Cruz keeps up pressure on ICANN brass

US presidential wannabe Sen. Ted Cruz has sent ICANN’s chair another nasty letter, demanding to know why he hasn’t yet responded to a laundry list of questions about former CEO Fadi Chehade’s relationship with the Chinese government.
The letter, also signed by fellow Republican senators Mike Lee and James Lankford, expresses “dismay” over the lack of response from Steve Crocker.
Cruz et al have been posing awkward questions to ICANN’s top brass since it emerged in December that Chehade had taken an unpaid position on an internet governance advisory committee run by China.
The senators say they’re worried that the US relinquishing its oversight of the IANA functions will give governments with poor freedom of expression records too much control over the internet.
A more likely explanation is that the IANA transition is an Obama initiative, and if Obama single-handedly saved a bunch of kids from a burning orphanage Cruz & Co would blame him for contributing to over-population.
That’s more or less the sentiment Chehade expressed at ICANN 55 last month, when he said:

And you know that this [Cruz] letter is not driven by anyone really worried about the transition. This is someone really worried about politics. So let’s not bring politics into the transition… Let’s resist bringing the politics of our lovely capital into this process… I think everyone knows this is political, even those in his own party… We will answer all these questions… And we will respond to the questions fully, to the Senators’ full satisfaction.

The new letter calls Chehade out for this statement, saying he “disparaged” what they call an “oversight request”.
An actual Congressional oversight hearing, focusing on the transition, a couple of weeks ago had absolutely no fireworks whatsoever.
It seems that the Republican-led committee actually responsible for internet matters, which does not include Cruz as a member, isn’t particularly upset about the IANA transition.
Nevertheless, the new Cruz letter re-poses a whole list of questions about Chehade’s involvement in China and Crocker and the ICANN board’s response to it.
The questions were originally asked March 3. ICANN had evidently said it would respond by March 18 but has not.
Cruz’s hand in the Republican primaries against front-runner Donald Trump has been strengthened in recent days, increasing the possibility that he could become US president next January.

Comment Tagged: iana, ICANN, ted cruz, transition

Rightside offers $10 renewals on premium names

Rightside is to run a promotion that will discount renewals on premium names down to .com prices.
From May 16 to June 30, if you buy any of the domains that Rightside has marked as premium — except the super-premium “Platinum” names — the wholesale renewal fee will be just $10.
Registrars will mark this up according to their own pricing models.
Normally, the price you pay at the checkout is the price you pay every year after that.
The deal is overtly targeted at domainers.
Rightside said: “At these reduced prices, you’ll have more time to find the right buyer for any domains you register, and incur lower fees to transfer to them once you do. If you’re looking to add high-quality domains to your portfolio, this will be the time to do it.”
The reduced renewals only apply to names registered during the six-week window, but they do pass on to subsequent registrants if the domain is sold.
Rightside is calling it a “first-of-its-kind” promo, but in reality it’s just a temporary regression to the once-standard industry model.
Remember, prior to the 2012-round gTLDs, only exceptions like .tv charged premium rates for renewals.
Premium renewals are now very commonplace, but are by no means the rule, in the new gTLD industry.
For Rightside, the offer means the company may experience a brief cash windfall as domainers, who generally hate premium renewals, take a chance on the registry’s names.
There’s also a potential marketing benefit to be gained from having more domainers on board as unpaid salespeople.
But it does rather suggest the premiums are not flying off the shelves at the rate Rightside wants.
The company recently disclosed that in the first few months of the year it made revenue of $674,610 selling 1,820 premium names, leading to an average price of $372. Twelve five-figure names had been sold.
Over its portfolio of 39 gTLDs, Rightside has flagged over 964,000 as premium, or about 25,000 per TLD.

