is 'more' important. What will you do then?

It takes some digging, but you can find the terms and conditions for the bulk-access agreements that all registries must adhere to in order to remain accredited. In turn the registrars have terms that they must follow to remain accredited. http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may 01.htm#3 Failure to adhere to these agreements can be harsh (http://www.icann.org/correspondence/touton-letter -to-beckwith-03sep02.htm) In these agreements it states that: 3.3 Public Access to Data on Registered Names. During the Term of this Agreement: 3.3.1 At its expense, Registrar shall provide an interactive web page and a port 43 Whois service providing free public query-based access to up-to-date (i.e., updated at least daily) data concerning all active Registered Names sponsored by Registrar for each TLD in which it is accredited. The data accessible shall consist of elements that are designated from time to time according to an ICANN adopted specification or policy. Until ICANN otherwise specifies by means of an ICANN adopted specification or policy, this data shall consist of the following elements as contained in Registrar's database: 3.3.1.1 The name of the Registered Name; 3.3.1.2 The names of the primary nameserver and secondary nameserver(s) for the Registered Name; 3.3.1.3 The identity of Registrar (which may be provided through Registrar's website); 3.3.1.4 The original creation date of the registration; 3.3.1.5 The expiration date of the registration; 3.3.1.6 The name and postal address of the Registered Name Holder; 3.3.1.7 The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the technical contact for the Registered Name; and 3.3.1.8 The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the administrative contact for the Registered Name AND 3.7.8 Registrar shall abide by any specifications or policies established according to Section 4 requiring reasonable and commercially practicable (a) verification, at the time of registration, of contact information associated with a Registered Name sponsored by Registrar or (b) periodic re-verification of such information. Registrar shall, upon notification by any person of an inaccuracy in the contact information associated with a Registered Name sponsored by Registrar, take reasonable steps to investigate that claimed inaccuracy. In the event Registrar learns of inaccurate contact information associated with a Registered Name it sponsors, it shall take reasonable steps to correct that inaccuracy. AND the biggie 3.7.7.1 The Registered Name Holder shall provide to Registrar accurate and reliable contact details and promptly correct and update them during the term of the Registered Name registration, including: the full name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and fax number if available of the Registered Name Holder; name of authorized person for contact purposes in the case of an Registered Name Holder that is an organization, association, or corporation; and the data elements listed in Subsections 3.3.1.2, 3.3.1.7 and 3.3.1.8. 3.7.7.2 A Registered Name Holder's willful provision of inaccurate or unreliable information, its willful failure promptly to update information provided to Registrar, or its failure to respond for over fifteen calendar days to inquiries by Registrar concerning the accuracy of contact details associated with the Registered Name Holder's registration shall constitute a material breach of the Registered Name Holder-registrar contract and be a basis for cancellation of the Registered Name registration.

It takes some digging, but you can find the terms and conditions for the bulk-access agreements that all registries must adhere to in order to remain accredited. In turn the registrars have terms that they must follow to remain accredited. http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may 01.htm#3 Failure to adhere to these agreements can be harsh (http://www.icann.org/correspondence/touton-letter -to-beckwith-03sep02.htm) In these agreements it states that: 3.3 Public Access to Data on Registered Names. During the Term of this Agreement: 3.3.1 At its expense, Registrar shall provide an interactive web page and a port 43 Whois service providing free public query-based access to up-to-date (i.e., updated at least daily) data concerning all active Registered Names sponsored by Registrar for each TLD in which it is accredited. The data accessible shall consist of elements that are designated from time to time according to an ICANN adopted specification or policy. Until ICANN otherwise specifies by means of an ICANN adopted specification or policy, this data shall consist of the following elements as contained in Registrar's database: 3.3.1.1 The name of the Registered Name; 3.3.1.2 The names of the primary nameserver and secondary nameserver(s) for the Registered Name; 3.3.1.3 The identity of Registrar (which may be provided through Registrar's website); 3.3.1.4 The original creation date of the registration; 3.3.1.5 The expiration date of the registration; 3.3.1.6 The name and postal address of the Registered Name Holder; 3.3.1.7 The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the technical contact for the Registered Name; and 3.3.1.8 The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the administrative contact for the Registered Name AND 3.7.8 Registrar shall abide by any specifications or policies established according to Section 4 requiring reasonable and commercially practicable (a) verification, at the time of registration, of contact information associated with a Registered Name sponsored by Registrar or (b) periodic re-verification of such information. Registrar shall, upon notification by any person of an inaccuracy in the contact information associated with a Registered Name sponsored by Registrar, take reasonable steps to investigate that claimed inaccuracy. In the event Registrar learns of inaccurate contact information associated with a Registered Name it sponsors, it shall take reasonable steps to correct that inaccuracy. AND the biggie 3.7.7.1 The Registered Name Holder shall provide to Registrar accurate and reliable contact details and promptly correct and update them during the term of the Registered Name registration, including: the full name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and fax number if available of the Registered Name Holder; name of authorized person for contact purposes in the case of an Registered Name Holder that is an organization, association, or corporation; and the data elements listed in Subsections 3.3.1.2, 3.3.1.7 and 3.3.1.8. 3.7.7.2 A Registered Name Holder's willful provision of inaccurate or unreliable information, its willful failure promptly to update information provided to Registrar, or its failure to respond for over fifteen calendar days to inquiries by Registrar concerning the accuracy of contact details associated with the Registered Name Holder's registration shall constitute a material breach of the Registered Name Holder-registrar contract and be a basis for cancellation of the Registered Name registration.

