New gTLD program approved — full resolution

ICANN’s board of directors has approved its new generic top-level domains program and will start accepting applications from companies in January next year.
The vote this morning at the Raffles City Convention Center in Singapore, was 13 in favor, with George Sadowsky voting against.
Bruce Tonkin of registrar Melbourne IT abstained on conflict-of-interest grounds, and Mike Silber abstained because, while generally in favor of the program, he did not believe it was ready yet.
Here’s the resolution in full. I’ll provide commentary later in the day.

Approval of the New gTLD Program

Whereas, on 28 November 2005, the GNSO Council voted unanimously to initiate a policy development process on the introduction of new gTLDs.
Whereas, the GNSO Committee on the Introduction of New gTLDs addressed a range of difficult technical, operational, legal, economic, and policy questions, and facilitated widespread participation and public comment throughout the policy development process.
Whereas, on 6 September 2007, the GNSO Council approved by a supermajority vote a motion supporting the 19 recommendations, as a whole, as set out in the Final Report of the ICANN Generic Names Supporting Organisation on the Introduction of New Generic Top-Level Domains going forward to the ICANN Board (http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/pdp-dec05-fr-parta-08aug07.htm).
Whereas, the Board instructed staff to review the GNSO recommendations and determine whether they were capable of implementation, and staff engaged international technical, operational and legal expertise to support the implementation of the policy recommendations and developed implementation plans for the GNSO’s policy recommendations.
Whereas, on 26 June 2008, the Board adopted the GNSO policy recommendations for the introduction of new gTLDs and directed staff to further develop and complete its detailed implementation plan, continue communication with the community on such work, and provide the Board with a final version of the implementation proposals for the board and community to approve before the launching of the new gTLD application process (http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-26jun08.htm#_Toc76113171).
Whereas, staff has made implementation details publicly available in the form of drafts of the gTLD Applicant Guidebook and supporting materials for public discussion and comment.
Whereas, the first draft of the Applicant Guidebook was published on 23 October 2008 , and the Guidebook has undergone continued substantial revisions based on stakeholder input on multiple drafts.
Whereas, the Board has conducted intensive consultations with the Governmental Advisory Committee (including in Brussels in February 2011, in San Francisco in March 2011, by telephone in May 2011, and in Singapore on 19 June 2011), resulting in substantial agreement on a wide range of issues noted by the GAC, and the Board has directed revisions to the Applicant Guidebook to reflect such agreement.
Whereas, ICANN received letters from the United States Department of Commerce and the European Commission addressing the issue of registry-registrar cross-ownership, and the Board considered the concerns expressed therein. The Board agrees that the potential abuse of significant market power is a serious concern, and discussions with competition authorities will continue.
Whereas, ICANN has consulted with the GAC to find mutually acceptable solutions on areas where the implementation of policy is not consistent with GAC advice, and where necessary has identified its reasons for not incorporating the advice in particular areas, as required by the Bylaws; see .
Whereas, the ICANN community has dedicated countless hours to the review and consideration of numerous implementation issues, by the submission of public comments, participation in working groups, and other consultations.
Whereas, the Board has listened to the input that has been provided by the community, including the supporting organizations and advisory committees, throughout the implementation process.
Whereas, careful analysis of the obligations under the Affirmation of Commitments and the steps taken throughout the implementation process indicates that ICANN has fulfilled the commitments detailed in the Affirmation (http://www.icann.org/en/documents/affirmation-of-commitments-30sep09-en.htm).
Whereas, the Applicant Guidebook posted on 30 May 2011 (http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-7-en.htm) includes updates resulting from public comment and from recent GAC advice.
Whereas, the draft New gTLDs Communications Plan forms the basis of the global outreach and education activities that will be conducted leading up to and during the execution of the program in each of the ICANN geographic regions.
Whereas, the Draft FY12 Operating Plan and Budget (http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-17may11-en.htm) includes a New gTLD Program Launch Scenario, and the Board is prepared to approve the expenditures included in Section 7 of the Draft FY12 Operating Plan and Budget.
