The Register: "Sex.com has been sold for $14,000,000."

If you've been following the practical problems of The Practical Nomad in getting an Independent Review out of ICANN, you'll want to read the latest salvo from ICANN's General Counsel. Brief background: At the recent ICANN Public Forum in Vancouver, ICANN's Board Chair Vint Cerf pledged to a patient yet dogged Edward Hasbrouck that "GENERAL COUNSEL IS PREPARED TO PROVIDE YOU WITH THE DETAILS OF HOW TO GO ABOUT THIS PROCEDURE [AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW]."

At the ICANN Board meeting the following day, ICANN's Counsel read a letter to Mr. Hasbrouck stating "PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR FORMAL IRP REQUEST IN WRITING, AND WE WILL FORWARD YOUR REQUEST TO THE INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR DISPUTE RESOLUTION, WHICH ICANN HAS DESIGNATED TO PROVIDE INDEPENDENT REVIEW SERVICES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE BYLAWS." (emphasis added). Mr. Hasbrouck immediately did so, agreeing (under protest) to ICANN's financial preconditions and attaching his previous Independent Review request from months earlier.

ICANN's official response is truly mind-boggling. If you follow ICANN closely, you really ought to read it. It has enormous impact on the entire ICANN community. As background, remember that the IRP provided by the ICANN Bylaws provides that "Any person materially affected by a decision or action by the Board that he or she asserts is inconsistent with the Articles of Incorporation or Bylaws may submit a request for independent review of that decision or action." In its response to Mr. Hasbrouck, ICANN takes the unreasonably narrow view that only Board "resolutions" are reviewable by Independent Review. It further claims that ICANN's operating "procedures" are not reviewable, even when they were necessary precursors to ICANN Board actions or followed directly from such actions. Finally, and most troublesome of all, ICANN claims that Staff actions that are inconsistent with, or even in direct violation of, ICANN's Bylaws are never reviewable, even when those Staff actions informed or followed from Board decision-making.

To top off ICANN's insult to what remains of its own integrity, ICANN declines to forward Mr. Hasbrouck's request to an Independent Review panel, despite the public promises it made to him in Vancouver and Mr. Hasbrouck's agreement to ICANN's preconditions. Instead, ICANN insists that Mr. Hasbrouck redraft his request and resubmit it in a legalistic format that is specified nowhere on ICANN's website.

We all need to stand on the side of Edward Hasbrouck on this issue. Whether he's right or wrong on his ultimate claim matters less than the precedent ICANN will set by construing its Independent Review provisions as reviewable of almost nothing.

I've always wondered why registrars and registries didn't open up satellite offices in the Marina Towers. It seems to me that you might find synergies in sharing space and lunch quarters with the folks at ICANN. Perhaps I was looking at the wrong coast though: "GoDaddy.com, an ICANN accredited registrar, today announced the opening of its new office of Government Relations in Washington." Or is it GoDaddy that moved to the wrong coast?

Sometimes it takes a wombat to point out one of life's fundamental truths. (via Mighty Girl).

Scott Bradner: "The Internet succeeded because no one in the traditional telecom industry believed in its underlying technology or its design philosophy. They still do not, but are being backed into a corner, and in response are trying to change the Internet into something that they can better control...." A good reminder that it's not just governments that are seeking greater control. Read the whole article for the disclaimer at the bottom. ;-)

I'm still trying to get my head around the data compiled by William Slawski in this paper, excerpted on CircleID. A friend pointed me to it when I mentioned CircleID's Slashdot-style interview of Vint Cerf. He said the previous article was much more interesting...and possibly more relevant to the subject of new TLDs. Here's the elevator pitch: Mr. Slawski did searches on Google to determine which TLD strings were linked and indexed most often. The results have very little relationship to the number of registrations in the TLD zone file. For example, .GOV isn't a big TLD in terms of numbers of registrations, but the content associated with .GOV domains is highly relevant in terms of what users want to find in search engines (at least according to Google). Look at the relatively poor performance in this data set of the "new" TLDs, like .BIZ and .INFO. What does this mean?

Following her recent post asking for input on the new TLD process, ICANN Board Member Susan Crawford asks for input on auctions: "I'm looking for comments so that I can understand the arguments about auctions better...."