Many people will suggest otherwise, but they are often those who lack a formal education and background in designing secure, scalable, high-reliability software systems.

I have an M.S. in Computer Science, spent my first three years as a professional developer working on the development of a secure (TCSEC B3 targeted) operating system, then another year and a half on a firewall project based on a secure OS. I've also worked in the telecom and space sciences fields for well-known companies such as Hughes, IBM, and TRW, designing and developing secure and reliable software. These days I work for a small company, still doing my best to design and develop secure and reliable software - now in PHP.

I don't claim to be a security expert - I've met some of the experts and they're far beyond where I'll ever be on the topic. But I certainly don't fit your description of uneducated or inexperienced. And I find your claims wrt PHP bogus.

Taking a quick look at the http://www.hardened-php.net/advisories.15.html"> advisories for the "Hardened PHP" project you mention, I see 1) issues with applications written in PHP - not the language's fault; 2) people doing stupid things with the language (for example, leaving phpinfo() called in deployed scripts), which is not a language issue; or 3) addressing implementation bugs, which is no different than those found in other languages - except that with PHP we call something a "PHP bug" that in, for instance, C, would be a "libc bug".

If you've got specific claims, please, put them out. But all I see in this thread so far is vague allegations. Or maybe trolling.

ICANN is not a US government organization. It just happens to be on US soil (just like the UN).

ICANN encourages government representation, which includes any country. They even have meetings all across the world, there's no excuse for these concerned countries not to participate.

People seem to think that because ICANN agreed with the US on the .xxx tld, that the US made the decision. They just happened to agree that its unenforcable and stupid.

ICANN is not a US government organization. It just happens to be on US soil (just like the UN).

ICANN encourages government representation, which includes any country. They even have meetings all across the world, there's no excuse for these concerned countries not to participate.

People seem to think that because ICANN agreed with the US on the .xxx tld, that the US made the decision. They just happened to agree that its unenforcable and stupid.

> ICANN seems to forget some things, it is wholy supported by the US government on US soil.

What do you mean by supported? If you mean by "supported", the current state of things is supported (preferred) by the US government, then you are right. If you mean with "supported" paid, then maybe you can show me in the budget the paycheck is listed, because I can't find it.

From what I've heard, 2/3 of the funding of the ICANN comes from Europe.

> I would not underestimate the US influence, but nor do I fear it.

Which people rebelled against taxation without representation? And why? Because they feared the English influence?

(a) Why does it have to be a TLD? This is a US issue. Why not *.kids.us?

(b) This has already been proposed

(c) Many of the problems of the .xxx TLD still apply. It's still a single bit. It tries to apply a global bar for what is acceptable for a kid to view to the *entire* world, rather than flagging based on type of content. It is primarily pushed by registrars that just want to sell more domains. It has only domain-level granularity. It's a lot easier to bypass than metatagging.

Hi everyone,

I am writing this letter to all of you personally because it is time for all of you to stand up for a cause. Some of you might be aware that ICANN and Verisign recently announced a proposed settlement of their pending litigation (Verisign had sued ICANN a few years ago and that lawsuit is pending). We believe this settlement is unfair, unjust, inappropriate and would be blasphemous to the Internet community and to your Business.

