ICANN Sued Over Wait List

Greedo writes "According to their press release, "Pool.com, one of the Internet's hottest new ventures (their words, not mine), has launched a lawsuit challenging the right of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to proceed with a monopolistic new Wait-Listing Service (Google cache) this fall." You can read Pool.com's Statement of Claim, if you like."

Comments

broken link

[xilmaril]

the statement of claim is actually here

Basically

[Otter]

If I understand this correctly (which may well not be the case) -- Pool.com specializes in grabbing expired domain names. ICANN is proposing a method in which reservations could be placed for names before they expire, instead of a first-come, first-served system upon expiration.

Waving around the word "monopolistic" seems a bit silly here -- like with broadcast spectrum allocation, this is a case where you need a central authority. Whether or not you like ICANN and whether or not a waiting-list is better than a free-for-all, there doesn't seem to be anything at issue here except Pool.com's business model.

(Incidentally, pool.com is the sort of sweet domain that got swept up in the '90's and become available again now. Apparently their system works.)