Mystery commenter targets M+M new gTLD clients

Having filed dozens of comments criticizing Top Level Domain Holdings’ financial acumen, someone calling himself Alexander Drummond-Willoughby has turned his attention to the company’s new gTLD clients.
Drummond-Willoughby has filed 82 comments with ICANN, until today all of them targeting TLDH’s own gTLD applications and all of them alleging some kind of unspecified financial irregularity.
But today he’s filed exactly the same allegations against applicants, such as BRS Media and the Fédération Internationale de Basketball, that have selected TLDH subsidiary Minds + Machines as their back-end registry services provider.
It’s a barely coherent argument, but the rub of it appears to be that TLDH has made a few bad financial bets, such as investing £180,000 in a potential .nyc applicant that failed to secure the support of New York City.
The source for Drummond-Willoughby’s information appears to be TLDH’s own regulatory filings — the company is listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market — and not exactly secret.
Drummond-Willoughby, for somebody who’s clued-in enough to know about the new gTLD program, has done a remarkably good job of keeping his name out of Google’s index and other search engines, leading to suspicions that it’s a pseudonym.
Here’s his comment on the FIBA bid for .basketball.
UPDATE: TLDH has provided the following statement:

TLDH / Minds + Machines is disappointed that ICANN is allowing individuals hiding behind fictional identities to make accusations against us and our clients that are baseless and may be legally actionable. TLDH, as a company listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, is closely overseen by our Nominated Advisor, Beaumont Cornish, a firm licensed by the LSE to monitor our compliance with Exchange rules and applicable laws. The incoherent insinuations coming from these shadowy commenters are without merit and any charges that we have engaged in illegal or unethical activity are completely untrue. TLDH reserves all its rights and will ask ICANN to remove the comments and provide us with appropriate identifying information of these posters.

1 Comment Tagged: minc

Congressmen quiz ICE over domain seizures

Three US members of Congress have expressed “deep concern” over the alleged lack of due process followed when the Department of Homeland Security seizes domain names.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Jared Polis and Rep. Jason Chaffetz quiz DHS (pdf) about the methods employed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in its Operation In Our Sites.
The Congressmen’s letter highlights the case of the hip-hop web site Dajaz1.com, which had its .com seized by ICE and then returned.
“Much of Dajaz1’s information was lawful,” the letter reads. “Despite this, DHS and the Department of Justice suppressed this website for more than a year.”
The Congressmen say that “if a website’s domain is seized, it needs to be given meaningful due process that comports to the US Constitution and US law”.
Operation In Our Sites has seen ICE seize hundreds of domains — mainly .coms accused of copyright infringement — from US-based registries including Verisign since late 2010.
Despite the relatively small number of domains seized, there have been a number of controversies.
Notably, the Spanish TV download web site RojaDirecta, which lost its .com and .org domains despite being ruled legal by a court in its home nation, last month had them returned to it by ICE.

Comment Tagged: congress, dajaz1, ice, rojadirecta, seizures

Why .com still doesn’t have a thick Whois

ICANN’s board of directors quizzed staff about the lack of a “thick” Whois obligation in Verisign’s .com contract, according to meeting minutes released last night.
The vote was 11-0 in favor, with four abstentions, when the board controversially approved the deal during the Prague meeting in June.
Director George Sadowsky raised the thick Whois issue, which has been a sharp wedge issue between non-commercial users and the intellectual property lobby, according to the minutes.
Senior vice president Kurt Pritz responded:

Kurt noted that while a requirement for a “thick” registry had been a topic of conversation among ICANN and Verisign, the ongoing GNSO Policy Development Process initiated on this same issue rendered this topic somewhat ill-suited for two-party negotiations. In addition, the current .COM registrants entered registration agreements with the understanding of .COM as thin registry, and the resultant change – along with the ongoing policy work – weighed in favor of leaving this issue to policy discussions.

