Updated News From the IGF. Here's an update to my blog post on the IGF agenda immediately below. After meetings in Geneva, the proposed topics have been amended to read as follows:


You can read the entire thread and follow the changes to the draft here.
Earlier and Now Out-Dated: Qusai Al-Shatti, from the Civil Society delegation to the Internet Governance Forum's planning committee, reports from Geneva that the IGF leadership has tabled six major themes for possible inclusion on the inaugural agenda for the IGF in Athens later this year: (a) Cybersecurity and Cybercrimes,u covering issues like Spam; (b) Enabling environment for Intellectual Property Rights and Privacy; (c) Multilingualism, covering Content and IDNs; (d) Transparent and equitable Internet resource management; (e) Affordability and availability covering equal access to information and knowledge; (f) Promotion of open standards, open architecture and open source software.
Almost a week into the public comment phase on ICANN's $31,000,000 Budget and no one has a comment? Does this mean the budget is acceptable to everyone or that everyone understands that the current public comment opportunity wouldn't possibly yield a substantial reduction in the budget?
If you haven't read the .XXX FOIA documents, linked from this post on ICANNWatch, you really ought to do so. They provide a fascinating window into the way the U.S. Department of Commerce, ICANN Staff and the GAC leadership work together behind the scenes.
Speaking of .XXX, here is a really oddly sourced article about the .XXX FOIA lawsuit. The reporter has comments from three California lawyers, at three different large firms, with no comments from ICANN, ICM Registry, or the DOC and no discussion of the actual source documents. Knowing something about the way large law firm marketing departments work, the article makes me think its purpose was to "place quotes" from attorneys at the big firms rather than inform readers.
.Mobi sunrise registrations launched yesterday. Here's the list of .MOBI accredited registrars. General registration opens on August 28th.
Before falling victim to the SEC's Pre-IPO "Quiet Period," Go Daddy's Bob Parsons weighed in on the "domain name tasting" issue: "During the month of April 2006, a little more than 35 million domain names were registered. Of these names, 32.7 million were used – most again and again – but never permanently registered. These 32.7 million names were part of a scheme – a growing abuse of the domain system — one I wrote about in my last blog article. It’s an outrageous practice...."

Instead of "tasting," he calls the practice "kiting."