I don't know how Illinois does it, but being in the State University of New York (SUNY) system, I can tell you that our surplus stuff ends up on ebay if it can't find new homes through our property management:
FWIW, that office actually handles (at least) state schools, prisons, and mental hospitals. Some interesting stuff gets sold through that group, to say the least...
They found 1,000 IT professionals that have offspring?
Re:Any one else remember selling them?
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iMac Turns 10
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· Score: 1
On the bright side, you rediscovered gravity.
I can't say I really doubted it beforehand, though.
Any one else remember selling them?
on
iMac Turns 10
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· Score: 1
I worked at a CompUSA when those beasts premiered. I remember when the new colors came out, and our store received something like 15 of each color prior to being allowed to sell them. Two things I remember from that:
First, before we were allowed to sell them, but had them in inventory (I know, highly unusual for CompUSA to have inventory), we had to enter them in with exorbitant prices. I think we had to list them at something like $15,000 so no sane person would want to buy them early.
Second, I remember moving them to top-stock (the catwalks that run the perimeter of the store, about 15 feet off the ground). We made a human chain up the rolling staircase to get them up there as quickly as possible. I was second or third from the top one time, and I recall finding out the hard way just how heavy those damned things were when the guy above me lost his grip and it fell straight on my head.
All platypus jokes aside, I for one am surprised to see that the platypus genome was completed. Not long ago scientists were remarking at how difficult it would be, considering the platypus has something like 10 sex chromosomes.
Add to that the fact that there aren't that many of them, in captivity or in the wild, and they generally prefer to stay away from us, and you get a rather difficult task just trying to get platypus DNA.
And of course, that also leave the question of what to build the genome from. Generally, when new genomes are built, other genomes are used for scaffolding, as a sort of guide for where genes might fall, how large they might be, etc... But then what organisms should be used for scaffolding when assembling the genome of an egg-laying mammal?
This is quite an accomplishment, I'd say. As someone who previously worked on plant genomics, I tip my hat to these scientists for their work.
Once again, you are inserting the term "policing" because that is what you want to read my post to be about. I have never asked for ICANN to do any policing, nor have I been asking for anyone else to do policing in their place.
I am simply asking that ICANN actually require the registrars that they have accredited to follow the terms of registrar accreditation. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
The examples that I gave are not because I am looking for enforcement for specific situations. Indeed, as I have told you now at least three times I am not looking for ICANN to police anything. I have accepted since the first post that law enforcement is not an ICANN responsibility, in spite of how badly you want to believe that I am saying otherwise.
I used those specific examples only because they are two cases where the whois data was obviously deficient in regards to the domain registrant. There are plenty of others as well, but I encounter these the most often. And I will say again, just as I have already said several times, I am not looking for ICANN to police the criminals behind the drug and piracy domains. I just want ICANN's customers - the registrars who sell domains in these specific TLDs - to be held accountable for keeping correct whois data. There is no expectation of law enforcement at that level. Indeed, since most of the time, the registrars are located (at least in theory) in other countries, law enforcement would be all but impossible for anyone in this country to do.
I'm asking for accurate whois records, thats all. It is something that ICANN claims to hold registrars responsible for, except they fail miserably at it.
ICANN's primary mission on the internet today, as best I can tell, is to assign accredited status to registrars so that they can sell domains within particular TLDs. I feel this is a worthwhile function, to keep DNS from turning into arbitrary mish-mash as could happen if every Tom, Dick, and Harry were allowed direct access to it. Being as they are the ones who decide who can perform this function, I agree that they should have some minimum requirements imposed on who can and who cannot. I am just asking them to enforce the requirements, rather than just take the form, the payment, and let registrars loose on their merry ways with no concern whatsoever for the records that said registrars keep.
Could you please just read what I wrote, for what it says, rather than what you want it to say?
I'm not sure where you're going with most of what you've just said. But I will start with your faulty assumption (again):
And of *course* you were asking for ICANN to police people who want to buy domain names
I urge you to go back to my original post and read it more carefully. At no point did I ask ICANN for policing of domain registrants. My complaint is that ICANN does a horse-shit job of regulating registrars.