In other words: thick Whois is best left to community policy-making.
Thick Whois is wanted by trademark holders because it will make it easier to enforce data accuracy rules down the road, while non-commercial stakeholders oppose it on privacy grounds.
Domainers, at least those represented by the Internet Commerce Association, have no objection to thick Whois in principle, but believe the policy should go through the GNSO process first.
Verisign is publicly neutral on the matter.
The ICANN board vote on .com was considered somewhat controversial in Prague because it took place before any substantial face-to-face community discussion on these issues.
Sadowsky abstained, stating: “I feel very uncomfortable going forward with provisions that will tie our hands, I think, in the long run without an attempt to reach an accommodation at this time.”
Three other directors (Tonkin, De La Chapelle and Vasquez) abstained from the vote due to actual or the potential for perceived conflicts of interest.
The .com agreement is currently in the hands of the US Department of Commerce which, uniquely for a gTLD, has approval rights over the contract. It’s expected to be renewed before the end of November.

1 Comment Tagged: .com, commerce, ICANN, verisign

ICANN to return to South Africa in 2013

The location of ICANN’s second meeting in 2013 has been revealed as Durban, South Africa.
A proposal submitted by the local ccTLD manager, .za Domain Name Authority, was approved by the ICANN board of directors earlier this week.
It’s the second time ICANN has hosted one of its thrice-yearly public meetings in the country; in 2004, Cape Town was the venue.
The Durban meeting will run from July 14 to July 19 2013. It’s the third upcoming meeting on ICANN’s calendar after Toronto (October) and Beijing (April 2013).
Durban, a popular tourist destination, is South Africa’s third-largest city, with a population of about half a million almost four million.

2 Comments Tagged: .durban, ICANN

Satellite policy expert named ICANN director

ICANN has named Olga Madruga-Forti, an Argentinian telecoms policy expert, as the newest member of its board of directors.
Selected by this year’s Nominating Committee, Madruga-Forti will take over from R. Ramaraj when his second term ends at the Toronto meeting this October.
According to the biography provided by ICANN, she has extensive experience of telecommunications policy, particularly related to satellite, in both public and private sectors.
She currently works for ARSAT in Buenes Aires as international counsel. She’s previously worked for Iridium, Loral and the US Federal Communications Commission.
ICANN pointed out that she represents telcos at the International Telecommunications Union, a relevant data point, perhaps, given the WCIT conference coming up in December.
Madruga-Forti ticks one of the Latin-American boxes on the ICANN board.
NomCom has also reappointed two other directors for second terms on the board: Gonzalo Navarro (Latin-America) and the reliably contrarian George Sadowsky (North America).
New leadership members of three ICANN supporting organizations have also been selected by NomCom.
Jennifer Wolfe of the intellectual property law firm WolfeSBMC, which counts new gTLD applicants Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Kraft Foods among its clients, has been appointed to GNSO Council.
I believe she’s destined to replace Carlos Dionisio Aguirre when his term is up later this year.
Canadian Alan Greenberg and Frenchman Jean-Jacques Subrenat have been reappointed to the At-Large Advisory Committee.
Mary Wong, who currently sits on the GNSO Council representing non-commercial stakeholders, has been appointed to the ccNSO Council.
The full biographies of all 2012 NomCom appointees can be found here.