Whereas, the Board considers an applicant support program important to ensuring an inclusive and diverse program, and will direct work to implement a model for providing support to potential applicants from developing countries.
Whereas, the Board’s Risk Committee has reviewed a comprehensive risk assessment associated with implementing the New gTLD Program, has reviewed the defined strategies for mitigating the identified risks, and will review contingencies as the program moves toward launch.
Whereas, the Board has reviewed the current status and plans for operational readiness and program management within ICANN.
Resolved (2011.06.20.01), the Board authorizes the President and CEO to implement the new gTLD program which includes the following elements:
1. the 30 May 2011 version of the Applicant Guidebook (http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-7-en.htm), subject to the revisions agreed to with the GAC on 19 June 2011, including: (a) deletion of text in Module 3 concerning GAC advice to remove references indicating that future Early Warnings or Advice must contain particular information or take specified forms; (b) incorporation of text concerning protection for specific requested Red Cross and IOC names for the top level only during the initial application round, until the GNSO and GAC develop policy advice based on the global public interest, and (c) modification of the “loser pays” provision in the URS to apply to complaints involving 15 (instead of 26) or more domain names with the same registrant; the Board authorizes staff to make further updates and changes to the Applicant Guidebook as necessary and appropriate, including as the possible result of new technical standards, reference documents, or policies that might be adopted during the course of the application process, and to prominently publish notice of such changes;
2. the Draft New gTLDs Communications Plan as posted at (http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/new-gtlds-communications-plan-30may11-en.pdf), as may be revised and elaborated as necessary and appropriate;
3. operational readiness activities to enable the opening of the application process;
4. a program to ensure support for applicants from developing countries, with a form, structure and processes to be determined by the Board in consultation with stakeholders including: (a) consideration of the GAC recommendation for a fee waiver corresponding to 76 percent of the $185,000 USD evaluation fee, (b) consideration of recommendations of the ALAC and GNSO as chartering organizations of the Joint Applicant Support (JAS) Working Group, (c) designation of a budget of up to $2 million USD for seed funding, and creating opportunities for other parties to provide matching funds, and (d) the review of additional community feedback, advice from ALAC, and recommendations from the GNSO following their receipt of a Final Report from the JAS Working Group (requested in time to allow staff to develop an implementation plan for the Board’s consideration at its October 2011 meeting in Dakar, Senegal), with the goal of having a sustainable applicant support system in place before the opening of the application window;
5. a process for handling requests for removal of cross-ownership restrictions on operators of existing gTLDs who want to participate in the new gTLD program, based on the “Process for Handling Requests for Removal of Cross-Ownership Restrictions for Existing gTLDs” (http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-02may11-en.htm), as modified in response to comments ; consideration of modification of existing agreements to allow cross-ownership with respect to the operation of existing gTLDs is deferred pending further discussions including with competition authorities;
6. the expenditures related to the New gTLD Program as detailed in section 7 of the Draft FY12 Operating Plan and Budget http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-17may11-en.htm); and
7. the timetable as set forth in the attached graphic , elements of which include the New gTLD application window opening on 12 January 2012 and closing on 12 April 2012, with the New gTLD Communications Plan beginning immediately.
Resolved (2011.06.20.02), the Board and the GAC have completed good faith consultations in a timely and efficient manner under the ICANN Bylaws, Article XI, Section 2.j. As the Board and the GAC were not able to reach a mutually acceptable solution on a few remaining issues, pursuant to ICANN Bylaws, Article XI, Section 2.k, the Board incorporates and adopts as set forth in the document describing the remaining areas of difference between ICANN’s Board and the GAC the reasons why the GAC advice was not followed. The Board’s statement is without prejudice to the rights or obligations of GAC members with regard to public policy issues falling within their responsibilities.
Resolved (2011.06.20.03), the Board wishes to express its deep appreciation to the ICANN community, including the members of the GAC, for the extraordinary work it has invested in crafting the New gTLD Program in furtherance of ICANN’s mission and core values, and counts on the community’s ongoing support in executing and reviewing the program.