Some Highlights of the settlement

• The settlement agreement allows Verisign to increase the price of .com domain names to every Registrar by 7% every year. Currently Verisign charges all Registrars $6 for every domain name. The new settlement agreement however allows them to increase prices to all of us without any cost justification. They can simply increase the price by 7% EACH year.
• This means they could double the price in 10 years. Naturally any increase in price would mean all Registrars would have to increase their prices to you. This would reduce your sales and reduce your potential to sell other Products.
• In this settlement proposal ICANN is giving Verisign the chance to make more than 2 Billion Dollars extra over the next 10 years. This may by far be the most expensive settlement proposal the world has witnessed.
• This 2 Billion Dollars is coming out of your / your customers pockets.
• The new settlement agreement also doubles the ICANN fees charged to Registrars. Currently Registrars pay 25 cents per domain name to ICANN. The new agreement will make that 50 cents. This again means all Registrars will further increase what they charge all of you for dotCom Domain Names.
• The new settlement agreement has a perpetual presumptive renewal clause. This means that Verisign will permanently hold on to the dotCom Registry. There will never be any competitive bid for it, except in a very remote circumstance. Verisign now gets the right to a perpetual monopoly. This means that they are free to do whatever they want with dotCom, without fear of competition. Prices therefore will never reduce.

The entire settlement documents are posted online at http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/sett lement-agreements.htm

The part with regards to pricing is in Section 7.3 of http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/com- registry-agreement-22sep05.pdf

What can you do?

This settlement agreement will be signed very soon unless the ICANN Board is convinced otherwise. You all represent the voice of the various Domain Name Consumers worldwide. All of you should send your comments about this settlement and how it will affect your business.

Send your comments to settlement-comments@icann.org

Keep the following points in mind before sending your comments:

• Put in your company name, and specify how long you have been in business, and how you represent the voices of hundreds and thousands of Customers in your specific region.
• You may specify how any increase in the dotCom domain name prices will affect your business.
• Readup existing comments by other people at http://forum.icann.org/lists/settlement-comments/. Your comments can be similar to the ones already posted. More number of comments about the same issue from different people across different countries would clearly show that everyone is concerned about the same issue.

Feel free also to forward this email to your Customers and Resellers and urge them to indivi

Hi everyone,

I am writing this letter to all of you personally because it is time for all of you to stand up for a cause. Some of you might be aware that ICANN and Verisign recently announced a proposed settlement of their pending litigation (Verisign had sued ICANN a few years ago and that lawsuit is pending). We believe this settlement is unfair, unjust, inappropriate and would be blasphemous to the Internet community and to your Business.

Some Highlights of the settlement

• The settlement agreement allows Verisign to increase the price of .com domain names to every Registrar by 7% every year. Currently Verisign charges all Registrars $6 for every domain name. The new settlement agreement however allows them to increase prices to all of us without any cost justification. They can simply increase the price by 7% EACH year.
• This means they could double the price in 10 years. Naturally any increase in price would mean all Registrars would have to increase their prices to you. This would reduce your sales and reduce your potential to sell other Products.
• In this settlement proposal ICANN is giving Verisign the chance to make more than 2 Billion Dollars extra over the next 10 years. This may by far be the most expensive settlement proposal the world has witnessed.
• This 2 Billion Dollars is coming out of your / your customers pockets.
• The new settlement agreement also doubles the ICANN fees charged to Registrars. Currently Registrars pay 25 cents per domain name to ICANN. The new agreement will make that 50 cents. This again means all Registrars will further increase what they charge all of you for dotCom Domain Names.
• The new settlement agreement has a perpetual presumptive renewal clause. This means that Verisign will permanently hold on to the dotCom Registry. There will never be any competitive bid for it, except in a very remote circumstance. Verisign now gets the right to a perpetual monopoly. This means that they are free to do whatever they want with dotCom, without fear of competition. Prices therefore will never reduce.

The entire settlement documents are posted online at http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/sett lement-agreements.htm

The part with regards to pricing is in Section 7.3 of http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/com- registry-agreement-22sep05.pdf

What can you do?

This settlement agreement will be signed very soon unless the ICANN Board is convinced otherwise. You all represent the voice of the various Domain Name Consumers worldwide. All of you should send your comments about this settlement and how it will affect your business.