Have you read the requirements for accredited registrars? They really don't ask much from the registrars, and really they don't even ask that accredited registrars keep up to the terms of accreditation.
I really don't care what domains are registered. There is plenty of registered garbage on the internet, and I don't care about the vast majority of it. What bothers me is that ICANN is failing in their duty to monitor who sells domains on the internet.
One particular example would be in the case of country-specific TLDs. Or rather, the use and non-use thereof. Obviously ICANN has no role in the TLDs of other countries, and I'm fine with that. People can buy, sell, and barter for other TLDs with whatever amount of information they want. However, when domains within the ICANN-regulated TLDs are sold, they really should have coherent whois data, and be managed by registrars who speak coherent English.
Instead, spammers and criminals take advantage of foreign registrars that are known to ignore the rules. Domains in the.com TLD that are purchased for the specific purpose of selling drugs or pirated software are often themselves purchase through these known shady registrars. Does nobody else find it interesting that these registrars will provide (bogus) whois data in English, and then apparently forget how to speak English when contacted about the domains? Remember also that the form for registrar accreditation has to be filled out in English.
The ICANN rules state how a registrar is supposed to go about their business if they want to sell from within specific TLDs. It says nothing about content or censorship, nor have I ever asked for that. Just because you have twice accused me of such does not make it true.
All I am asking is that ICANN start holding registrars accountable for keeping legit and accurate whois data, and be capable of communicating in the spoken language that is relevant to the country behind their TLD.
people like you in the Enemies-of-Evil business, would like it, ICANN shouldn't be in the censorship business, and for the most part they aren't
I never said that they were, nor did I ever ask them to be. My gripe with ICANN is in how they deal with registrars, or rather in how they don't.
If you go back and read what I posted, you will see that my gripe is in how they fail to actually enforce the regulations that they place on registrars. In particular, they require accredited registrars to provide accurate whois data. However, if you run a whois on a spamvertised domains, odds are the whois data for it is bogus, incomplete, or both. And the registrars know this, but yet willingly hand in the bogus and/or incomplete whois data.
My gripe is that ICANN continues to do nothing about it. I have never asked ICANN to get involved in censorship. I have read their statements on their website (have you?).
I'll take that as your admission that you haven't actually read what I have written. I can understand from reading what you have written that you have far too much pride to admit that you initiated, and maintained, your side of the argument on your mis-reading of what I said.
You have been forgiven for your mistake. Hopefully you've learned a little about your own assumptions and will read more carefully before going down the same path in the future.
i doubt that debating with you will bear any fruit.
Debating generally involves actually acknowledging that the other person has said something. You, on the other hand, have been just taking what you want to see from my posts, and then twisting it into something other than what I have said. Case in point:
law prevails. legally registrars are doing nothing wrong
I have not said anything about the registrars action (or lack thereof) regarding illegal activities. I have acknowledged several times (yet you have failed several times to read it) that ICANN has no legal authority. ICANN cannot do anything with criminal justice, as they are not involved in it anyways.
But I'd hate to take the wind out of your sails on that one. You seem to enjoy trying to say that my statements imply some sort of legal authority for ICANN, and who am I to stop you?
you cant go to a registrar and close them down because 'some guys are spamming through some domains in cape verde islands'
Kindly show where I asked for such a service. You won't be able to, because I never did. My request is that ICANN actually enforce their rules regarding accurate whois records from registrars. Being as most spamming domains are registered with bogus whois data, it would require the registrars to clean up their act or stop selling spamvertised domains in the.com,.org,.net,... TLDs.
its seems that you have a limited understanding of law
It is clear that you have almost zero understanding of my posts, or of ICANN and their responsibilities. I encourage you to read the registrar accreditation agreement that I provided a link to earlier.
