Recent Posts
- Claims UDRP has cost over $360 million so far
- Ironic eight-figure deal marks more Euro-registrar consolidation
- Court rules generic dictionary domains CAN be trademarked
- ICANN director Burr leaving Neustar
- Right of the colon? IDN getting killed over dot confusion
- Despite Afilias lawsuit, Neustar names date for Indian takeaway
- Endurance domain revenue dips
- After ICANN knockback, Amazon countries agree to .amazon talks
- Operation September Thrust leads to another million-domain Radix gTLD
- Brexit blamed as .eu hits six-year low
- CentralNic expects flat profit as revenue almost doubles
- XYZ reveals .monster gTLD launch dates
- Huge batch of Afilias TLDs approved in China
- .SE sells off $3.2 million registrar biz
- ICANN picks Seattle for public meeting
- ICANN approves two new TLDs, including THAT one
- MMX sees better profits than expected
- Pay up or sell up, ICANN tells failing new gTLD
- Brexit boost for Irish domains
- Brexit won’t just affect Brits, .eu registry says
- New domain price guessing game warns against “asshole domain squatters”
- Nazis rejoice! A TLD for you could be coming soon
- ICANN creates female-heavy anti-harassment team
- ICANN chief gets $100k bonus
- ICANN puts deadline on .amazon talks
- Crunch Whois privacy talks kick off
- Another failing gTLD not paying its “onerous” dues
- .CLUB announces three years of price increases
- How new gTLD auctions could kill gaming for good
- .amazon domain isn’t a slam dunk after all
- Chile opens .cl to all ICANN registrars
- “Please send women!” ICANN board urges
- NamesCon names con speakers
- Dark horse NameSilo doubles size in 2018
- UK tells .eu registrants to lawyer up as no-deal Brexit looms
- Radix now has China approval for whole TLD stable
- The most-read stories of 2018
- Another bundle of joy for XYZ as Johnson & Johnson throws out the .baby
- Now even parked domains will have GDPR notices
- ICANN budget predicts small new gTLD recovery and slowing legacy growth
- Verisign says Afilias tried to “rig” $135 million .web auction
- Exclusive gang of 10 to work on making ICANN the Whois gatekeeper
- Governments blast ICANN over Amazon gTLDs
- No more free transfers in Denmark
- ICANN outs two more deadbeat new gTLDs
- .eu domains to be sold to non-residents
- DNS inventor says .luxe first innovation in a decade
- New gTLDs continue growth trend, but can it last?
- No .web until 2021 after Afilias files ICANN appeal
- Nevett lands at PIR
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.