Comment Tagged: alac, board, ccnso, gnso, ICANN, nomcom

ICM hires Fausett to help with YouPorn antitrust case

ICM Registry has hired new lawyers to help it fend off the antitrust lawsuit filed against it by YouPorn owner Manwin Licensing.
Gordon & Rees senior partner Richard Sybert is taking over as lead counsel in the case, which relates to the launch of .xxx last year.
Notably, the new team includes long-time ICANN legal expert Bret Fausett of Internet.Pro, who represented the Coalition For ICANN Transparency in its antitrust case against ICANN and Verisign.
That’s a bit of a coup for ICM. Manwin’s recent legal arguments have relied heavily on the antitrust precedents Fausett helped set in the CFIT case.
Gordon & Rees replaces Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr as ICM’s outside counsel, due to the recent departure of Wilmerhale’s ICANN guru and ICM defender, Becky Burr.
Burr joined Neustar as its chief privacy officer in May.
Manwin sued ICM and ICANN last October, arguing that the launch of .xxx was little more than a shake-down.
Earlier this month, a California District Court judge ruled that ICANN is not immune from competition law and that the litigation can proceed.
The case will turn in part on the question of whether there’s a market for “defensive registrations” under competition law and whether ICANN and ICM illegally exploited it.

Comment Tagged: antitrust, ICANN, icm registry, manwin, xxx, youporn

Melbourne IT holding new gTLD trademarks summit

Melbourne IT will hold a half-day conference on trademark protection in new gTLDs next month in Washington DC.
Google, Microsoft, Donuts, and the Association of National Advertisers are among those expected to take part in the discussion.
The meeting follows on from Melbourne IT’s recent anti-cybersquatting proposal, which calls for stronger protections for brands that are frequent targets of trademark infringement.
The panel includes many familiar faces from ICANN meetings. Applicant interests are represented, albeit by a minority of the panelists.
It will be moderated by Melbourne IT chief strategy officer (and ICANN vice-chair) Bruce Tonkin. Here’s the full line-up:

Andrew Abrams, Trademark Counsel, Google
James L. Bikoff, Partner, Silverberg, Goldman & Bikoff
Steve DelBianco, Executive Director, NetChoice and Vice Chair Policy Coordination, ICANN GNSO Commercial Business Users Constituency
Dan Jaffe, Group EVP Government Relations, Association of National Advertisers
Jon Nevett, Co-Founder, Donuts
Russell Pangborn, Associate General Counsel – Trademarks, Microsoft
Craig Schwartz, General Manager – Registry Programs, BITS/The Financial Services Roundtable
Brian J. Winterfeldt, Partner, Steptoe & Johnston and ICANN GNSO Counselor (Intellectual Property Constituency)

The event starts at 1.30pm local time at the Capital Hilton in DC on September 18. An RSVP is needed. There’s no official word on remote participation yet.

2 Comments Tagged: cybersquatting, ICANN, melbourne it, new gTLDs, trademarks

The .patagonia problem

Argentina has escalated its complaint with ICANN about the new gTLD application for .patagonia.
Ambassador Alfredo Morelli of the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has written to ICANN’s leadership to let them know that .patagonia “should not be used as a closed brand gTLD”.
An American clothing company that goes by the name of Patagonia Inc has applied for .patagonia, which it intends to use as a dot-brand, but Patagonia is also a region of South America.
Argentina’s Governmental Advisory Committee representative told ICANN’s board in Prague this June that the government would not stand for a geographic term for part of its country being used in this way.
But Argentina has a problem.
The new gTLD program rules, as spelled out in the Applicant Guidebook, give special protection to geographic strings, but only if they appear on certain lists.
Rather than create its own list of geographic strings, ICANN instead deferred to established international standards, such as ISO 3166.
Patagonia, as far as I can tell, does not appear on any of these lists. (The DI PRO database compares all applied-for strings against protected geographic names.)
While it’s undoubtedly the name of a region, covering parts of Argentina and Chile, it does not appear to be the name of the kind of administrative division covered by ISO 3166-2.
Judging by the Applicant Guidebook, ICANN’s Geographic Names Panel would therefore not designate .patagonia as geographic and the applicant would not have to secure government support for its bid.
It’s not clear from the Guidebook how much flexibility, if any, the panel will get to make subjective decisions with edge cases like this.
However, so much of the program that had been thought finalized is today apparently still open for negotiation that I wouldn’t be surprised if the rules are changed or reinterpreted.
While the .patagonia application has so far attracted almost 300 negative comments from internet users, it is not the only dot-brand to ruffle feathers in Argentina.
There has been a smaller outcry over the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s application for .cba, which apparently matches the abbreviation of the Argentinian Province of Cordoba.
The string “CBA” does not appear to be protected by the Applicant Guidebook either, and I’ve not seen any official concerns raised by governments yet.
I think there’s a strong chance the .patagonia application is dead, even if it is not officially deemed geographic.
The GAC will almost certainly object, and even if the objection does not have consensus the ICANN board will have a big reason to reject the bid.