Comment Tagged: .discount, new gTLDs, premium, renewals, rightside

ICANN bans sandwiches from Helsinki meeting

ICANN has announced that sandwiches have been banned from the forthcoming ICANN 56 public meeting in Helsinki.
The move has been made in response to recent controversies over the availability of “inappropriate” foodstuffs during coffee and lunch breaks at the thrice-yearly policy meetings.
“The board has listened, and the board has acted decisively in response to community concerns,” ICANN chair Steve Crocker said at a packed press conference today.
“Starting with ICANN 56, our meeting venues will be sandwich-free zones,” he said.
ICANN has had to take on new caterers to supply non-sandwich-based refreshments and will incur a one-time early termination fee of $242,000, according to its contract with its former supplier.
“It’s a small price to pay to make sure we only provide appropriate snacks for our valued stakeholders,” he said.
DI has obtained a copy of the proposed Helsinki menu, which has been approved as “100% fine” by ICANN’s board and Ombudsman, as well as the legal and compliance departments and external auditors.
You can read it here (pdf).
The unexpected sandwich ban surprised many community leaders.
“The ICANN board is totally missing the point here,” said GNSO chair James Bladel. “The PBJ-WG clearly and unanimously recommended that the prohibition should only apply to cheese sandwiches.”
“It’s just another example of top-down, unilateral regulation,” he said.
Critics noted that, due to pressure from the French government, the ban does not apply to filled baguettes.
But Crocker denied government meddling had created a loophole, noting that all baked goods containing fillings comprising over 32% dairy-based solids would still be captured by the ban.
“Naturally, we couldn’t ban all baguettes,” he said. “That would be a ludicrous thing to do.”
He advised all ICANN 56 delegates to show up early to sessions in order to speed up the new mandatory sandwich-screening bag checks.

12 Comments Tagged: april 1

Over 20 companies fighting for .org contract

More than 20 companies want to take over the back-end registry for the .org gTLD, according to Public Interest Registry.
PIR put the contract, currently held by Afilias, up for bidding with a formal Request For Information in February.
It’s believed to be worth north of $33 million to Afilias per year.
PIR told DI today that it “received more than 20 responses to its RFI for back-end providers from organisations representing 15 countries.”
That represents a substantial chunk of the back-end market, but there are only a handful of registry service providers currently handling zones as big as .org.
.org has about 11 million names under management. Only .com, .net and a few ccTLDs (Germany, China and the UK spring to mind) have zones the same size or larger.
PIR said it would not be making any specific details about the bidders available.
The non-profit says it plans to award the contract by the end of the year.

Comment Tagged: .org, afilias, pir, public interest registry

“Cheese sandwich” comment blamed for sexual harassment complaint

ICANN’s first formal case of sexual harassment has been closed with no official finding by the Ombudsman.
Ombudsman Chris LaHatte today said he was unable to establish the facts of the alleged incident, which is said to have taken place during a coffee break at the ICANN 55 meeting in Marrkech, March 6.
LaHatte said that the complainant’s decision to publicly name the man she says harassed her had “compromised” his investigation and that the alleged actions of the man “cannot be considered serious”.
It also emerged publicly for the first time that the interaction that led to the complaint was a brief conversation about sandwiches.
LaHatte’s report on the incident says:

The allegation was that she had a relatively brief discussion with a man, which she found derogatory and which she considered was sexual harassment. The description was that he leaned towards her and took her ICANN identification tag. There was a general discussion about the food, and she said that he made the comment, “you can go make me a cheese sandwich”

But the complainant told DI a slightly different version of events that she said is more accurate:

[The man] approached me, pulled at my name tag, examined it and dropped it. A little later, he lifted my name tag and flipped it back and forth, asking me “Where are you from?”, leaned in, lecherously looked at me and then said, “do you know how to make a cheese sandwich?” I was taken aback and responded angrily with “Yes, that is why I came here, to make you cheese sandwiches.” He went on to throw another lecherous look my way and said, “Well, I love veg sandwiches.”

According to LaHatte, the man in question flatly denies that the incident even took place.
The complainant says the incident can be defined as sexual harassment under the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Indian law (she is Indian), and the ICANN corporate policy against sexual harassment among its staff.
Neither party is a member of ICANN staff.
LaHatte says in his report that he has not considered jurisdiction or matters of definition, given that he was unable to even establish the facts of the incident.

In this complaint, the matters alleged cannot be considered serious by any standard. If in fact the action and statement were made, it may have been a lapse of good manners and insensitive to gender. Such issues need to be taken in proportion, and best practice is not to debate this in a public forum where the issues are not yet clear…
However any chance of discussing the comments has been compromised by the decision to identify the other party before my investigation could be completed, and for the parties to have had a full opportunity to consider the alternative versions. The other party has been publically named without an opportunity to make any comment or denial of the incident. It is also part of my role as the ombudsman to ensure that standards of procedural fairness are met, and the premature publication regrettably does not meet the standards of natural justice, because the parties have a right to be heard before this occurred.

