Recent Posts
- Twitter starts supporting (some) new gTLDs
- .secure applicant loses CTO to Yahoo!
- Go Daddy risking Oscars wrath with .buzz premium domains?
- Final .eco applicant completes evaluation
- Google’s first new gTLD racks up 2,300 domains
- New gTLDs pass 200,000 registrations
- .club “will overtake .guru” in week one
- Van Gelder rebrands to Milathan
- US revives .kids.us in new Neustrar contract
- ICANN hires Walmart alum as CIO
- Afilias wins .green auction
- SnapNames acquired by Web.com
- TMCH sends out 17,500 Trademark Claims notices in a month
- Delays still dog many new gTLD applicants
- Disappointing .sexy launch shows the importance of the channel
- New gTLD registries given way to free up millions of blocked names
- Here’s why registrars are boycotting .sexy
- Mistake blamed for “Germans only” .voting policy
- Pirate Bay a victim as Go Daddy suspends hundreds of new gTLD domains
- .wedding and .green gTLD auctions raise millions
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.