3 Comments Tagged: .cba, .patagonia, argentina, commonwealth bank of australia, gac, geographic names panel, ICANN, new gTLDs

New gTLD typo policy coming today?

ICANN’s board-level new gTLD program committee may vote today on a policy for enabling new gTLD applicants to correct errors in their applications.
Many of the 1,930 applications contain mistakes of varying degrees.
Some are obvious, such as typos in the applied-for string — .dotafrica springs to mind — and copy-paste errors made by large portfolio applicants that reference strings in the wrong application.
The trick for ICANN is figuring out which change requests are genuine while excluding attempts to game the system in light of new competitive information emerging post-Reveal Day.
According to an update issued last night, ICANN staff have come up with a set of seven criteria to decide whether any of the dozens of changes that have been requested should be permitted.
The criteria, which have not yet been revealed, are subject to approval, ICANN said.
But the ICANN board of directors is due to meet today, and it seems likely that its new gTLD program committee — made up of non-conflicted directors — will also have a session.
It’s quite possible that the criteria will be rubber-stamped today and published later this week.
ICANN also said last night that it plans to overhaul its new gTLD microsite shortly to make information easier to find, which will be welcomed by many applicants and observers.
The Clarifying Questions pilot, a test-run for a more formal process later this year, has also started. I understand the 50 selected applications received their questions late last week.
Another webinar for applicants has also been scheduled for next week.

1 Comment Tagged: clarifying questions, ICANN, new gTLDs

Why domain names need punctuation

ICANN wants to know whether it should formally ban “dotless” domain names in the gTLDs for which it oversees policy.
While the Applicant Guidebook essentially prohibits registries using their new gTLDs without dots, there’s not yet a hard ban in the template Registry Agreement.
But that could change following a new ICANN public comment period.
A dotless domain might appear in a browser address bar as http://tld or, with more modern browsers, more likely just tld. A small number of ccTLDs already have this functionality.
To make it work, TLDs need to place an A record (or AAAA record for IPv6) in the root zone. This is known as an apex A record, which the Applicant Guidebook says ICANN will not permit.
The result, IANA root zone manager Kim Davies told us in July 2011, is a “default prohibition on dotless domains”.
Davies could not rule out apex A/AAAA records entirely, however. Specific requests for such functionality might be entertained, but would likely trigger an Extended Evaluation.
ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee is of the opinion that dotless gTLDs should not be permitted on various security grounds, including the fact that lots of software out there currently assumes a domain without a dot is a trusted host on the local network.
You can read the SSAC report here.
Dotless domains would also mess up browsers such as Chrome, which have integrated address/search bars; when you type “loreal” do you intend to search for the brand or visit its TLD’s web site?
But a far more intuitive, non-technical argument against dotless domains, as CentralNic’s Joe Alagna noted in his blog over the weekend, is that they do not pass the cocktail party test.
It’s hard enough trying to communicate the address “domainincite.com” across a noisy cocktail party as it is, but at least the dot immediately informs the listener that it’s a domain name.
Without dots, are we even talking about domain names any more?
The first phase of the new comment period runs until September 23. We understand that, depending on responses, a new ban on dotless domains could be introduced to the standard new gTLD registry agreement and possibly even added to legacy registry agreements in future.

5 Comments Tagged: apex a records, dotless domains, ICANN, new gTLDs