Send your comments to settlement-comments@icann.org

Keep the following points in mind before sending your comments:

• Put in your company name, and specify how long you have been in business, and how you represent the voices of hundreds and thousands of Customers in your specific region.
• You may specify how any increase in the dotCom domain name prices will affect your business.
• Readup existing comments by other people at http://forum.icann.org/lists/settlement-comments/. Your comments can be similar to the ones already posted. More number of comments about the same issue from different people across different countries would clearly show that everyone is concerned about the same issue.

Feel free also to forward this email to your Customers and Resellers and urge them to indivi

Hi everyone,

I am writing this letter to all of you personally because it is time for all of you to stand up for a cause. Some of you might be aware that ICANN and Verisign recently announced a proposed settlement of their pending litigation (Verisign had sued ICANN a few years ago and that lawsuit is pending). We believe this settlement is unfair, unjust, inappropriate and would be blasphemous to the Internet community and to your Business.

Some Highlights of the settlement

• The settlement agreement allows Verisign to increase the price of .com domain names to every Registrar by 7% every year. Currently Verisign charges all Registrars $6 for every domain name. The new settlement agreement however allows them to increase prices to all of us without any cost justification. They can simply increase the price by 7% EACH year.
• This means they could double the price in 10 years. Naturally any increase in price would mean all Registrars would have to increase their prices to you. This would reduce your sales and reduce your potential to sell other Products.
• In this settlement proposal ICANN is giving Verisign the chance to make more than 2 Billion Dollars extra over the next 10 years. This may by far be the most expensive settlement proposal the world has witnessed.
• This 2 Billion Dollars is coming out of your / your customers pockets.
• The new settlement agreement also doubles the ICANN fees charged to Registrars. Currently Registrars pay 25 cents per domain name to ICANN. The new agreement will make that 50 cents. This again means all Registrars will further increase what they charge all of you for dotCom Domain Names.
• The new settlement agreement has a perpetual presumptive renewal clause. This means that Verisign will permanently hold on to the dotCom Registry. There will never be any competitive bid for it, except in a very remote circumstance. Verisign now gets the right to a perpetual monopoly. This means that they are free to do whatever they want with dotCom, without fear of competition. Prices therefore will never reduce.

The entire settlement documents are posted online at http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/sett lement-agreements.htm

The part with regards to pricing is in Section 7.3 of http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/com- registry-agreement-22sep05.pdf

What can you do?

This settlement agreement will be signed very soon unless the ICANN Board is convinced otherwise. You all represent the voice of the various Domain Name Consumers worldwide. All of you should send your comments about this settlement and how it will affect your business.

Send your comments to settlement-comments@icann.org

Keep the following points in mind before sending your comments:

• Put in your company name, and specify how long you have been in business, and how you represent the voices of hundreds and thousands of Customers in your specific region.
• You may specify how any increase in the dotCom domain name prices will affect your business.
• Readup existing comments by other people at http://forum.icann.org/lists/settlement-comments/. Your comments can be similar to the ones already posted. More number of comments about the same issue from different people across different countries would clearly show that everyone is concerned about the same issue.

Feel free also to forward this email to your Customers and Resellers and urge them to indivi

Hi everyone,

I am writing this letter to all of you personally because it is time for all of you to stand up for a cause. Some of you might be aware that ICANN and Verisign recently announced a proposed settlement of their pending litigation (Verisign had sued ICANN a few years ago and that lawsuit is pending). We believe this settlement is unfair, unjust, inappropriate and would be blasphemous to the Internet community and to your Business.

Some Highlights of the settlement

• The settlement agreement allows Verisign to increase the price of .com domain names to every Registrar by 7% every year. Currently Verisign charges all Registrars $6 for every domain name. The new settlement agreement however allows them to increase prices to all of us without any cost justification. They can simply increase the price by 7% EACH year.
• This means they could double the price in 10 years. Naturally any increase in price would mean all Registrars would have to increase their prices to you. This would reduce your sales and reduce your potential to sell other Products.
• In this settlement proposal ICANN is giving Verisign the chance to make more than 2 Billion Dollars extra over the next 10 years. This may by far be the most expensive settlement proposal the world has witnessed.
• This 2 Billion Dollars is coming out of your / your customers pockets.
• The new settlement agreement also doubles the ICANN fees charged to Registrars. Currently Registrars pay 25 cents per domain name to ICANN. The new agreement will make that 50 cents. This again means all Registrars will further increase what they charge all of you for dotCom Domain Names.
• The new settlement agreement has a perpetual presumptive renewal clause. This means that Verisign will permanently hold on to the dotCom Registry. There will never be any competitive bid for it, except in a very remote circumstance. Verisign now gets the right to a perpetual monopoly. This means that they are free to do whatever they want with dotCom, without fear of competition. Prices therefore will never reduce.