Feel free also to actually read my posts that you feel you are replying to, and then come back and apologize for your astonishing misunderstanding of what I said. I'll be waiting, though I certainly won't be holding my breath.
the idea is, there are many things in the world that we are utilizing to an extreme extent, and they all have their downsides.
Are you trying to make a point with that statement, or are you just trying to fillibuster the conversation? That statement has virtually no application to the topic or the thread.
If you read back to what I originally said, and take a look at what ICANN's duties are, you'll see that analogies are not needed. Everything I have been saying has been in the context of ICANN's mission to regulate internet registrars. My argument is that ICANN is failing on this mission and instead they are coming up with flimsy decisions like this one that do little to serve the larger internet community.
What I am looking for ICANN to do is to actually take action against registrars who intentionally hold bad records for.com,.org,.net,... TLDs. Many of the spamvertised domains out there currently have bad registration data, and the registrars know it. ICANN's regulations for registrar accreditation states that registrars have to maintain accurate records.
It's that simple, really.
you are taking things out of their context here. domain tasting is destructive for someone who needs to purchase domain names. however spam is a minor annoyance for someone using email.
Well, being as I started this thread, the context would be what I started discussing. And if you look back, you'll see that I was talking about the number of people affected by spam versus the much smaller number of people affected by domain tasting. Your statement of taking things out of context is itself out of context.
many sites, communities, services, businesses are not able to reach who would be needing/using them easily because of domain tasters.
That is only accurate for groups that are still looking to register domains. How many groups or people are still looking to do this, particularly in comparison to those who already have done it? You haven't really provided any actual data for your argument, in spite of you having changed the title to "percentages".
a national motorbike enthusiast organization
First of all, if by "national" you are referring to a different country than the US, then ICANN is completely irrelevant. ICANN has no control over other countries' TLDs. Hence their rules against domain tasting would be irrelevant anyways.
furthermore many older or less web savvy people just give up when they cannot access a web site because they dont remember its domain name.
That's right, because so many people that use the internet have never heard of google or any other internet search engine, right?
Ahh, yes. I guess that was that humor thing. I really thought it was extinct here on slashdot, I haven't seen it in some time. The volume of nonfactual noise has been far too high around here lately.
My bad, I'll try to laugh appropriately next time.
let me give an example and answer both questions of yours, one of which was 'how did you come to that'.
The question I just posed to you is how did you come to conclude that I am "escaping to irrelevant arguments in defense".
You utterly failed to answer that question. But we can continue anyways.
compared to spam, domain tasting affects anyone who intend to use domain names
Domain tasting can affect people who want to purchase new domain names. It does not affect everyone who intend to use domain names, as you state. People who already own domain names are not affected by domain tasting, since their domains are already registered.
And you are still ignoring the fact that the total portion of internet users looking to purchase new domain names is minuscule in comparison to the total number of people who use email and receive spam.
Furthermore, the cost of domain tasting is not felt by the majority of internet users. Internet users do not suffer any appreciable expense as a result of the small portion of users that are impacted by domain tasting.
On the other hand, every user on the internet is paying an indirect cost (in one way or another) for spam.
excuse me but you are just escaping to irrelevant arguments as defense.
I'd be interested in knowing how you came to that conclusion.
I began this thread by stating that more people are affected by spam than by domain tasting. I have stayed on topic with that throughout. Every statement I've made since you replied to this part of the thread has been on how spam affects more people, more significantly, than domain tasting.
I guess if you don't like the argument, you don't have to. But that doesn't make it irrelevant just because you disagree with what I've said.
Have you even looked at the ICANN web site? Read the rules for registrars that I already pointed you to.
For that matter, read what I already said. You are talking about crime, and I am talking about ICANN registrar regulations. The two are not the same. ICANN is the corporation that regulates who can sell domains within certain TLDs. It doesn't matter if the activity is criminal anywhere or not, ICANN's ability to act against registrars is based on the registrar accreditation process and requirements.
Kindly take a deep breath, read my posts, and think about what I actually said, rather than what you read it to say, before you respond again. Not once did I say anything about ICANN acting as a law enforcement agent, which is what you appear to believe me to have said.
