ICANN has posted more litigation pleadings and orders from the Dotster v. ICANN litigation.

According to ICANNWatch, the litigation update was a response to requests on the General Assembly mailing list. Pool.com litigation documents are promised in the future. In an effort to get my mail under control, I unsubscribed from the GA list recently. If any news makes it way to that list first, please alert me.

I'm not sure I agree with this new post on Karl Auerbach's weblog: "Was ICANN involved in this?� There is no sign of it." I don't see why ICANN should be involved in the manner in which the root server operators deploy their servers. So long as the servers interoperate and coordinate with the master zone file -- and the announced change shouldn't affect those aspects of root server performace at all -- what would ICANN's role be? I don't have Karl's technical background, so I may be missing something, but what?

Later: Karl responds. Thanks!

Computer Business Review: Register.com Looking at Major Acquisition. Intriguing article but awfully short on facts.

Those folks at GoDaddy crack me up. As advertised, this is sort of like selling "First Amendment" protection. When you create a new work, you earn a copyright in it. It's automatic. No fancy logos required. I guess that's why GoDaddy is trying to keep its customers from talking to someone who knows better: "Saves you the time, hassle and expense of an attorney's assistance." Sigh.

I don't mean to suggest that it's unreasonable to apply for a copyright registration on a particular work. It's not. But the Copyright Office provides all the information you need to do that. GoDaddy makes it sound as though the only way you have copyright protection is if you file for a registration. That's not the case, and the advertising for this new service strikes me as overly simplistic, if not outright deceptive.

SEC Filing by Register.com: "On August 15, 2003, we were contacted by a company with which we have recently held preliminary discussions regarding a potential strategic acquisition by us, inquiring whether we had an interest in pursuing such a transaction at this time. A transaction with this party would substantially increase the scale of our business...."

NetSol's pre-order page for back-ordered domain names just went up:

Pre-Orders for Next Registration Rights will be available until the service "goes live" (currently scheduled for October 27, 2003). When you place your pre-order you commit to purchasing the service should you receive the subscription. There is no guarantee that pre-orders will result in obtaining a Next Registration Rights subscription. When the service "goes live", if your credit card is valid at that time, your order will be submitted to the VeriSign registry on a first come first served basis. If the Next Registration Rights subscription you ordered is available, it will be automatically purchased for you. Your credit card on file will be charged $39 for each successful subscription. You will be notified via e-mail whether or not your order was successful.

I'm sure NetSol won't be the last registrar to offer pre-order back-orders.

If you click around the new site a little, you'll see that I haven't actually taken much of a blogging vacation this summer, I've just been sending my posts to a different place while I tested out some new blogging software for some friends. The software package is still in alpha release, but it's good enough now to use day to day. Over the next few weeks, I'll show you around and introduce some of the new features. First stop is setting up a reader account.

If you don't have a reader account and you're not logged in (and right now that's just about everyone), you'll see a menu choice at the top of the web page that reads "create a reader account | log in." If you click on that, you'll be taken to a page that will let you set up a new reader account. All it really requires is your name, time zone, and e-mail address. Once you've created a reader account, two new things will be possible: (a) you'll be able to subscribe to e-mail notifications about new posts to the icann.blog (and/or my main weblog, of which the icann.blog is now a subcategory); and (b) you'll be able to post comments to anything I write. Over time, I'll be adding more features to the site that make use of the reader accounts.

More on the new features in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, welcome back to my weblog.

This one comes courtesy of ICANNWatch: The Joy of "Pre-Ordering".

If you were subscribed to the old RSS feed, you'll want to update your software with the new address: http://blog.lextext.com/blog/icann/index.xml. The new link also can be found under the "syndicate" heading above and the orange RSS box.

Looks like Verisign and Network Solutions are moving ahead to implement WLS. Link via Rick Wesson on the Registrars' list.

This is awfully interesting. It provides a little background on this resolution from last week's ICANN Board meeting.

I have recordings of the recent Senate hearing archived on the web site under a new "Audio" category. The first file (http://www.lextext.com/senate31july2003.mp3 | 21.8 megs) contains the presentation of the prepared statements and the second file (http://www.lextext.com/senateQA-31july2003.mp3 | 14.3 megs) contains the Question and Answer session. Not much happened.

According to the State Department, I'm supposed to steer clear of large crowds in Tunisia: "In light of recent demonstrations protesting U.S. policy toward Iraq, the U.S. Embassy recommends that Americans exercise particular caution at this time, and avoid areas where large crowds are gathered." And avoid soccer games too.

Brought to you by the venue for the upcoming ICANN meeting in Carthage, Tunisia. God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes...

Larry Lessig: "Lobbying is increasingly the way competition is waged in America."

John Patrick explains ENUM in a way that anyone can understand.

RCOM's August 13th 10-Q contains some interesting observations about RegistryPro and the .pro TLD.

We own a minority stake in Afilias, the registry operator for the .info and .org gTLDs, and 100% of RegistryPro, which has been selected by ICANN to operate a registry for the .pro gTLD. The .pro domain will be dedicated to certified or accredited professionals such as lawyers, doctors and accountants. All .pro domain names are planned to be issued with a digital certificate to facilitate secure communications and transactions. While Afilias launched real time .info registrations in October 2001, RegistryPro signed its contract with ICANN only in May 2002 and still faces operational challenges prior to launching, including finalizing the overall technological integration and functionality of the different aspects of the .pro top level domain product. The initial launch date for RegistryPro had to be delayed as a result of our decision to shut down our Registry Advantage division, which had been anticipated to provide registry services to RegistryPro on an outsourced basis. Although RegistryPro has not yet completed the implementation of its registry system, in April 2003, it launched the sunrise period for .pro defensive domain name registrations. We cannot assure you that RegistryPro will be able to successfully launch its registry system, or that the registrars authorized to register the .pro domain name will effectively market the .pro products and services....

In their early stages, we anticipate that RegistryPro and Afilias will require additional funding as they establish themselves as registries of new top level domains. We have committed to provide up to $8.5 million in funding and other non-cash contributions to our wholly owned subsidiary, RegistryPro, for RegistryPro�s activities in establishing, operating and marketing the .pro top level domain through the first anniversary of its commencement-of-service date. However, we do not believe that RegistryPro�s agreement with ICANN requires RegistryPro to spend a specified amount to establish, operate and market the .pro top level domain. Accordingly, our contributions for these purposes could be less than $8.5 million. Through June 30, 2003 we had contributed approximately $2.6 million in cash, and had also made non-cash contributions. For the six months ended June 30, 2003 RegistryPro incurred $1.3 million of startup costs. We currently expect that RegistryPro will not launch its real-time automated registry services during the third quarter of 2003. Accordingly, we currently expect that RegistryPro will continue to incur net losses through the end of 2003. In addition, we cannot assure you that RegistryPro will successfully launch its services during the fourth quarter of 2003 or at all. We may also need to invest our own funds to support Afilias and market its services. Inadequate funding could impact RegistryPro�s ability to fully launch its services or either registry�s ability to promote the new top level domains in the marketplace.

(emphasis added on sentences about launch date). Even when you discount the fact that these paragraphs appear in the "Risk Factors" section -- and similar wording appear in other sections -- you get some insight into the likely launch date and financial prospects for this TLD. I'm looking forward to getting my .pro domain name, but I may be the only one.