The entire settlement documents are posted online at http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/sett lement-agreements.htm

The part with regards to pricing is in Section 7.3 of http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/com- registry-agreement-22sep05.pdf

What can you do?

This settlement agreement will be signed very soon unless the ICANN Board is convinced otherwise. You all represent the voice of the various Domain Name Consumers worldwide. All of you should send your comments about this settlement and how it will affect your business.

Send your comments to settlement-comments@icann.org

Keep the following points in mind before sending your comments:

• Put in your company name, and specify how long you have been in business, and how you represent the voices of hundreds and thousands of Customers in your specific region.
• You may specify how any increase in the dotCom domain name prices will affect your business.
• Readup existing comments by other people at http://forum.icann.org/lists/settlement-comments/. Your comments can be similar to the ones already posted. More number of comments about the same issue from different people across different countries would clearly show that everyone is concerned about the same issue.

Feel free also to forward this email to your Customers and Resellers and urge them to indivi

at least to have an informeed comment :) http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-21nov0 5.htm/

As far as I know, ICANN already has comittee called Governmental Advisory Committee (http://gac.icann.org/) - how would this be different?

It just so happens that the supposedly independent org that controls them is owned by the US

and is subject to American laws

and as such might be asked/forced to do things that a really independent org wouldn't.

Oh, there's your problem. You're operating under a misguided assumption. The TLD can set pretty much whatever rules they like regarding their TLD as long as they are "equitable and fair" about it. They cannot force everyone to use WAP (as they cannot require the use of any "particular application, protocol, or product"), but other than that it's pretty fair game.

http://www.icann.org/icp/icp-1.htm

Well, FY99-00's budget shows that the Officers of the Corporation were paid between $100k-$300k each. Google found me 04-05s budget showing $5,668,000 for 59 full-time employees (with a note stating that not all 59 would be employed all year). They quit breaking it up by who was getting paid what.

Even if it's not so obviously egregious in ICANNs case, it doesn't change the fact that one cannot say "oh, it's a nonprofit" and leave it at that without checking.

Well, FY99-00's budget shows that the Officers of the Corporation were paid between $100k-$300k each. Google found me 04-05s budget showing $5,668,000 for 59 full-time employees (with a note stating that not all 59 would be employed all year). They quit breaking it up by who was getting paid what.

Even if it's not so obviously egregious in ICANNs case, it doesn't change the fact that one cannot say "oh, it's a nonprofit" and leave it at that without checking.

Lets see ICANN has been doing this around for 5+ years with no problems or scandals. And then imagine if UN did take it over, we would see "DNS TLDs for money" scandals. As for ICANN being under US control, you should take a look at their board of directors, notice how Americans are the minorities compared to the total amount of foreign directors.

ICANN didn't rule out the redeployment of sitefinder, Verisign has mearly agreed to inform ICANN first and ICANN has promised to give a quick technical review.

Verisign will support ICANN as the controller of the DNS root against EU attempts to break the monopoly.

Verisign has fought hard to protect domain owners by limiting ICANN domain fees to only grow by a factor of 3, while ICANN has fought hard to protect domain owners by limiting Verisign to increasing their fees by 7% per year. </sarcasm>

Check out this post to the ICANN mailing list for more details.

China is already on the board of directors.

Do you really want Iran, North Korea and China having a say in how DNS is administered?

Thanks for trying to save us, but you're too late. A Chinese citizen is on the Board of Directors of ICANN, as is a Malayasian.

Do you really want Iran, North Korea and China having a say in how DNS is administered?

Thanks for trying to save us, but you're too late. A Chinese citizen is on the Board of Directors of ICANN, as is a Malayasian.

Some TLD's have had IPv6 support added according this ICANN announcement.