I just want ICANN to enforce the rules that they have set for registrars. Their rules have nothing to do with whether a website is used for legal or nefarious purposes, rather they are concerned with how registrars maintain client records and accountability.
Asking ICANN to police the legality of online vendors
There's no policing in my statement. You placed it there. I am asking that ICANN actually enforce the registrar policies that they state on their own website for registrars seeking accredited status. If you read that, you'll see it has nothing to do with legality or lack thereof. Indeed, it has nothing to do with vendors, either. It is all about the registrars, which is where my beef stands with ICANN. There are plenty of registrars that have attained the accredited status (allowing them to sell in the most popular TLDs), and yet act in blatant violation of the agreement that ICANN claims they are bound to.
In other words: get a clue, ICANN is neither empowered nor equipped to act in any sort of law enforcement capacity
In other words: read my post.
I never asked for them to act in any sort of law enforcement capacity. If you read my posts, you'll see me state several times that I know they are not able to do such a thing. I am just asking that they actually enforce the rules that they state - really the EULA or AUP that they have established for the registrars that they give the accredited status to.
people who are using decent services like gmail, or serious web hosts for email do not receive any noticeable amount of spam
Those are just the effects of filtering you are talking about at that point. You are ignoring the storage and computational costs of those filters. You are also ignoring the false positive effects of the same. You cannot just discard the impact of spam because you like your filters.
And once you take into account the traffic, storage, and computational costs of spam, and how essentially everyone has to pay to deal with it one way or another, you'll see that it has a much larger impact than domain tasting. The real effects of spam hit everyone who has an email address. The real effects of domain tasting really only hit the portion of the internet users that are looking to purchase a new domain name.
This all depends on what TLD you place your domain under. If you buy a domain that is a.com,.net,.org, or any of the others that are owned by ICANN, then their rules apply regardless of what country you are in.
However, if you actually read the rules, you'll see that they apply to registrars, and not domain owners. So really it doesn't matter what you do in the Cayman Islands with your domain, as far as ICANN is concerned. However, if your registrar is providing bogus data for your registration, then they are in violation of the terms they are bound to with ICANN if the domain was sold under one of those TLDs.
On the other hand, if it is under a Cayman TLD, then ICANN has no power whatsoever.
What you are missing in your rant is that ICANN is the final arbiter of registration for certain TLDs. They have the power (though almost never use it) to revoke the ability of accredited registrars to sell domains under their TLDs. Though ICANN, as best I know, has never actually de-registered a domain themselves.
squatting is affecting EVERYone, whether they are startups trying to get a good domain or ordinary people trying to set up a family album site.
I disagree. How many people who are using the internet are looking to purchase a domain name, if they don't already own one? There are plenty of users on the internet who have zero interest in owning a domain name - for that matter there is still a large portion of internet users who wouldn't even know what to do with their own domain name, if it were given to them for free this afternoon.
On the other hand, though, how many email addresses don't receive spam of some sort anymore? The statistics of how much spam (as a percent of total internet email) is sent are staggering.
I don't see how you could possibly say that more people are affected by squatting than spam. Especially when you consider that the issue that ICANN is actually working on here is domain "tasting", not domain squatting. I could certainly agree that people who are typo-squatting are having a negative impact, but I can't see domain tasting having a significant impact on a meaningful portion of the internet user population.
ICANN has the ability to strip a registrar of their ability to sell domains in many of the largest TLDs. Indeed, that is exactly what the accreditation is about - it allows a registrar to sell domains in those TLDs. ICANN is supposed to - though almost never does - strip a registrar of their accreditation and ability to sell these domains when they fail to obey the rules.
It is by no means as punitive as a legal action, but it can be crippling for a registrar to lose their ability to sell.com domains, for example.
They can take your domain away if you provide false information on your whois Who can take your domain away?
ICANN won't do it. I can tell you that because I've filled out the bad WHOIS data form for dozens of domains and they've never been taken away by ICANN.
