Recent Posts
- Alibaba, Name.com among new RDRS opt-ins
- .my domains to be sold globally next month
- The Swiss can register .swiss domains from next week
- .ai up to 425,000 domains
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- D3 to get $5 million in crypto to apply for .ape gTLD
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- Internet could get one-letter gTLDs (but there’s a catch)
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- Epik gets acquired again! The plot thickens…
- Airline gTLD crashes and burns
- First chunks of new gTLD Applicant Guidebook drop
- Epik to reveal its owners soon
- Another crypto firm to apply for a new gTLD
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- ICANN picks its first ever Supreme Court
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- First bits of new gTLD Applicant Guidebook expected next week
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- Over 50,000 .ai domains sold in three months
- Amazon planning new push into registrar market?
- Registries and registrars vote ‘Yes’ to new DNS abuse rules
- ICANN predicts flattish 2025 for domain industry
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- Have your say on police domain takedown powers
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- ICANN picks Istanbul for 2024 meeting
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- A registrar is getting blamed for an Israeli war propaganda site
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- Google sells five-figure AI domain and six-figure .ing hack
- .blackfriday is still a bit rubbish
- Internet Naming Co acquires five more gTLDs
.sucks and ICANN not invited to Congressional hearing on .sucks and ICANN
The witness list in next week’s US Congressional hearing into .sucks and ICANN accountability does not feature .sucks or ICANN.
The eight witnesses are largely drawn from outspoken critics of both ICANN and Vox Populi, either companies or trade associations and lobby groups. It’s stacked heavily in favor of intellectual property interests.
The hearing is titled “Stakeholder Perspectives on ICANN: The .sucks Domain and Essential Steps to Guarantee Trust and Accountability in the Internet’s Operation”.
With hindsight, the “Stakeholder Perspectives” bit gives away the fact that the judiciary subcommittee holding the hearing is more concerned with listening to ICANN’s critics than ICANN itself.
Mei-lan Stark, a senior intellectual property lawyer from Fox and 2014 president of the International Trademark Association, tops the list.
A critic of the new gTLD program, in 2011 Stark told Congress that the first round of new gTLDs would cost Fox “conservatively” $12 million in defensive registration fees.
It will be interesting to see if any Congresspeople confront Stark about that claim, which appeared like a gross overstatement even at the time.
One company that has been enthusiastically embracing new gTLDs — as an applicant, registry, defensive and non-defensive registrant — is Amazon, which has VP of global public policy Paul Misener on the panel.
Amazon has beef with ICANN for siding with the Governmental Advisory Committee over the battle for .amazon, which Amazon has been banned from obtaining, so it’s difficult to see the company as an overly friendly witness.
Next up is John Horton, president of LegitScript, the company that certifies legitimate online pharmacies and backs the .pharmacy new gTLD.
LegitScript is in favor of greater regulation of the domain name industry in order to make it easier to shut down potentially dangerous web sites (though opponents say it’s more often more interested in protecting Big Pharma’s profit margins). This month it called for a ban on Whois privacy for e-commerce sites.
Steve Metalitz, counsel for the Coalition for Online Accountability (a lobbyist for the movie and music industries) and six-term president of the ICANN Intellectual Property Constituency, is also on the list.
Jonathan Zuck, president of ACT The App Association (aka the Association for Competitive Technology, backed by Verisign and other tech firms) is on the list.
NetChoice director Steve DelBianco is also showing up again. He’s an ICANN hearing mainstay and I gather with this appearance he’ll be getting the final stamp on his Rayburn Building Starbucks loyalty card. That means a free latte, which is always nice.
Internet Commerce Association counsel Phil Corwin is a surprise invitee. ICA represents big domainers and is not a natural ally of the IP side of the house.
Bill Woodcock, executive director of Packet Clearing House, rounds off the list. PCH might not have instant name recognition but it provides Anycast DNS infrastructure services for scores of ccTLDs and gTLDs.
The committee hearing will take place at 10am local time next Wednesday.
A second hearing, entitled “Stakeholder Perspectives on the IANA Transition” will be held four hours later by a subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce committee. The witnesses for that one have not yet been announced.
It’s going to be a busy day for ICANN bods on Capitol Hill.
All of the New Quasi-Derivative gTLD extensions are pushed out mainly as Spamm Fodder for the ring Leader GOOGLES usage for flooding the DNS for Anti-Competitive reasons. Those who dispute this will find this to be the end result of continual monitoring and future depositions proving this premise as fact. JAS 5/8/15
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Former Rockefeller IBEC Marketing Analyst/Strategist)
this is outrageous. i’m not an easy guy to get outraged but this is truly outrageous.
Hello DOOB,
It can be said that the Truth can be sometimes outrageous to those in total Denial. Never the less the truth is irrefutably the truth regardless. JAS 5/8/15
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Former Rockefeller IBEC Marketing Analyst/Strategist)
Does anyone know if we can we watch this online? Will there be video of it posted somewhere?
Thanks,
Andrew McConachie
Yup. All these things are streamed live and archived on the hearing web page.