Recent Posts
- .CLUB sells $200,000 domain for $10.99
- Dot Vegas sells $2m of premiums
- Two legit registrars held to account for lack of abuse tracking
- New ccTLDs may have to block name collisions
- Pop-ups boost most-popular new gTLD domains, and it’s not just .xyz any more
- Jeff Neuman quits Neustar for Valideus
- .gay is gay enough after all? ICANN overturns community panel decision
- Domain hijacking bug found in Go Daddy
- NCC buys Open Registry for up to $22.6m — a gTLD registry now owns part of the TMCH
- ICANN audit claims two more registrar scalps
- A quarter of registrar’s names are “illicit pharmacies”
- .top says Facebook shakedown was just a typo
- New gTLD extortion? Registry asks Facebook for $35,000 to register its brand
- New gTLD registries talk up marketing plans at NamesCon
- Seller’s remorse despite .club leading $1m NamesCon auction
- .xyz press release yanked for “encouraging cybersquatting”
- Here’s how the new number two new gTLD got so big so quick
- Vegas.club sells for $100,000
- The new massive number two new gTLD has me paralyzed with confusion
- .reise is first live new gTLD to hit the auction block
- Fatal timeout? A dozen dot-brands procrastinating to death
- Afilias cancels $100m London IPO
- Schilling laughing as Uniregistry beats Google to .lol
- NamesCon 2015 bigger, longer and more popular
- New gTLDs pummel .net below 15 million domains
- .uk suspension problems worse than I thought
- Big registrar dumps .uk — a glimpse of Christmas future?
- One company now owns almost a third of all registrars
- .baby and .mls fetch over $3 million each
- Most new gTLDs use NameSentry after Famous Four signs with Architelos
- Human glitch lets hackers into ICANN
- Hotly contested gTLDs up for auction tomorrow
- As .trust opens for sunrise, Artemis dumps .secure bid
- Last resort gTLD auction loser wants share of $5m winning bid
- First live dot-brand switches back to .com
- .ceo smartens up in new promo video
- New .jobs contract based on new gTLD agreement
- .health backer has cop-like takedown powers for all gTLDs in Japan
- .love won by class action lawyers
- Private auction settles controversial plural gTLD fight
- CentralNic unloads $2.5m worth of premium domains
- Donuts blames “license” problems for Chinese gTLD delays
- ICANN 53 will be in Buenos Aires
- Black Ice suspended by ICANN
- Eleven domains suspended under .uk anti-rape rules
- After lawsuit, YouPorn buys into .xxx portfolio
- As another group rejects proposal, is NETmundial stillborn?
- Donuts wins five more new gTLD auctions
- M+M raises $4.4m losing latest gTLD auctions
- Community proposes way to replace US oversight of ICANN
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.