ICANN plans retreat to regroup under new chair

ICANN’s board of directors will hold a surprise, unprecedented workshop or retreat next Saturday, to address the “multiple challenges” it faces.
This announcement just appeared on the ICANN web site:

Board Workshop to Prepare for the Future
Given the change in Board leadership and related changes in Board committee assignments and the multiple challenges facing ICANN, the Board will take advantage of the presence of most of the new Board and hold an informal workshop following the close of the ICANN meeting. The primary focus of the workshop will be the challenges facing ICANN and the coordination of Board and management directions.

The workshop is slated for June 25, the day after both the current meeting in Singapore and the chairmanship of Peter Dengate Thrush ends.
Though his replacement has not been named, it’s quite likely that the board already knows who it has selected to fill PDT’s shoes.
The “multiple challenges” ICANN faces could refer to anything from the launch of the new top-level domains program, its increasingly close relationship with its newly empowered Governmental Advisory Committee, or the threat of more US interference with its functions.
Probably all of the above and more.
In addition, the reference to the “coordination of Board and management directions” may well fuel the scurrilous gossip that all is not well between ICANN’s board and its senior staff.
(via @DNSConundrum)

GAC gives ICANN final warning on new TLDs

As ICANN’s 41st meeting begins in Singapore, the Governmental Advisory Committee is sticking to its guns on a number of its outstanding demands on new top-level domains.
GAC chair Heather Dryden said in a Saturday letter to the ICANN board (pdf) that its concerns relating to controversial string objections, trademark protection, and vertical integration have not been satisfactorily addressed.
She also said that the Applicant Guidebook should be amended to protect the trademarks of the Red Cross, Red Crescent and Olympics movements, and that developing countries should get support.

The GAC would advise the Board that these issues involve important public policy objectives and, until resolved, also risk gTLD applications being made that conflict with applicable law.
…
To this end, and notwithstanding the GAC’s wish to avoid any further delay in the new gTLD process, the GAC would advise the Board to ensure that all remaining public policy concerns are properly addressed and adequately respected before the new gTLD application procedure is finalised.

The GAC and board will meet this afternoon in Singapore to discuss these remaining issues.
The ICANN board is due to meet tomorrow morning to consider approving the Applicant Guidebook and the new gTLD program.

Hot topics for ICANN Singapore

ICANN’s 41st public meeting kicks off in Singapore on Monday, and as usual there are a whole array of controversial topics set to be debated.
As is becoming customary, the US government has filed its eleventh-hour saber-rattling surprises, undermining ICANN’s authority before its delegates’ feet have even touched the tarmac.
Here’s a high-level overview of what’s going down.
The new gTLD program
ICANN and the Governmental Advisory Committee are meeting on Sunday to see if they can reach some kind of agreement on the stickiest parts of the Applicant Guidebook.
They will fail to do so, and ICANN’s board will be forced into discussing an unfinished Guidebook, which does not have full GAC backing, during its Monday-morning special meeting.
It’s Peter Dengate Thrush’s final meeting as chairman, and many observers believe he will push through some kind of new gTLDs resolution to act as his “legacy”, as well as to fulfill the promise he made in San Francisco of a big party in Singapore.
My guess is that the resolution will approve the program in general, lay down some kind of timetable for its launch, and acknowledge that the Guidebook needs more work before it is rubber-stamped.
I think it’s likely that the days of seemingly endless cycles of redrafting and comment are over for good, however, which will come as a relief to many.
Developing nations
A big sticking point for the GAC is the price that new gTLD applicants from developing nations will have to pay – it wants eligible, needy applicants to get a 76% discount, from $185,000 to $44,000.
The GAC has called this issue something that needs sorting out “as a matter of urgency”, but ICANN’s policy is currently a flimsy draft in desperate need of work.
The so-called JAS working group, tasked with creating the policy, currently wants governmental entities excluded from the support program, which has made the GAC, predictably, unhappy.
The JAS has proven controversial in other quarters too, particularly the GNSO Council.
Most recently, ICANN director Katim Touray, who’s from Gambia, said the Council had been “rather slow” to approve the JAS’s latest milestone report, which, he said:

might well be construed by many as an effort by the GNSO to scuttle the entire process of seeking ways and means to provide support to needy new gTLD applicants