LaHatte names the complainant (who waived her right to confidentiality) but not the man (who didn’t) in his report.
The man has apparently considered legal action over his public naming.

7 Comments Tagged: ICANN, icann 55, marrakech, Ombudsman, sexual harassment

Google registrar dumps .com for dot-brand

Google has started using its primary dot-brand gTLD for its registrar business.
The URL domains.google.com now bounces users to domains.google. The site sells domains from $12 a year with free Whois privacy.
Is this move a big deal for improving new gTLD awareness? I don’t think so.
Anyone visiting any major registrar’s storefront is likely to become aware that new gTLDs exist really rather quickly, regardless of the registrar’s own choice of domain.
A registrar using its dot-brand is not going to work wonders for new gTLD awareness in the general populace.
If Google were to start using .google for any of its non-domain projects, such as search.google, that would be different.
The company was already using registry.google for its registry business’s web site.

Comment Tagged: google, new gltds

China floats domain crackdown plans

The Chinese government is planning a crackdown on internet domains that could see mass censorship of non-Chinese names.
Draft rules floated for public comment this week are being widely reported as potentially blocking any domain that is not registered via a registry or registrar with a government license.
There are more than 50 provisions in the draft, but Article 37 is the one causing the most concern.
A translation published by Quartz yesterday has it reading like this:

Domain names engaging in network access within the borders shall have services provided by domestic domain name registration service bodies, and domestic domain name registration management bodies shall carry out operational management.
For domain names engaging in network access within the borders, but which are not managed by domestic domain name registration service bodies, Internet access service providers may not provide network access services.

At its worst, it suggests that every domain name not registered entirely through China-approved registries and registrars could be blocked from resolving in China.
You’d need a domain in .cn or a licensed gTLD, registered through a Chinese registrar, to access Chinese internet users, in other words.
But even Chinese locals who follow the issue closely are reportedly saying the regulations are vaguely worded, so it’s not clear exactly what would be blocked.
If you can read Chinese, the draft rules can be downloaded from this page. I’d be interested in hearing your take on them.
The rules also demand that domain name companies prevent domains carrying words deemed harmful from being registered.
There are additional controls on content — bans on porn, “rumor” and basically anything the Chinese government does not like — and registrant identity validation requirements.
The rules appear to be designed to replace the existing 2004 regulations that among other things force registrars and registries to obtain government licenses before the names they sell are allowed to resolve.
Those rules have led to several Western new gTLD registries, including Rightside, Famous Four Media and Minds + Machines, opening up corporate entities in China, in order to tap into the thriving market.
Local entities are of course subject to local laws — and ICANN contracts oblige them to abide by all applicable laws — which opens up the risk of Chinese regulations leaking out into the wider internet.
That almost happened with XYZ.com, which announced and then retracted (or clarified) an apparent plan to globally block domains deemed unsuitable by the Chinese censors.
It is inevitable that the proposals, which are open for public comment until April 25, will be used by US Congressional Republicans as a stick to beat ICANN and fight the imminent transition of IANA away from US government oversight.
High profile GOP politicians including presidential hopeful Ted Cruz have pointed to Chinese censorship as a risk of removing the USG from DNS root zone management.
But this isn’t really an ICANN problem as such. It’s a market forces problem.
Some new gTLD registries are seeing huge sales volume from Chinese registrants, who are trading many thousands of short, meaningless domains like baseball cards at the moment.
DI data shows that Chinese registrars accounted for 18.4 million gTLD domains in November 2015, up by 8.8 million domains in 12 months.
That number is likely to be several millions greater now, given the speculative activity of the last few months.
For registries, fully exploiting this market requires some sort of local presence, which in turn means exposing themselves to the already pretty bad Chinese censorship regime.
They’re going to have to be careful if they want to avoid China using the market to achieve the kind of back-door policy control it would never be able to obtain via ICANN.

