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ICANN Finds No Wrong Doing in Domain Front Running
eldavojohn writes "Remember the investigation ICANN did in domain name front running? Well, it turns out that there was no wrong doing going on at all. What went wrong? Domain name 'tasting', which involves a free five day trial of a domain name, was the big culprit. From the article: 'In some cases ... the committee found that a separate practice of domain name tasting may be causing problems. That refers to someone testing the financial viability of a name for up to five days and then returning it for a full refund, using a loophole in registration policies. Domain tasting can tie up millions of Internet addresses, including ones someone checks but does not buy.' If you check for availability of a website and someone sees you do it and they reserve it before you, it's fair play."
"The report, brought before the ICANN board in New Delhi on Friday, did not examine a controversial practice by domain name seller Network Solutions LLC of grabbing names that people search for on its Web site but don't immediately register."
No kidding. Besides being in IT, I also hold a real estate license, and if I were to do - or even attempt to do - the equivalent of front-running, I would be at risk of discpline from the real estate commissioner's office and the board of realtors, possibly up to losing my license, as well as wide open for a lawsuit (real estate is a more litigious business than even the patent industry).
An example: I'm acting as your agent, or you are considering retaining me as your agent. There's a property you're interested in that appears to be a great deal. You tell me about it and ask my opinion. I tell you I'll check it out and get back to you by tomorrow. Recognizing that it is indeed a great deal, that evening I put in an offer to buy the property myself and leave you out in the cold.
That is both unethical and illegal, and is essentially the same thing that NetSol or any other registrar does when they practice front-running (they're in the position of being your agent, or prospective agent). It's hard to see how ICANN sees nothing wrong with that. True, it may not be illegal or against ICANN's rules, but it certainly ought to be.
"ICANN fails to find own ass with both hands."
Film at 11. If we can find it.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
This is kinda ironic, because I just got hit by this today. I used Network Solutions lookup tool to search for a domain - simply out of habit - and then when I went to buy the domain at my usual discount registrar, I was told that the domain name was already taken. Then I went back to Network Solutions, did the lookup, and lo and behold, it's still available! Confused, I did a whois lookup, and saw that the site was apparently registered to Network Solutions. So I called up the customer service line for NS, and I was like, "hey, do you know what's going on?" And here's the kicker - the guy tried to make it sound like NS was doing me a favor!
The logic went something like this - some "unethical third party" could be snooping on my connection, and, seeing that I was looking into a domain purchase, they could snap up the domain and then try to sell it to me at an inflated rate. Of course, if they were to buy the domain from Network Solutions, nothing would stop them. But if they tried to buy it somewhere else, good old NS has my back. Isn't that swell of them?
Fortunately, the guy was reasonable, and released the hold on the domain. He then tried to upsell me on some stupid hosting service, and I'm like, "Umm, no, I do my own development. And I'm going to buy this domain someplace that doesn't charge $30 a freakin' domain."
In either case, the proposed change to ICANN policy would stop even NS's practice, because they'd be charged the $0.20 fee for every domain name they did that with, which would add up to expensive really fast. They've stated that they would stop the practice if the ICANN implements the "no registration fee refund" policy, though their claimed reasons are that their users would be less at risk.
This is one reason I created saferdomainsearch.com. It uses direct DNS lookups against the root name servers. No logging is done of what you search for.
Shit, you were the one who took that?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I don't think you're stupid, the issue is somewhat complex. The $0.20 charge is not for the consumer, it's for the registrant. The scripts would be written by folks like you and I, (or a million other nerds that read Slashdot) and they would be designed to generate lots and lots of noise so that the companies could stop using their positions of power to take advantage of the regular folks on the Internet.