This irked Council chair Stephane Van Gelder, who rattled off a response pointing out that the GNSO had painstakingly followed its procedures as required under the ICANN bylaws.
Watch out for friction there.
Simply, there’s no way this matter can be put to bed in Singapore, but it will be the topic of intense discussions because the new gTLD program cannot sensibly launch without it.
The IANA contract
The US National Telecommunications and Information Administration wants to beef up the IANA contract to make ICANN more accountable to the NTIA and, implicitly, the GAC.
Basically, IANA is being leveraged as a way to make sure that .porn and .gay (and any other TLD not acceptable to the world’s most miserable regimes) never make it onto the internet.
If at least one person does not stand up during the public forum on Thursday to complain that ICANN is nothing more than a lackey of the United States, I’d be surprised. My money’s on Khaled Fattal.
Vertical integration
The eleventh hour surprise I referred to earlier.
The US Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, informed ICANN this week that its plan to allow gTLD registries such as VeriSign, Neustar and Afilias to own affiliated registrars was “misguided”.
I found the letter (pdf) utterly baffling. It seems to say that the DoJ would not be able to advise ICANN on competition matters, despite the fact that the letter itself contains a whole bunch of such advice.
The letter has basically scuppered VeriSign’s chances of ever buying a registrar, but I don’t think anybody thought that would happen anyway.
Neustar is likely to be the most publicly annoyed by this, given how vocally it has pursued its vertical integration plans, but I expect Afilias and others will be bugged by this development too.
The DoJ’s position is likely to be backed up by Europe, now that the NTIA’s Larry Strickling and European Commissioner Neelie Kroes are BFFs.
Cybercrime
Cybercrime is huge at the moment, what with governments arming themselves with legions of hackers and groups such as LulzSec and Anonymous knocking down sites like dominoes.
The DNS abuse forum during ICANN meetings, slated for Monday, is usually populated by pissed-off cops demanding stricter enforcement of Whois accuracy.
They’ve been getting louder during recent meetings, a trend I expect to continue until somebody listens.
This is known as “engaging”.
Geek stuff
IPv6, DNSSEC and Internationalized Domain Names, in other words. There are sessions on all three of these important topics, but they rarely gather much attention from the policy wonks.
With IPv6 and DNSSEC, we’re basically looking at problems of adoption. With IDNs, there’s impenetrably technical stuff to discuss relating to code tables and variant strings.
The DNSSEC session is usually worth a listen if you’re into that kind of thing.
The board meeting
Unusually, the board’s discussion of the Guidebook has been bounced to Monday, leading to a Friday board meeting with not very much to excite.
VeriSign will get its .net contract renewed, no doubt.
The report from the GAC-board joint working group, which may reveal how the two can work together less painfully in future, also could be interesting.
Anyway…
Enough of this blather, I’ve got a plane to catch.

ICANN independence request denied

ICANN’s request for greater independence has been rejected by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
In its new Further Notice Of Inquiry (pdf) investigation into the IANA contract, through which ICANN is granted its internet management responsibilities, the NTIA said:

NTIA reiterates that it is not in discussions with ICANN to transition the IANA functions nor does the agency intend to undertake such discussions.

Transitioning the IANA functions would have meant less power over the domain name system for the US government and more for ICANN.
Privatizing the DNS was one of the original goals when ICANN was set up in 1998 — it was meant to happen before Clinton left office — but the US government has been dead set against such a move since at least 2005.
The latest decision was expected. NTIA assistant secretary Lawrence Strickling had flagged up the agency’s position in a recent speech.
Nevertheless, it’s a blow to ICANN and its CEO, Rod Beckstrom, who since the San Francisco meeting in March has been pushing for the IANA contract to be re-framed into a longer-term “cooperative agreement” to better reflect ICANN’s international nature.
But the NTIA said this would not be possible:

NTIA does not have the legal authority to enter into a cooperative agreement with any organization, including ICANN, for the performance of the IANA functions.

To drive the point home, the FNOI also calls for the functional aspect of IANA – the updates it makes to the DNS root database – to be clearly separated from the policy-making side of ICANN.
On the bright side, ICANN can rest assured that the NTIA seems to have put aside thoughts of breaking up the IANA functions and distributing them between different entities.
This notion was put to bed primarily because the organizations most likely to take over roles such as protocol and IP number administration (such as the NRO and the IAB) did not seem to want them.
The FNOI also suggests a raft of process and technology requirements that ICANN’s IANA team will have to abide by after the contract is renewed.
The process for redelegating ccTLDs is currently an absolute bloody mess – utterly opaque and with no historical consistency with how decisions for transferring ownership of TLDs are made.
The ccNSO is working on this problem, but its policy development is likely to take a year or two.
In the meantime, the NTIA will mandate through the IANA contract at least one major nod to ccTLD redelegation reform, in the form of the “respect rule” I blogged about earlier.
Under the heading “Responsibility and Respect for Stakeholders”, the proposed IANA Statement of Work says: “the Contractor shall act in accordance with the relevant national laws of the jurisdiction which the TLD registry serves.”
This provision is already included in most of the agreements ICANN has signed with ccTLD registries and ICP-1, the policy that governs its redelegation processes.

