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ICANN Draws Ire Over Batching For Dot.word Domains

Posted by Unknown on from the punch-the-monkey dept.

angry tapir writes "ICANN has been subjected to more criticism over the process of creating new 'dot.word' generic top-level domains. Registry services companies have criticised ICANN for processing the 1900 or so applications for new gTLDs in batches, which means that it will take significantly longer for some new domains to go live than others. The real kicker is the process for choosing who goes in which batch: 'Digital archery' — essentially an applicant nominates a particular time then tries to click a button in a browser as close to that time as possible. I should have taken advantage of all those 'punch the monkey' ads in the good ol' days."

19 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. Archery by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Brings a whole new meaning to domain sniping - TLD sniping!

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    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    1. Re:Archery by azalin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      or "gaming the system"

  2. The truth about ICANN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The rotten and corrupt Domain Name System.

  3. Can you be bothered? by neokushan · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can you be bothered with all that fuss, all that trouble? Having to click an arbitrary button at an arbitrary time. Can you really be bothered?

    ICANN.

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    +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    1. Re:Can you be bothered? by azalin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This officially answers the question if icann are out of their minds. How does anyone even remotely sober come up with such an utterly stupid idea? IF this would be for some gaming site handing out free beta keys it would OK, even fun. But if you are talking about business in the 6 figure range something a little more sophisticated should be used. Unless of course you want to look like a bunch of script kiddies far out of their league.

    2. Re:Can you be bothered? by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      all the applicants should have enough money to throw a coder to do a script to do it exactly on time..

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      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:Can you be bothered? by azalin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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)
      2) Highest Bidder (profitable)
      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.
      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).

    4. Re:Can you be bothered? by DarkOx · · Score: 2

      My point: sometimes the only fair allocation/prioritization algorithm is to let the chance decide - if it's good for (sport) championships, why wouldn't it be good for deciding what processing batch the TDL will be included?

      Nothing wrong with that, and frankly nothing wrong with what ICANN is doing with regard to the batching. Sometime there are necessary reasons behind a policy technical or otherwise that some people won't like. When it comes to name registrations people signing up for names tend to want it yesterday, if you can't process requests instantly there will be some frustration.

      People will accept that to a degree, as "well that is just how it works" provided it seems for a lack of a better word professional. If ICANN had simply used a random number generator on the back end to assign requests to a batch, I bet there would have been little fuss.

      Putting this "game" on the website on the other hand makes people feel like the delay's are stupid and arbitrary.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    5. Re:Can you be bothered? by bmo · · Score: 2

      The person in the post above you listed the fair ways to get this done: first come, first served, lottery, and highest bidder - all of these can be audited.

      A javascript game cannot be audited, as the results are dependent on network, lan, and workstation lag, or lack thereof and less dependent on actual user input. Because as ICANN should know, packet switched networks are not real-time and cannot possibly be real-time or fair in this case.

      This, I believe, is a way to let ICANN's politically connected buddies get preferential treatment and to hide it under the "well, you just didn't click fast enough" excuse.

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      BMO

    6. Re:Can you be bothered? by c0lo · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  4. This will work... by Sqr(twg) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...but only because anyone who's dumb enough to pay US$185,000 for a gTLD won't realize he can hire a programmer for five minutes and get a greasemonkey script that clicks the "submit" button at exactly the right time (minus network lag).

  5. Somebody batched the title by Gearoid_Murphy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Surely they mean botched?

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    prepare the survey weasels.
  6. The important question... by alexhs · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did slashdot apply for the ".dot" domain ? h t t p colon slash slash slashdot dot dot ...

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    I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
    1. Re:The important question... by Mitchell314 · · Score: 2

      Take it one step further, slashdot should get its own domain: http colon slash slash slash dot dot slash dot slash :P (http://slashdot.slashdot/)

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      I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
  7. Oh how I love at by djsmiley · · Score: 2

    So you propose a time no one else will go for...

    3.32am for example

    1. at 0332 curl
    2. ???
    3. Profit?

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    - http://www.milkme.co.uk
    1. Re:Oh how I love at by JWSmythe · · Score: 2

      Sure they will. And plenty of people will do exactly like you.

      Cron isn't precise enough. I've noticed variation of a few seconds for some reason. So you'd want to keep your clock set as precisely as possible (assuming they do too). Calculate the network latency and time to submit, and right at the same moment, you and everyone else will hit.. It still ranks with dumb luck to who gets in closest.

      I'm sorry, if I'm dropping 6 figures and planning on running a business with it, I don't want the deciding factor to if I or the competition succeed, to be dumb luck. I especially don't want to find out that someone gamed the system, because the server time was 1 minute 32.08 seconds off, and that was told to one of their friends to hit it at the skewed time instead of the correct time.

      You can, of course, assume that the folks at ICAAN have no friends, so there is little risk of that happening. :)

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      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  8. Sometimes the only way to be fair is by chance by c0lo · · Score: 2

    If a coin toss at the start of a game (make if finale) in a championship is good enough to decide which of the teams/players will start, why would not "digital archery" be good enough in this case as well?

    How else ICANN could be appear (and actually be) impartial/non-biased? Even more so because it does rely on the actual "players" to "toss their own coin", thus eliminating any doubt about "rigged equipment" from establishing "random winners"?

    --
    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    1. Re:Sometimes the only way to be fair is by chance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oddly enough, football IS a multi-million dollar business.

  9. California Lottery Laws by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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