1 Comment Tagged: censorship, china, ICANN, new gTLDs

Man in sexual harassment claim considers legal action

The man accused of sexual harassment at an ICANN meeting is considering legal action for defamation.
He’s also filed a counter-complaint with ICANN Ombudsman Chris LaHatte, after his accuser named him on a public mailing list.
That’s according to emails from LaHatte, screen-captured and posted to social media by the woman making the accusations.
LaHatte had previously told the woman that the man could not recall the alleged incident, said to have taken place during ICANN 55 in Marrakech a couple of weeks ago.
The woman says her name tag — at ICANN meetings a rectangle of plastic hanging loosely around the neck on a strap — was “pulled at” while the man made “inappropriate remarks”.
The content of the alleged remarks has not yet been disclosed.
She published her Ombudsman complaint — which names the man — to a public mailing list late last week.
In the new email, LaHatte tells her that naming the man publicly has complicated matters.

The investigation now becomes very difficult. Indeed, he has complained about the naming as being unfair and asked me to undertake a complaint investigation about your action.

The man was entitled to a “fair and impartial investigation”, he said, but “his privacy has been compromised”.

I have been waiting for a response from you about his reaction to the allegations. So he has now complained that he has been named before he had a chance for your response to be considered by me, and for any analysis and report. This is a matter of procedural fairness, and in my view he should have had the opportunity to have your reply. He is therefore considering his response which may include litigation unfortunately.

The complainant says she wants ICANN to create a sexual harassment policy for its participants — she was already talking to LaHatte about this before the alleged incident.
ICANN’s board of directors said in Marrakech it had instructed staff to look into the possibility of such a policy.

5 Comments Tagged: ICANN, icann 55, marrakech, sexual harassment

auDA chief Disspain let go after 16 years

Australian ccTLD manager auDA had parted ways with its founding CEO, Chris Disspain.
Disspain had been with auDA since its formation in 2000, spearheading the liberalization of the .au market.
His contract was up for renewal later this year, auDA said, “but the Board agreed new leadership was required to take the organisation forward”.
No further explanation was given, but it seems he’s leaving immediately.
Chief operations and policy officer Jo Lim will be acting CEO while a permanent replacement is found, a process expected to take six months.
auDA’s brief statement can be found here.
Disspain is a long-time ICANN leader, chairing the ccNSO for many years and sitting on the board of directors in one of the two ccNSO seats since 2011.
A vocal and active participant in board interactions with the community, he’s often tipped as a natural successor to current chair Steve Crocker, whose term limit kicks in late 2017.
Losing his job at auDA may make that a little more complicated.

1 Comment Tagged: .au, auda, ICANN

Debate as accuser names “sexual harasser”

The woman who says she was sexually harassed at the ICANN meeting in Marrakech earlier this month has controversially named the alleged perpetrator on a public mailing list.
She’s also publicly released documents exchanged between herself and the ICANN Ombudsman, with whom she has made a formal complaint.
According to her complaint the man, a longstanding and often vocal member of the ICANN community “approached me, pulled at my name tag, and passed inappropriate remarks.”
“I felt like my space and safety as a young woman in the ICANN community was at stake,” the complaint says.
No allegations of physical contact have been made, and the content of the “inappropriate remarks” has not been disclosed.
I’m not going to name either party here. They’re “the man” and “the woman” for now.
The woman has said on the mailing list in question that she’s waived her right to confidentiality.
I contacted the man for comment at the weekend and have not yet received a reply.
An email from Ombudsman Chris LaHatte, released by the woman, shows that he has spoken to the man.
The man said he could not recall the incident and LaHatte declined to tell him who his accuser was, for confidentiality reasons, the email says.
The release of the documents has sparked discussion on the mailing list and social media about whether publicly naming the man was the most appropriate course of action.
Inevitably, there’s also been some discussion about what constitutes sexual harassment.
The woman said she had already been engaged with LaHatte about the possibility of ICANN creating a sexual harassment policy, and that “this incident pushed me to take forward what had hitherto been a mere academic interest with increased vigour”.
She said in a released email predating Marrakech that during ICANN 54 last year, her first ICANN meeting, “I personally felt as though a few inappropriate remarks were made by certain male co attendees”.
When the woman initially made her allegations at the ICANN public forum, ICANN director Markus Kummer said the board had asked ICANN staff to look at possibly adjusting the longstanding Expected Standards Of Behavior to more specifically address sexual harassment.
“We clearly do not condone improper conduct of any kind such as harassment or otherwise and there should be zero tolerance for it within the community,” he said during the public forum.

2 Comments Tagged: ICANN, icann 54, icann 55, marrakech, sexual harassment