US resurrects the controversial new TLDs veto

The US government intends to give itself greater oversight powers over ICANN’s new top-level domains program, according to a partial draft of the next IANA contract.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has proposed what amounts to a Governmental Advisory Committee veto over controversial new TLDs.
The agency last night published a Further Notice Of Inquiry (pdf), which includes a proposed Statement Of Work that would form part of ICANN’s next IANA contract.
The IANA contract, which is up for renewal September 30, gives ICANN many of its key powers over the domain name system’s root database.
The new documents seem to fulfill NTIA assistant secretary Lawrence Strickling’s promise to use the IANA contract “as a vehicle for ensuring more accountability and transparency” at ICANN.
If the new draft provisions are finalized, ICANN would be contractually obliged to hold new gTLD applicants to a higher standard than currently envisaged by the Applicant Guidebook.
The FNOI notes that the US believes (my emphasis):

there is a need to address how all stakeholders, including governments collectively, can operate within the paradigm of a multi-stakeholder environment and be satisfied that their interests are being adequately addressed

The Statement Of Work, under the heading “Responsibility and Respect for Stakeholders” includes new text that addresses this perceived need:

For delegation requests for new generic TLDS (gTLDs), the Contractor [ICANN] shall include documentation to demonstrate how the proposed string has received consensus support from relevant stakeholders and is supported by the global public interest.

The current Applicant Guidebook does not require “consensus support from relevant stakeholders” before a new gTLD is approved.
It gives applicants the opportunity to show support from self-defined communities, and it gives communities the right to object to any application, but it does not require consensus.
Earlier this year, the GAC asked ICANN to beef up the Guidebook to make community support or non-objection a proactive requirement for applicants, but ICANN declined to make the change.
The .xxx Factor
The NTIA’s proposed “respect rule” alludes to the approval of .xxx, which the US and other governments believe was both not in the global public interest and unsupported by the porn industry.
Had the rule been applicable in March, ICANN could very well have found itself in breach of the IANA contract, and the NTIA could have been within its rights to block the TLD.
One way to look at this is as a US government safeguard against ICANN’s board of directors overruling GAC objections to new TLDs in future.
The Guidebook currently gives the GAC the right to object to any application for any reason, such as if it believed a proposed string was not supported by a community it purported to represent.
But the Guidebook, reflecting ICANN’s bylaws, also gives ICANN the ability to disagree with GAC advice (including its new TLD objections) and essentially overrule it.
Under the NTIA’s proposed IANA contract language, if ICANN were to overrule a GAC objection to a controversial application, the NTIA would be able to claim that the gTLD was approved without stakeholder consensus, in violation of the IANA contract.
The new gTLD program would have, in essence, a backdoor GAC veto.
While these changes are being made unilaterally by the US, they are certain to be supported by the European Commission and probably other members of the GAC.
Commissioner Neelie Kroes urged Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke to block or delay .xxx back in April, and subsequently met with Strickling to discuss their mutual opposition to the TLD.
Kroes and Strickling seem to agree agree that ICANN should not have signed the .xxx registry contract over the (weak, non-consensus) objection of the GAC.
The FNOI will shortly open for 45 days of public comment, so we’re not likely to know precisely how this is going to play out in the new IANA contract until August.
ICANN is now in the tricky position of trying to figure out how to incorporate this mess into the Guidebook, which it has indicated it plans to approve just over a week from now.
Singapore is going to be very interesting indeed.