Here's an absolutely phenomenal thread over on CircleID: Ask Vint Cerf questions about new top-level domains, slashdot style. The best ten questions will be forwarded to Dr. Cerf, who will answer them online. (and Slashdot has its own thread on the CircleID thread as well.)

According to Afilias, it's better that it was before. Better, stronger, faster....

Without casting blame in any direction -- at either GoDaddy or the Nectartech.com Hosting Service -- you might be interested in this thread at NANOG and these MP3 files of service calls to GoDaddy Customer Service (Call One MP3 / Call Two MP3). (FWIW, the NANOG posts seem to be running in favor of GoDaddy's actions.) The customer's side of the story is on Marc Perkel's blog. At bottom, GoDaddy's abuse department apparently took a domain name offline after discovering that it was the source of phishing activity. Because the domain name also was used for the DNS servers for a hosting company, all of the host's clients went down too.

From the Edinburgh Evening News: "The bulk of Britain's small businesses have snubbed the .tv and .biz internet suffixes introduced in 2000, branding them either 'cheap' or 'unprofessional'. A survey of SMEs found they had less credibility than the more established generic top level domain (TLD) identifications such as .com and .co.uk....."

ICANN's newest Board member asks a question about new TLDs: "My personal question, one asked not on behalf of anyone else (and of course you are welcome to reject the question) is whether there is strongly-held opposition to the following points...."

From an Afilias Press Release: "SITA SC, the only global communication services integrator dedicated to the travel and transportation industry (TTI), today announced that it has signed an agreement with Afilias who will provide registry services for .aero, the top level domain (TLD) of the aviation industry." And, you know, I hear folks are actually using these new-fangled TLDs....

According to NetNames, effective January 10, 2006, registrations at the second-level in .PK will be available first-come, first-served.

Tim Ruiz, GoDaddy's representative in all ICANN fora, is the guest on this week's Radio GoDaddy, talking about IDNs (the discussion starts at 8 minutes and 50 seconds into the podcast).

If you're interested in subscribing to the weekly Radio GoDaddy podcast, here are the links: RSS Feed /  iTunes .

The first meeting of 2006 for ICANN's Board of Directors will take place on Monday, January 10th. Here's the agenda:

• Consideration of .UA Redelegation Request
• Consideration of .CX Redelegation Request
• Extensions of Deadlines for gTLD Agreement Renewal Processes
• Board Meetings Committee's Recommendation regarding ICANN Meetings
• Board Conflict of Interest Committee's Recommendation Regarding Proposed COI Questionnaire
• Update on Discussions on Proposed VeriSign Settlement
• Discussion regarding Board Participation in New GTLD Policy Development Process
• Other Business

If you need to reach me this afternoon, I'll be in Pasadena with 100,000 of my closest friends. My game prediction: USC 38, Texas 17. Fight On!

An opinion piece by Harold Furchgott-Roth, former FCC Commissioner in the United States and current policy consultant, is running in some U.S. newspapers. It's titled "How the White House Defended the Internet." It's worth reading, if only to see how the extreme right in the U.S. sees the Internet Governance debate.

Readers of this weblog will recall that I was no fan of UN oversight of the DNS and IP address allocation, but I can find little in this editorial with which I would agree. For example, Furchgott-Roth describes the call to bridge the global digital divide as "redistributive propaganda," as if developed nations had no independent interest in communicating with the developing world. And he equates the IGF's mission of fostering "dialogue on public policy and development issues" as a thinly disguised attempt to place the United Nations in control of the Internet instead of as an effort to develop best practices to respond to common problems.

From ICANN's At Large Advistory Committee: "Welcome to ICANN At-Large!  ICANN’s Interim At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) reviewed your organization’s application for 'At-Large Structure' (ALS) certification and determined that the criteria for ALS certification has been met.  The ALAC is pleased to inform you that WEB405 has been certified as an 'At-Large Structure.'"

Wahoo!

Happy 2006! I'll have a few predictions for the new year in a few days, but in the meantime, here are good wishes from my family to you and yours in the form of our annual "New Year" video.

Best wishes to all.