The registrars generally won't do it, either. Hell, they're making money off of the customer whose bad data they submitted. What is the incentive for them to fix it, unless the customer asked them to?
The problem lies with ICANN. They have set rules, but then they don't actually enforce them. There are registrars with demonstrated records of keeping bad WHOIS data - and of course the more prolific internet criminals know who they are. But yet these bad registrars never face any real consequences from ICANN.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know how Illinois does it, but being in the State University of New York (SUNY) system, I can tell you that our surplus stuff ends up on ebay if it can't find new homes through our property management:
nyssurplus-albany
FWIW, that office actually handles (at least) state schools, prisons, and mental hospitals. Some interesting stuff gets sold through that group, to say the least...
They found 1,000 IT professionals that have offspring?
I can't say I really doubted it beforehand, though.
I worked at a CompUSA when those beasts premiered. I remember when the new colors came out, and our store received something like 15 of each color prior to being allowed to sell them. Two things I remember from that:
First, before we were allowed to sell them, but had them in inventory (I know, highly unusual for CompUSA to have inventory), we had to enter them in with exorbitant prices. I think we had to list them at something like $15,000 so no sane person would want to buy them early.
Second, I remember moving them to top-stock (the catwalks that run the perimeter of the store, about 15 feet off the ground). We made a human chain up the rolling staircase to get them up there as quickly as possible. I was second or third from the top one time, and I recall finding out the hard way just how heavy those damned things were when the guy above me lost his grip and it fell straight on my head.
Yeah, I sure loved the iMac - didn't you?
All platypus jokes aside, I for one am surprised to see that the platypus genome was completed. Not long ago scientists were remarking at how difficult it would be, considering the platypus has something like 10 sex chromosomes.
Add to that the fact that there aren't that many of them, in captivity or in the wild, and they generally prefer to stay away from us, and you get a rather difficult task just trying to get platypus DNA.
And of course, that also leave the question of what to build the genome from. Generally, when new genomes are built, other genomes are used for scaffolding, as a sort of guide for where genes might fall, how large they might be, etc... But then what organisms should be used for scaffolding when assembling the genome of an egg-laying mammal?
This is quite an accomplishment, I'd say. As someone who previously worked on plant genomics, I tip my hat to these scientists for their work.
And for those who have access to the journal Nature, here are the important links:
Abstract (should be accessible to everyone)
Full Text, HTML (subscribers)
Full Text, PDF (subscribers)
Editor's Summary (maybe for everyone?)
Supplementary Information (subscribers)
Once again, you are inserting the term "policing" because that is what you want to read my post to be about. I have never asked for ICANN to do any policing, nor have I been asking for anyone else to do policing in their place.
I am simply asking that ICANN actually require the registrars that they have accredited to follow the terms of registrar accreditation. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
The examples that I gave are not because I am looking for enforcement for specific situations. Indeed, as I have told you now at least three times I am not looking for ICANN to police anything. I have accepted since the first post that law enforcement is not an ICANN responsibility, in spite of how badly you want to believe that I am saying otherwise.
I used those specific examples only because they are two cases where the whois data was obviously deficient in regards to the domain registrant. There are plenty of others as well, but I encounter these the most often. And I will say again, just as I have already said several times, I am not looking for ICANN to police the criminals behind the drug and piracy domains. I just want ICANN's customers - the registrars who sell domains in these specific TLDs - to be held accountable for keeping correct whois data. There is no expectation of law enforcement at that level. Indeed, since most of the time, the registrars are located (at least in theory) in other countries, law enforcement would be all but impossible for anyone in this country to do.
I'm asking for accurate whois records, thats all. It is something that ICANN claims to hold registrars responsible for, except they fail miserably at it.
ICANN's primary mission on the internet today, as best I can tell, is to assign accredited status to registrars so that they can sell domains within particular TLDs. I feel this is a worthwhile function, to keep DNS from turning into arbitrary mish-mash as could happen if every Tom, Dick, and Harry were allowed direct access to it. Being as they are the ones who decide who can perform this function, I agree that they should have some minimum requirements imposed on who can and who cannot. I am just asking them to enforce the requirements, rather than just take the form, the payment, and let registrars loose on their merry ways with no concern whatsoever for the records that said registrars keep.
