Bartle Breese Bull writing in Foreign Policy: "In 2004, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, asked ICANN to free it up for the incoming Iraqi government, but the organization balked at handing it over, arguing Iraq was still too unstable. For months, ICANN refused to consider several requests by Iraq’s government for the domain’s return...."

Internet Pro Radio is on the air. Again. Finally. But no music....that's either a welcome relief or a minor disappointment. Today's show covers podcasting and a few thoughts on .XXX.

Show notes are over in my OPML weblog.

Here's a really terrific post from Mark Cuban about his opinion of Register.com's stock and the company's prospects. Worth reading.

Public Interest Registry: "Welcome to the inaugural issue of The World of .ORG, a quarterly e-newsletter with information and resources for the .ORG community."

By the way, I like the new PIR website. Very nice.

Tucows Press Release: "Tucows Inc. is pleased to announce that it has completed the public offering of 22,225,000 shares of common stock...."

Full disclosure: After I read that the placement was complete, I bought more TCOW TCX stock.

FWIW, in the Internet and Technology arena, I also own AAPL, NSR, RHAT, and YHOO. I like to think that these don't affect what I write here, but with this disclosure, you can make your own decision.

Free wi-fi in McCarren Airport! I don't really have anything to say... just posting because I can.

I took this photograph last year at Eaton Canyon. It's now featured on the Sierra Club website for a Los Angeles County event next month. Cool!

Jim Wagner:  "Interest in the relatively new global top-level domains is showing signs of taking off in the Internet community, according a to report published by VeriSign Wednesday. The Mountain View, Calif.-based registry company's quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief shows registration gains for .biz (2 percent), .info (5 percent) and .name (1 percent)."

If you were following the issue of improving the transparency of the ICANN Board's decision-making during the Luxembourg meeting, a newly adopted resolution designed to provide additional information about Board decisions no doubt piqued your interest. Would the new resolution make a difference? I was skeptical in Luxembourg, but I held out hope.

Now that we've had a chance to put the new resolution to a test, let's review the transparency of the Board's latest decisions, taken last week in a closed telephonic Board meeting. The hot subject of the day was the redelegation of .IQ.

Shortly before its telephonic Board meeting on 28 July 2005, ICANN published an agenda for its meeting with the following item: "Consideration of .IQ Redelegation Request." The .IQ Redelegation request itself wasn't published, nor did ICANN publish an IANA report on the request. For transparency purposes, let's contrast that with the agenda for the February, 2002 Board meeting, when ICANN considered the redelegation request for .JP. Prior to that meeting, ICANN publicly posted an IANA report on the .JP redelegaton, together with the actual redelegation request.

The Board's telephonic meeting was held as scheduled on 28 July 2005. On 3 August 2005, ICANN published the following resolution to its website, which I'll copy here typos and all:

Redelegation of .IQ (Iraq)

Following a detailed discussion of the proposed .KZ redelegation, the Following discussion, Michael Palage moved and Thomas Niles seconded the following resolution:

Whereas, the .IQ top-level domain was originally delegated on 9 May 1997.

Whereas, ICANN has received a request for the redelegation of .IQ to the National Communications and Media Commission (NCMC) of Iraq.

Whereas, ICANN has reviewed the request, and has determined that the proposed redelegation would be in the best interests of the local and global Internet communities.

Resolved (05.__) that the proposed redelegation of the .IQ ccTLD to the National Communications and Media Commission (NCMC) of Iraq is approved.

The Board approved the resolution by a vote of 9-0, with one abstention by Raimundo Beca. Mouhamet Diop, Alejandro Pisanty, Njeri Rionge and Peter Dengate Thrush were not present during the vote. Veni Markovski indicated his support for the resolution earlier in the meeting, but was not present for the roll call vote.

The Meeting was adjourned at 6:59 AM, Pacific Daylight Time.

No IANA Report (in fact none have been posted in over a year) . No copy of the actual redelegation request. And Google tells us very little about the so-called "National Communications and Media Commission (NCMC) of Iraq." (The best information on the NCMC is here.)

So how, exactly, has ICANN increased transparency for its decision-making?

How, exactly, is the public better off now than it was in February, 2002 when ICANN made its .JP redelegation?

I'm mystified. We're moving backwards, not forwards. And the ICANN staff is almost three times bigger now than it was in February, 2002, so this is not a question of inadequate resources.

U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) shows some love to the folks at the U.N. and the WGIG.