.music applicant caught using bogus Wikipedia page

DotMusic Limited, the .music applicant founded by Constantine Roussos, is using a highly suspicious Wikipedia page in its attempt to win the .music contention set.
The applicant and many supporters have been citing the Wikipedia “music community” page in support of DotMusic’s ongoing Community Priority Evaluation, despite the fact that the page draws text, without citation, from DotMusic’s own application.
The Wikipedia page was created October 21, 2014, just two weeks after rival .music applicant Far Further spectacularly failed in its own Community Priority Evaluation bid.
In March this year, DotMusic cited (pdf) a November 26 version of the Wikipedia page in whole in a controversial application change request.
Three of its supporters (Jeunesses Musicales International, International Society of Music Education, and International Federation of Musicians) have cited the Wikipedia article in DotMusic-drafted letters sent to ICANN.
An early version of the sign-and-submit form letter DotMusic is encouraging supporters to send to ICANN included the Wikipedia reference (this one, for example) but it appears to have been removed from form comments sent after the end of July.
Its web site currently says that its definition of “music community” is “confirmed by Wikipedia”.
In fact, the Wikipedia page pulls lots of its language from DotMusic’s 2012 new gTLD application, as represented in the table below.
[table id=34 /]
The phrase “logical alliance” originates in the ICANN Applicant Guidebook, as part of the CPE rules.
But that still leaves two sentences that appear to have been only lightly edited after being taken wholesale from the DotMusic application.
The Wikipedia page does not refer to domain names or ICANN, nor does it cite DotMusic as a source, despite the fact (per a Google search) that phrases such as “socio-economic interactions between music creators” have only ever appeared in .music’s application.
That’s unusual, because the citations in the article, many of which are to weighty, barely comprehensible scholarly works, give the impression of a well-researched and well-sourced piece.
Only one Wikipedia editor, known by the handle Dr. Blofeld, has contributed anything of substance to the page. Three others have provided cosmetic edits.
While a prolific editor since 2006, the closest he had previously come to writing an article about music were his contributions to a page about a green Versace dress once worn by singer Jennifer Lopez, according to Blofeld’s user page.
He seems to be much more interested in nature, architecture and film (including James Bond films, naturally).
On wonders why he had the sudden urge to scratch-build a 375-word article about the “music community”, having evidently read a dozen academic works on the topic, that fails to cite DotMusic’s application as the source of some of the text.
In summary, the evidence points towards the article being created solely for the purpose of assisting DotMusic towards a CPE victory that would save it the seven-figure sum .music is likely to fetch if it goes to auction.
There are eight applicants for .music in total.

Wikipedia to get single-letter .wiki domain

Top Level Design has scored a bit of a coup for its forthcoming .wiki gTLD — Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, has signed up as an anchor tenant.
According to the registry, Wikimedia will use w.wiki as a URL shortener and they’re in talks about other domains.
The company has also applied to ICANN to release hundreds of two-letter language codes that the foundation wants to use for language-specific short links.
The deal is reminiscent of .CO Internet’s launch, when it allocated the now-ubiquitous t.co for Twitter’s in-house URL shortener, giving it a much-needed marketing boost.
The deal for two-letter domains stands only a slim chance of of being ready in time for .wiki’s general availability, scheduled for May 26, in my view.
Under ICANN’s standard Registry Agreement, all two-character strings are blocked, in order to avoid clashes with country codes used in the ccTLD naming schema.
Top Level Design has now used the Registry Services Evaluation Process to try to get 179 two-letter strings, each of which represents a language code, unblocked.
Wikimedia explicitly endorses the proposal, in a letter attached to the March 11 RSEP (pdf)
The organization plans to use domains such as fr.wiki to redirect to French-language Wikipedia pages and so forth.
It remains to be seen whether ICANN will approve the request. It’s previously been envisaged that registries would approach each country individually to have its ccTLD’s matching string released.
Top Level Design points out that the strings it wants unblocked are from the ISO 639-1 language codes list, not the ISO 3166-1 lists from which ccTLD names are drawn.
But it’s a bit of an argument to nowhere — the strings are identical in most cases.
Under the RSEP policy, Top Level Design really should have been given a preliminary determination by now. It filed its request March 11 but it was only posted last week.
The clock, which gives ICANN 15 days to give the nod or not, may have only just started.
After the preliminary determination, there would be a public comment period and a board of directors decision. The timetable for this would not allow .wiki to launch with the two-letter names active.
But even with the delay, it seems that the registry will be coming out of the door with at least one strong anchor tenant, which is something most new gTLDs have so far failed to manage.

Twitter typosquatters fined £100,000

Two typosquatters have been fined £100,000 ($156,000) by the UK premium rate phone services regulator.
PhonepayPlus said today that the owners of the typos wikapedia.com and twtter.com, both Dutch companies, were issued the fines for violating its Code of Practice.
R&D Media Europe and Unavalley use the now depressingly commonplace practice of tricking visitors with the promise of iPad prizes into signing up for bogus SMS services at ridiculous fees.
They’ve both been ordered to refund disgruntled customers’ fees.
PhonepayPlus has no powers to take away domain names, of course, so both typos are still active, albeit not no longer mimicking the Wikipedia or Twitter look-and-feel.
The regulator did however issue clear guidance that typosquatting is against its rules, stating:

This guidance reminds PRS [premium rate service] providers that they are responsible for all their digital promotions and, if they use marketing firms that mislead consumers through typosquatting, they will be in breach of the Code of Practice.

A Facebook attorney said last year that typos of high-traffic sites, such as facebok.com, could expect to get 250 million visits a year.