Esther Dyson, interviewed in Mother Jones Magazine: "If I were ever to write a poem about something, it would be an ode to the cc: line."

This post sponsored by Wondrous.com.

ICANN's President Paul Twomey has declared that ICANN's new gTLD policy is "on track."

The claim reminds me of the way that Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq back in 2003.

I mean, to summarily declare you're "on track" in 2007, for a 2008 launch, is to ignore the White Paper, ignore the 1999-2000 DNSO process, the 2000 "test bed," the 2000-02 review of the "test bed," the .TRAVEL supplement to the "test bed," and even the Board's own resolution from just last year asking for the process to be to the Board by 1 January 2007.

It would be one thing to say that ICANN is "pushing as fast as it can," "making up for lost time," "trying to correct the mistakes of the past," or, you know, just anything with a ring of truth to it, but it really does a disservice to ICANN to play us all for fools by not even acknowledging that this process is at least five years overdue.

This post sponsored by PlayCamp.com.

Forbes: "The bidding started at $300,000 and blasted through the seven-figure mark before settling at $1.8 million. No, this wasn't Sotheby's--nor was the object d'art a Picasso. This battle was for the URL Seniors.com...."

This post sponsored by Wondrous.com.

Here's an exchange from today's transcript of the ICANN Public Forum that you should read: "Elliot Noss, Tucows. I feel compelled to note that between now and the next time we all get together in Los Angeles at the end of October, beginning of November, perhaps the most significant and impactful event in ICANN's history will have taken place. On October 15th, the price of a dot com will increase for the first time since ICANN's formation....." The best part, after the jump....   more »

I'm watching the Public Forum sessions and whenever the subject of new gTLDs comes up it's impossible not to feel an overload of frustration. The Board says that it has nothing before it, so the Board of Directors is not the bottleneck, but it promises to act as soon as it gets something. For his part, ICANN's President says that he already has significant staff numbers allocated to the problem and that they are working as fast as they can. The Chair of the GNSO Council invites people to come to the Council and Working Group meetings and raise concerns. Meanwhile, people who want to launch new gTLDs, including those who have wanted to do so for ten years, stand around in stunned amazement at the fact that we're not there yet.

Against ICANN's history on new gTLDs, all these statements of good intentions ring hollow. At some point, the proof is really in the pudding (or the root): ten years after the White Paper called for a process for the introduction of new gTLDs, we're not there yet. This is likely a systemic problem, and I don't think the blame lies with any one person. It would be nice to hear, however, from someone in authority, that the introduction of new gTLDs is one of ICANN's failures. "We're sorry" would go a long way to diffusing the frustration. It's hard not to hear in the defensive statements from those in authority a denial of the sad reality that this project is at least five years overdue.

This post sponsored by NeedCred.com.

I had the hardest time finding the webcast feed on the ICANN web sites, so here's a link for those of you who are similarly challenged.

    Video Cast:
    http://media1.icann.org/ramgen/broadcast/sangeronimo.rm

    Audio Cast:
    http://media1.icann.org/ramgen/broadcast/sangeronimo.ram

The feed is coming through fast and clean, so kudos to the folks running the gear down in San Juan.

This post sponsored by Gizimo.com

As ever, Edward Hasbrouk has the latest news on ICANN's ongoing attempts to create an independent review process. It's well worth reading.

This post sponsored by SailModel.com.

So if you bought this name from GoDaddy, how far would estoppel take you as a defense in a UDRP action? ;-)