Could you please just read what I wrote, for what it says, rather than what you want it to say?
grand theft auto iv versus polio
It appears one of them gets their ass handed to them.
I hadn't had a good laugh in a while. Grand Theft Auto IV vs. Polio is a good one.
Next could you evaluate Mohammad Ali versus Anti-lock brakes for us?
And of *course* you were asking for ICANN to police people who want to buy domain names
I urge you to go back to my original post and read it more carefully. At no point did I ask ICANN for policing of domain registrants. My complaint is that ICANN does a horse-shit job of regulating registrars.
Have you read the requirements for accredited registrars? They really don't ask much from the registrars, and really they don't even ask that accredited registrars keep up to the terms of accreditation.
I really don't care what domains are registered. There is plenty of registered garbage on the internet, and I don't care about the vast majority of it. What bothers me is that ICANN is failing in their duty to monitor who sells domains on the internet.
One particular example would be in the case of country-specific TLDs. Or rather, the use and non-use thereof. Obviously ICANN has no role in the TLDs of other countries, and I'm fine with that. People can buy, sell, and barter for other TLDs with whatever amount of information they want. However, when domains within the ICANN-regulated TLDs are sold, they really should have coherent whois data, and be managed by registrars who speak coherent English.
Instead, spammers and criminals take advantage of foreign registrars that are known to ignore the rules. Domains in the
The ICANN rules state how a registrar is supposed to go about their business if they want to sell from within specific TLDs. It says nothing about content or censorship, nor have I ever asked for that. Just because you have twice accused me of such does not make it true.
All I am asking is that ICANN start holding registrars accountable for keeping legit and accurate whois data, and be capable of communicating in the spoken language that is relevant to the country behind their TLD.
people like you in the Enemies-of-Evil business, would like it, ICANN shouldn't be in the censorship business, and for the most part they aren't
I never said that they were, nor did I ever ask them to be. My gripe with ICANN is in how they deal with registrars, or rather in how they don't.
If you go back and read what I posted, you will see that my gripe is in how they fail to actually enforce the regulations that they place on registrars. In particular, they require accredited registrars to provide accurate whois data. However, if you run a whois on a spamvertised domains, odds are the whois data for it is bogus, incomplete, or both. And the registrars know this, but yet willingly hand in the bogus and/or incomplete whois data.
My gripe is that ICANN continues to do nothing about it. I have never asked ICANN to get involved in censorship. I have read their statements on their website (have you?).
I'll take that as your admission that you haven't actually read what I have written. I can understand from reading what you have written that you have far too much pride to admit that you initiated, and maintained, your side of the argument on your mis-reading of what I said.
You have been forgiven for your mistake. Hopefully you've learned a little about your own assumptions and will read more carefully before going down the same path in the future.
Debating generally involves actually acknowledging that the other person has said something. You, on the other hand, have been just taking what you want to see from my posts, and then twisting it into something other than what I have said. Case in point:
law prevails. legally registrars are doing nothing wrong
I have not said anything about the registrars action (or lack thereof) regarding illegal activities. I have acknowledged several times (yet you have failed several times to read it) that ICANN has no legal authority. ICANN cannot do anything with criminal justice, as they are not involved in it anyways.
But I'd hate to take the wind out of your sails on that one. You seem to enjoy trying to say that my statements imply some sort of legal authority for ICANN, and who am I to stop you?
you cant go to a registrar and close them down because 'some guys are spamming through some domains in cape verde islands'
Kindly show where I asked for such a service. You won't be able to, because I never did. My request is that ICANN actually enforce their rules regarding accurate whois records from registrars. Being as most spamming domains are registered with bogus whois data, it would require the registrars to clean up their act or stop selling spamvertised domains in the
its seems that you have a limited understanding of law
It is clear that you have almost zero understanding of my posts, or of ICANN and their responsibilities. I encourage you to read the registrar accreditation agreement that I provided a link to earlier.
