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.sucks threatens ICANN with defamation claim after “extortion” letters

Kevin Murphy, May 12, 2015, 10:52:44 (UTC), Domain Registries

Vox Populi Registry has threatened to sue ICANN for defamation and other alleged breaches of US law, over allegations of “extortion” made by two of its constituencies.
The registry’s outside law firm wrote to ICANN yesterday, saying that it has “has no interest in pursuing claims at this time” but adding:

if ICANN or any of its constituent bodies (or any directly responsible member thereof) engages in any further wrongful activity that prevents the company from fulfilling its contractual obligations and operating the .SUCKS registry as both ICANN and Vox Populi envisioned, the company will have no choice but to pursue any and all remedies available to it.

The letter follows claims by the Intellectual Property Constituency that .sucks and its $1,999 annual sunrise fees constitute a “predatory” “shakedown”, claims which ICANN has forwarded to US and Canadian trade regulators for their legal opinions.
The IPC letter was followed up by similar claims by the Business Constituency on Friday.
Vox Pop now wants these constituencies, and ICANN itself, to shut up.
“Rather than assuming cooler heads will prevail, it is time to tell ICANN to stop interfering in our ability to operate the registry,” CEO John Berard said in an email to reporters. “We are not taking legal action at this point but making it clear that we reserve the right if ICANN continues in its wrong-headed approach.”
The company denies that .sucks will encourage cybersquatting, noting that like all other gTLDs it is subject to the anti-cybersquatting UDRP and URS remedies.

it would seem that ICANN is not actually concerned about cybersquatting or any other illegal activity. Rather, ICANN appears concerned that registrations on the .SUCKS registry will be used to aggregate uncomplimentary commentary about companies and products — the very purpose for the registry that Vox Populi identified in the application it submitted to ICANN, and that ICANN approved
ICANN has disseminated defamatory statements about Vox Populi and its business practices aimed at depriving Vox Populi of the benefits of its contract with ICANN. These actions further violate the duty of good faith and fair dealing that is implied in every contract… in suggesting illegality without any basis whatsoever, your actions (and those of the ICANN IPC and ICANN BC) have given rise to defamation claims against ICANN. Vox Populi hereby demands that ICANN, including any and all of its subdivisions, cease any and all such activity immediately.

There’s bucketloads of irony here, of course.
The company says it is standing up for its future registrants’ rights to free speech, but wants its own critics gagged today.
Read the letter as a PDF here.

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Comments (3)

  1. Frederick says:
    May 13, 2015 at 2:31 pm

    irony of ironies, can’t register dotsucks.sucks or dot-sucks.sucks at vox … platform for free speech, hah!

    Reply
  2. Gaz says:
    May 18, 2015 at 8:14 am

    It’s clear that ICANN should have just provided a bit more common sense in it’s approval (or not) of applications.
    I think it was obvious that .sucks will end up embarrassing ICANN and I think the same will happen for all of the porn addresses.
    The other lack of common sense was allowing top level domains will the same name but an “s” on the end, like coupon and coupons. They should have pooled these together and let the winner pick which one they want to use… but that would be less income for the “not for profit” ICANN.

    Reply

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