But this comes back to one of the questions I first posed. If the US representatives are commited to protecting freedom of speech, and aren't only being reflexively territorial, they would surely be able to propose alternatives that will both protect freedom of speech, and remove the concern of some others that the US has some undefined control in the current set-up. Infrastructure and co-operation for international letters and phone-calls can be controlled by international committee (UPU and ITU respectively) without accusations of censorship, so why not DNS services too? A well-supported international group with a robust constitution and a byzantine voting process could well be the best safeguard against "special interest" politicking!

Unfortunately, I'd say comparing the Postal Service and the Phone System to any part of the internet other than IP allocation and the hardware interface is comparing apples to oranges. the UPU and ITU both handle the physical methods of delivery. Not the information carried on them. The DNS services, among other things that seem to be under contention, are more about the information transmitted across it.

Another problem is this. ICANN has been doing a decent enough job so far. I have yet to hear a decent proposal from the EU and UN on how to change it or a decent reason for why. Currently there are not enough problems to justify the change, and all the reasons the EU have given have been "The US might do X". I also don't trust anything this ill defined from the UN not to be subject to "special interest" politicking. If a decent proposal was put forward, then I might consider it. In the mean time with no proposal and only a "but they might abuse it" claim, no way.

Finally, do we really want any government oversite? What the US has done so far has been minimal. Largely it has been run by the corporations that own the backbones. Do we really want politicians making decisions? Looking over the current board they appear to have a lot of telecom experience. They also look to have come from many places around the globe. I see directors from various EU members, Mexico, Chille (I think), Japan, Africa, Malaysia, Australia and Brazil. Hardly a US dominated company. Currently it looks like they are an "international company" when considering the board membership, just without governments having direct control.

Isn't that what ICANN is already? An international(read: controlled by all contries ) corporation that controls DNS and such?

International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

http://icann.org/faq/#WhatisICANN

not uscann

not uncann

even if they got control, they couldn't control shit.
if they sucked, another icann would be started.

Actualy "I" is for "Internet" http://www.icann.org/

And it is a private company

Again, the US doesn't "control" the internet. ICANN does. Check the first letter there: International Actually the "I" stands for "Internet". http://www.icann.org/

ICANN's Board has included citizens of Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ghana, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Senegal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

ICANN's Board has included citizens of Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ghana, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Senegal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Again, the US doesn't "control" the internet. ICANN does. Check the first letter there: International

No it doesn't, it stands for Internet.

Here's another word that starts with I: Idiot.

The AIM of the EU and others is to change that initial I to "International", but right now it stands for "Internet".

1. Make certain that your company's name is (a) trademarked, (b) in use well before the offending website started using the mark, (c) valid.
2. Make certain that the offending website is (a) not trademarked and (b) either in the same field as your own, or obviously attempting to profit from your mark.
3. Contact an intellectual property lawyer (sorry, you have to do this at least once until you get the hang of things).
4. Have him draft a trademark violation notification letter and formal complaint as detailed here.
5. Issue the letter to the website, and more importantly, to the registrar which issued the domain name, naming the registrar, and requesting that the registrar yank the domain name in question in return for not being named in a forthcoming suit.
6. Wait for the registrar to respond. They have 20 days to do so.

• your domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and
• you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
• your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

• 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...(extortion)
• you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or
• you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or
• 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.

I read this and thought they were bitching about the root servers, ran around looking up information/sources to point out there's no real problem with the current root servers setup, then found out they're whining about goddamned ICANN.

Repeat after me:
DNS is *not* the web.

ICANN's not perfect, but if you look at how they operate, you'd be surprised to find out they weren't setup by the UN. They're clearly the product and brainchild of a bunch of bureaucrats. There are huge fees to apply and propose, and then they arbitrarily create new TLDs to sustain the new fees rolling in the following application period. They burn through their government contract cash when all they do is push paper around, and then ask for more like a fat kid with a food fetish.

If the UN really wants to take control, I say fine - fuck it, stop our government wasting some money on this albatross.

ICANN
"In 2000, ICANN introduced seven new gTLDs: .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro. The ICANN community is currently exploring possibilities to add additional gTLDs." ... amazing. what will they* think of next?
* (and by they, I mean the people who dropped the huge fee to apply for those gTLDs, as ICANN doesn't think them up only approve them)

All they ever did was introduce competition by having multiple registrars, and that's not exactly some amazing idea, it's something that was *long* overdue.