Here is an experiment that I encourage you to try on your own: I just now, right now, made up the domain flipperjikk.com. Make up your own and follow along. Use long random strings of letters to make sure it's not an accident. I went to GoDaddy and did a search and the domain is available. Great! I then went to Network Solutions and searched for the same domain name, just to be sure. Yep, it's still available. Immediately, I went back to GoDaddy, and lo and behold, in the 15 seconds since I checked the first time, somebody else must have come up with the exact same domain name as I did, because flipperjikk.com appears to have now been registered, and is no longer available. And it cost Network Solutions nothing to register this, because they can just get a refund in 5 days if I decide not to register it. The insidious part is, odds are that domain may NEVER become available again, because once the 5-day period expires, some squatter will see it's expiring, someone's interested in it, and register it for themselves, using the same technique. Domains can sit in limbo for months going back and forth between different shell companies using this trial period. Nobody pays a dime (or two) for all this activity.
The script I mentioned could search the availability for random domains all day. djiuqeruoweit.com, agrhlreijilaer.com, wejhafkljherk,com, etc. The registrants would be overwhelmed with searches, and they would no longer be able to tell which domains people were actually interested in, and which ones were garbage. If they register all the searches using an automated script (which they clearly did with flipperjikk.com) it would cost them millions per day.
This $0.20 tax would in no way hurt you and I. It would just discourage the registrants from registering every domain that they think people might be slightly interested in, because now it costs them money.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
ICANN went through three stages of evolution. At first it was bunch of - by their own admission - clueless board members picked in secret by the US government, specifically Ira Magaziner, Clintons senior science advisor, and Roger Cochetti from IBM.
... the "domainers" and registration people. That's who goes to ICANN meetings and populate the various ICANN committees.
.web or whatever. His employer, USC/ISI would not back him up. Jon died of heart failure 3 years later.
Next they were taken over by intellectual property attornies from multinational corporations. Once they'd had their way with internet law and policy came...
Is it any wonder they didn't find anything wrong with the practice they invented and make money from?
The US Government mandate ICANN operates under says they must be "open and transparent" and are not to create policy, but to determine the consensus of the Internet community and implement policy based on this. I have personally watched them chnage their bylaws retroactively to prevent the "wrong" poeple from being a part of the organizatin. I've personally watched them kick people out of meeings advertised beforehand as "open to anyone". I've personally wathced them adopt policies where only 13 out ot 1000 people agreed with the policy. I can go on for hours about things like this.
They are one of the most secretive Internet organizations to ever exist. Does anybody else remember Karl Aurbach, when elected to the board had to sue just to see the books? How many organizations do you get to be a board member off but the corporate books are kept secret from you? Why would you need to keep those books secret in the first place.
ICANN was supposed to be a "membership organization". A decade has gone by. Can you find any way to become a voting member of ICANN? Nope. Doesn't exist. You know why? They're scared they'd be voted out of office and for damn good reason.
ICANN runs on a $60M a year budget and it a beurocraic nightmare more complex than the UN in terms of its org chart. (cf. Rutkoswki's brilliant diagram of same. It does NOT fit on a regular sized piece of paper). Now keep in mind the job it does used to be done by Jon Postel as a part time task ("IANA") for $15,000. a year.
When Jon announced there would be new tlds coming ("300 at least, 75 in the first year") the intellectual property attornies made his life a living hell and he sought a legal entitiy as IANA had no legal personality and he himself did not want to assume personal legal liability for adding
If you think ICANN is the best and the brightest of the internet you're sadly mistaken, and if we, as the internet community cannot do better than this, then shame on us all, squared.
Scrap ICANN. Make something useful.
A good starting point would be the consensus points from the last IFWP conference - this was to have been ICANN before thart effort, and a years work to reach that consensus, was scuttled by the actors operating in the shadows who have controlled it ever since in a regime where only they benefit.
Or roll your own root. The only reason ICANN is on power is because they control the legacy root zone. If nobody used it any more, they would fade into the sunset where they belong.
If Linux computers used a different set of root servers, who cares what Microsoft and ICANN did.
Read this: http://iconia.com/before_the_dns.txt
Need Mercedes parts ?