Feel free also to actually read my posts that you feel you are replying to, and then come back and apologize for your astonishing misunderstanding of what I said. I'll be waiting, though I certainly won't be holding my breath.
Are you trying to make a point with that statement, or are you just trying to fillibuster the conversation? That statement has virtually no application to the topic or the thread.
If you read back to what I originally said, and take a look at what ICANN's duties are, you'll see that analogies are not needed. Everything I have been saying has been in the context of ICANN's mission to regulate internet registrars. My argument is that ICANN is failing on this mission and instead they are coming up with flimsy decisions like this one that do little to serve the larger internet community.
What I am looking for ICANN to do is to actually take action against registrars who intentionally hold bad records for
It's that simple, really.
you are taking things out of their context here. domain tasting is destructive for someone who needs to purchase domain names. however spam is a minor annoyance for someone using email.
Well, being as I started this thread, the context would be what I started discussing. And if you look back, you'll see that I was talking about the number of people affected by spam versus the much smaller number of people affected by domain tasting. Your statement of taking things out of context is itself out of context.
many sites, communities, services, businesses are not able to reach who would be needing/using them easily because of domain tasters.
That is only accurate for groups that are still looking to register domains. How many groups or people are still looking to do this, particularly in comparison to those who already have done it? You haven't really provided any actual data for your argument, in spite of you having changed the title to "percentages".
a national motorbike enthusiast organization
First of all, if by "national" you are referring to a different country than the US, then ICANN is completely irrelevant. ICANN has no control over other countries' TLDs. Hence their rules against domain tasting would be irrelevant anyways.
furthermore many older or less web savvy people just give up when they cannot access a web site because they dont remember its domain name.
That's right, because so many people that use the internet have never heard of google or any other internet search engine, right?
Ahh, yes. I guess that was that humor thing. I really thought it was extinct here on slashdot, I haven't seen it in some time. The volume of nonfactual noise has been far too high around here lately.
My bad, I'll try to laugh appropriately next time.
The question I just posed to you is how did you come to conclude that I am "escaping to irrelevant arguments in defense".
You utterly failed to answer that question. But we can continue anyways.
compared to spam, domain tasting affects anyone who intend to use domain names
Domain tasting can affect people who want to purchase new domain names. It does not affect everyone who intend to use domain names, as you state. People who already own domain names are not affected by domain tasting, since their domains are already registered.
And you are still ignoring the fact that the total portion of internet users looking to purchase new domain names is minuscule in comparison to the total number of people who use email and receive spam.
Furthermore, the cost of domain tasting is not felt by the majority of internet users. Internet users do not suffer any appreciable expense as a result of the small portion of users that are impacted by domain tasting.
On the other hand, every user on the internet is paying an indirect cost (in one way or another) for spam.
rely on humans to sort millions of emails
I'd be interested in knowing how you came to that conclusion.
I began this thread by stating that more people are affected by spam than by domain tasting. I have stayed on topic with that throughout. Every statement I've made since you replied to this part of the thread has been on how spam affects more people, more significantly, than domain tasting.
I guess if you don't like the argument, you don't have to. But that doesn't make it irrelevant just because you disagree with what I've said.
Have you even looked at the ICANN web site? Read the rules for registrars that I already pointed you to.
For that matter, read what I already said. You are talking about crime, and I am talking about ICANN registrar regulations. The two are not the same. ICANN is the corporation that regulates who can sell domains within certain TLDs. It doesn't matter if the activity is criminal anywhere or not, ICANN's ability to act against registrars is based on the registrar accreditation process and requirements.
Kindly take a deep breath, read my posts, and think about what I actually said, rather than what you read it to say, before you respond again. Not once did I say anything about ICANN acting as a law enforcement agent, which is what you appear to believe me to have said.
I just want ICANN to enforce the rules that they have set for registrars. Their rules have nothing to do with whether a website is used for legal or nefarious purposes, rather they are concerned with how registrars maintain client records and accountability.