It seems a little less Star Chamberish, given that we can review their minutes and look at the FAQ that explains their role.

(Don't blame them for SPAM or Web gambling, folks. They're just the cabal of international bankers and Star Chamber judges who decide who gets to map the IP addresses to the domains.)

It seems a little less Star Chamberish, given that we can review their minutes and look at the FAQ that explains their role.

(Don't blame them for SPAM or Web gambling, folks. They're just the cabal of international bankers and Star Chamber judges who decide who gets to map the IP addresses to the domains.)

Resolved (05.70) that the proposed redelegation of the .IQ ccTLD to the National Communications and Media Commission (NCMC) of Iraq is approved.

I concur with your view on "private sector" and "civil society". First off, ICANN's site states that is a private, NON-profit organization, translated means not under government control. So, simply because it used to be contracted by the US Government, it is automatically bad. Ask yourselves this, is ICANN doing its job? If after thinking about that, you would still like to see ICANN functions handed over to the UN, heaven help us. I can't fathom why people work by the philosophy, "If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is".

the other proposed usages of .tel had a potential to cause damage in addition to being useless

First, these are the two .TEL applications:

• the name-based .tel seems pretty useless to me.
• the number-based .tel is at least interesting.

I can see how there could be some confusion with the numbering systems in the world if we had the number-based .tel TLD. But, it could at least be potentially useful. I see no value in a name-based .tel except that the registry operator, accredited registrars, and ICANN will all make money.

Will the name-based .tel be for the good of the internet? Or in the internet's common interest? Probably not. Might the number-based .tel aid in VOIP or 'bridge the gap between phone networks and computer networks'? Maybe.

the other proposed usages of .tel had a potential to cause damage in addition to being useless

First, these are the two .TEL applications:

• the name-based .tel seems pretty useless to me.
• the number-based .tel is at least interesting.

I can see how there could be some confusion with the numbering systems in the world if we had the number-based .tel TLD. But, it could at least be potentially useful. I see no value in a name-based .tel except that the registry operator, accredited registrars, and ICANN will all make money.

Will the name-based .tel be for the good of the internet? Or in the internet's common interest? Probably not. Might the number-based .tel aid in VOIP or 'bridge the gap between phone networks and computer networks'? Maybe.

It's all about generating more revenue for the registrars.

BINGO! It's almost always about generating more revenue, just follow the money. Don't forget that ICANN gets a percentage of every new domain that is registered. This is their effort to raise more funds by FORCING companies to register more domains to protect their web identity (something public companies are legally obligated to do by contract with stockholders)

- Greg

Take a look at the UN sponsored (and ITU run) initiative called the "World Summit on the Information Society [WSIS]. This is the group that is looking to replace ICANN.

They have a working group called the "Working Group on Internet Governance" [WGIG] that is proposing IP address allocation by country. The stated reason is that it would be more "fair" but in truth, this would put control over the access to information in the hands of those we should distrust the most.

What happens when you're a dissident in China (or gasp! the U.S) and can't even get an IP address? You won't even be able to "roll your own" as it were because it won't be routed.

Yes, blocking access to websites and online content is bad, but giving governments direct control over IP addressing would be like them owning printing presses 230+ years ago. Not only would you not be able to read content, you wouldn't even be able to publish content without being on your government's good side.

GoDaddy is not sending you spam. They are simply following the rules for domain name transfers. See http://www.icann.org/transfers/ for details.

The word you tried to spell is "fraudulent", meaning deceitful. The email did not deceive you; someone really was trying to take your domain name.

Go now and tell your registrar to lock your domain names to prevent transfers. If your registrar makes that difficult, maybe you should switch to GoDaddy.

(from here.)

Discussions continue among ICANN Board and Staff regarding the evaluation of five additional proposed sponsored Top Level Domains (sTLDs): .ASIA, .MAIL, .TEL, .TEL, & .XXX.

Nothing they do makes sense to me. It seems like they're just creating new TLDs willy-nilly and giving control of them to new companies apparently without the ability to enforce any of the controls they've created. What exactly is the purpose of all these new TLDs?

I never said it was default. What i was saying is that they were in violation of ICANN's policies. Please go read the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy before you type about something you obviously don't understand.

Great - Another thing for ICANN to muck up.