Recent Posts
- GoDaddy CEO to retire at 58
- Google shifts 400,000 .site domains
- Another auDA director quits after conflict claims
- Endurance losing founder-CEO next week
- Google dumps Nazi domain in hours
- GoDaddy kicks out neo-Nazi site after dead protester post
- Tucows revenue rockets after Enom buy
- GoDaddy domains business grows 15% in Q2
- Gay.com, “worth $7 million”, donated to gay blog
- Grumpy campaign claims victory after auDA U-turns
- Iran rep reported to ICANN Ombudsman, again
- .storage to have pricey second sunrise
- HTC dumps its dot-brand
- Halloran made ICANN’s first chief data protection officer
- Verisign confirms first price increase under new .net contract
- EFF recommends against new gTLDs
- auDA chair quits days before vote to fire him
- Crocker: no date on next new gTLD round
- Donuts to complete Rightside acquisition tonight
- MMX says .vip renewals running at 75%
- auDA now looking to outsource .au registry
- .blog tops 100,000 names, 66,500 blogs
- Attendance dips for ICANN in Johannesburg
- Empowered Community makes first symbolic exercise of power
- CentralNic brings back old CFO
- Short .vegas domains go on sale
- GoDaddy flips hosting business for $456 million
- Domain growth slows a lot in Q1
- Governments slammed for overreach as Amazon wins gTLD appeal
- ICANN gives the nod to Donuts-Rightside merger
- Junk drop cuts .xyz in half, .top claims volume crown
- Over 750 domains hijacked in attack on Gandi
- ICANN chair paid $114,000 last year
- Could the next new gTLD round last 25 years? Or 70 years?
- auDA explains secretive new regime in bid to save chair
- Second-level .ke domains go on sale this month
- Billionaire Elon Musk reacquired x.com
- Domainers want the head of auDA’s chair
- ICANN expects to lose 750 registrars in the next year
- .blog renewal prices will not go up, registry promises
- ICANN shuffles regional bosses, drops “hub” concept
- .net price increases approved
- India to have SIXTEEN ccTLDs
- ICANN heading to Japan and Canada in 2019
- Uniregistry sale leads to BBC telling millions that domainers exist
- Cybersquatting cases down in .uk
- As .boots self-terminates, ICANN will not redelegate it
- GoDaddy launches security service after Sucuri acquisition
- Zero registrars pass ICANN audit
- Zone file access is crap, security panel confirms
ICANN’s new gTLD director quits
Michael Salazar, director of ICANN’s new gTLD program, has quit.
He’ll be replaced on an interim basis by Kurt Pritz, senior director of stakeholder relations, according to a statement from ICANN this evening.
No reason for his resignation, which comes shortly after the Big Reveal and on the eve of ICANN’s public meeting in Prague, was given.
Salazar, a KPMG alum, joined ICANN in July 2009. Unlike Pritz, he’s not been a particularly public face of the program.
It’s not entirely unusual for people to leave companies after hitting project milestones, but the timing in this case, given ICANN’s ongoing public perception problem, is unfortunate.
The organization is due to reveal its new CEO in about 12 hours time, and from what I gather the new appointee isn’t expected to take on the role for a couple months.
Having another senior staffer with responsibility over the new gTLD program quit at the same time will look bad.
Here’s where things get fun. In the latest Form 990 (for the year ending June 30, 2011, pages 58 and 59), Kurt Pritz and Michael Salazar *claimed* to already be working 60 hours per week. How can ICANN, with a straight face, suggest that Pritz will be doing 120 hours/week of work now?
Com’n Kevin…can we say fall guy?
George – from what I hear Kurt can barely keep his regular job in order…and now they are adding more?
I hope the arse-end falls out of it all.. these new gTLDs are only going to confuse and devalue the industry!!
And these greedy pigs don’t give a flying F about any of us trying to survive in an already F’d up marketplace.. tossers!
Hope they FAIL – they deserve it !!
@Andreas Agreed totally. I too hope they all fail because they are simply going to confuse the F out of people ,and are also going to make it just that bit harder to persuade companies to buy our .com domains .Got to remember that the ONLY reason that .com is the “main” tld is because people have become used to it. The next generation coming along may not even know what .com is.
@naysayers: People had also become used to Geocities, MySpace etc. After something better came along, they became “unused” to it.
If this causes second market prices to go down in the long run, as some @naysayers fear, that would be a useful side-effect.
Smart man
I think he decided being in charge of a great clusterf*uck may not look so good on his resume.
Leaving now will be perceived as genius when we look back. His replacement will eventually follow in his footsteps. The only question is how long that will be.
Me thinks not that long.
Another one didnt I hear that the President or CEO of ICANN was not renewing his three year contract and resigning today as well?
Seems like reasons for wild west over there more and more.