There's no policing in my statement. You placed it there. I am asking that ICANN actually enforce the registrar policies that they state on their own website for registrars seeking accredited status. If you read that, you'll see it has nothing to do with legality or lack thereof. Indeed, it has nothing to do with vendors, either. It is all about the registrars, which is where my beef stands with ICANN. There are plenty of registrars that have attained the accredited status (allowing them to sell in the most popular TLDs), and yet act in blatant violation of the agreement that ICANN claims they are bound to.
In other words: get a clue, ICANN is neither empowered nor equipped to act in any sort of law enforcement capacity
In other words: read my post.
I never asked for them to act in any sort of law enforcement capacity. If you read my posts, you'll see me state several times that I know they are not able to do such a thing. I am just asking that they actually enforce the rules that they state - really the EULA or AUP that they have established for the registrars that they give the accredited status to.
Those are just the effects of filtering you are talking about at that point. You are ignoring the storage and computational costs of those filters. You are also ignoring the false positive effects of the same. You cannot just discard the impact of spam because you like your filters.
And once you take into account the traffic, storage, and computational costs of spam, and how essentially everyone has to pay to deal with it one way or another, you'll see that it has a much larger impact than domain tasting. The real effects of spam hit everyone who has an email address. The real effects of domain tasting really only hit the portion of the internet users that are looking to purchase a new domain name.
This all depends on what TLD you place your domain under. If you buy a domain that is a .com, .net, .org, or any of the others that are owned by ICANN, then their rules apply regardless of what country you are in.
However, if you actually read the rules, you'll see that they apply to registrars, and not domain owners. So really it doesn't matter what you do in the Cayman Islands with your domain, as far as ICANN is concerned. However, if your registrar is providing bogus data for your registration, then they are in violation of the terms they are bound to with ICANN if the domain was sold under one of those TLDs.
On the other hand, if it is under a Cayman TLD, then ICANN has no power whatsoever.
What you are missing in your rant is that ICANN is the final arbiter of registration for certain TLDs. They have the power (though almost never use it) to revoke the ability of accredited registrars to sell domains under their TLDs. Though ICANN, as best I know, has never actually de-registered a domain themselves.
I disagree. How many people who are using the internet are looking to purchase a domain name, if they don't already own one? There are plenty of users on the internet who have zero interest in owning a domain name - for that matter there is still a large portion of internet users who wouldn't even know what to do with their own domain name, if it were given to them for free this afternoon.
On the other hand, though, how many email addresses don't receive spam of some sort anymore? The statistics of how much spam (as a percent of total internet email) is sent are staggering.
I don't see how you could possibly say that more people are affected by squatting than spam. Especially when you consider that the issue that ICANN is actually working on here is domain "tasting", not domain squatting. I could certainly agree that people who are typo-squatting are having a negative impact, but I can't see domain tasting having a significant impact on a meaningful portion of the internet user population.
ICANN has the ability to strip a registrar of their ability to sell domains in many of the largest TLDs. Indeed, that is exactly what the accreditation is about - it allows a registrar to sell domains in those TLDs. ICANN is supposed to - though almost never does - strip a registrar of their accreditation and ability to sell these domains when they fail to obey the rules.
.com domains, for example.
It is by no means as punitive as a legal action, but it can be crippling for a registrar to lose their ability to sell
Since when is .il in Europe?
Yes, it would appear that the
Who can take your domain away?
ICANN won't do it. I can tell you that because I've filled out the bad WHOIS data form for dozens of domains and they've never been taken away by ICANN.
The registrars generally won't do it, either. Hell, they're making money off of the customer whose bad data they submitted. What is the incentive for them to fix it, unless the customer asked them to?
The problem lies with ICANN. They have set rules, but then they don't actually enforce them. There are registrars with demonstrated records of keeping bad WHOIS data - and of course the more prolific internet criminals know who they are. But yet these bad registrars never face any real consequences from ICANN.