Atlas shrugs after movie UDRPs

The producers of a movie based on the cult novel Atlas Shrugged have become the latest recipients of conflicting Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy decisions.
In two recent WIPO decisions, both written by the same panelist, Atlas Productions won its complaint over atlasshruggedmovies.com (plural), but lost another over atlasshruggedmovie.com (singular).
The company released a movie adaptation of the 1957 Ayn Rand book in April, having secured the rights in 1992, but did not appear to have a registered trademark on the name.
The split decisions, both made by WIPO panelist Richard Lyon, rested largely on whether the company had secured, through its investment, common law rights to “Atlas Shrugged”.
In the atlasshruggedmovies.com case, the panelist decided on balance it had rights, and awarded the domain to Atlas without discussing whether the domain had been registered in bad faith.
The decision to allow atlasshruggedmovie.com to remain with the original registrant appears to be because it was registered in 2004, well before Atlas started promoting its movie, and because the respondent made a convincing case that he is a writer/director of spoof movies.
Lyon noted: “There is much to spoof in Atlas Shrugged the novel.”
The fact that the respondent was lawyered up (represented by the law firm Greenberg Traurig) probably helped matters also.
By contrast, the respondent in the atlasshruggedmovies.com sent WIPO an email that constituted the entirety of his defense:

I am the owner of ‘atlasshruggedmovies.com’
I have no motives to go into infringe on any copyrights.
I am in fact the rightful owner and am waiting the interested party to contact me and make a reasonable communications regarding the domain.
I am not permitting the transfer of this domain to any parties at this time.
Thanks for your considerations.

His domain was registered in 2009, around the same time Atlas started plugging its movie, so it was a more clear-cut case of cybersquatting.

Feds did not seize conspiracy domain

I reported earlier in the week that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had seized a domain name belonging to an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist.
It seems I may have jumped the gun. The seizure of lowellsfacts.com almost certainly didn’t happen.
Ars Technica called up ICE for the affidavit used to win the court order to seize the domain, and received this statement from an apparently baffled press officer:

ICE has not taken any enforcement action against this site. The site owner/administration redirected www.lowellsfacts.com to our name server, where the seizure banner is hosted.

If this is true, it seems that any idiot can change their name servers to ns1.seizedservers.com and ns2.seizedservers.com and ICE will happily serve up a warning about copyright infringement without even checking whether the domain has actually been seized.
While the lowellsfacts.com case did seem odd, I had assumed that ICE was doing some basic domain verification before displaying its increasingly infamous banner.
This was not an unreasonable assumption – previously, domains seized due to child pornography have displayed a different banner to those involvement with counterfeiting.
There is some code on the site checking the incoming domains before displaying the banner, in other words, apparently just not enough to stop the wave of spoof seizures we’re now likely to see.

Feds seize conspiracy theorist’s domain

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has seized the domain name of an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist.
Update: This story is probably bogus.
The domain lowellsfacts.com has started resolving to the now-familiar ICE banner, warning visitors about the penalties for counterfeiting and copyright infringement.
Its name servers switched this week to ICE-owned seizedservers.com.
Judging from the Google cache, the site was devoted to spreading dangerous misinformation about the the efficacy of various vaccines, particularly Gardasil, which is used to prevent HPV infection.
Unlike previously seized domains, lowellsfacts.com does not, at least from the cache, appear to have been prominently pimping counterfeit goods.
It was registered using Go Daddy’s private registration service, but once belonged to one Lowell Hubbs.
You can listen to Hubbs’ theory about vaccines and the Rockerfellers on YouTube. He makes Jenny McCarthy look sensible. He was apparently a regular Huffington Post commenter.
A blog devoted to criticizing Hubbs and his theories can be found at lowellhubbs.blogspot.com and the reply to that blog, purportedly written by Hubbs, can be found, confusingly, at costnermatthews.blogspot.com.
The Hubbs’ blog claims the seized site had been hacked and filled with illegal porn links. His critic’s blog says he was likely shut down for using copyrighted material without permission.

Domain seizures can’t stop online drug pushers

Two US senators have reportedly asked the Drug Enforcement Agency to seize the domain name of Silk Road, a web site that lets drug users buy heroin and other narcotics online.
There’s just one problem: the site doesn’t have a domain name.
Silk Road is reportedly a bit like eBay, but for illegal drugs. You can buy ecstasy, marijuana, heroin and so forth, from actual dealers, using the peer-to-peer virtual currency Bitcoins.
This weekend, Sen. Charles Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin wrote to the DEA to demand that the site’s domain name be seized, an increasingly popular tactic in law enforcement.
But Silk Road’s address is apparently ianxz6zefk72ulzz.onion, which is only accessible through the mostly anonymous TOR onion-routing P2P network.
As far as I can make out, there is no registry for .onion addresses – they’re cryptographic hashes of private keys known only to the registrant, which ensures almost-uniqueness without the need for a central repository.
In other words, seizing the domain is going to be impossible.