Screen Actors Guild opposes new gTLDs

While it does not appear to be a member of the new Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight, the Screen Actors Guild has come out in opposition to new top-level domains.
The membership organization, which represents over 200,000 Hollywood actors, has asked US Secretary of Commerce John Bryson to persuade ICANN to delay the gTLD program until it can “demonstrate convincingly” that it will be in the public interest.
SAG national executive director David White wrote:

The ICANN proposal would unduly burden a diverse range of public and private brand holders, companies with whom our members are associated. This also presents an undue burden on our organization, as a globally recognized brand. Under this rule, many brand-holders would be forced to spend ever-greater amounts of time and resources simply to protect their brands.

Like many other opponents of the program, White also raises the conflicts-of-interest question that emerged following Peter Dengate Thrush’s move from ICANN’s chair to new gTLD applicant Minds + Machines.
SAG was not listed as a member of CRIDO, the huge cross-industry lobby group that formed to oppose new gTLDs last week, although its arguments are identical.

2 Comments Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs, new TLDs, screen actors guild

Staff changes at new gTLD consultancies

There’s movement in the new top-level domains consultancy market this week, with new hires and departures at a couple of startups.
It’s been a case of one in, one out at Sedari, the registry management services company founded by Liz Williams this summer.
The company has hired Philip Sheppard, most recently director of public affairs for AIM, the European Brands Agency, as its new policy director.
Sheppard is an ICANN veteran from the IP/business side of the house, who has chaired multiple policy committees since becoming involved in 1999.
But Sedari has also lost another industry vet, Jothan Frakes, who’s decided to go freelance.
Elsewhere, FairWinds Partners, which shares management with the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, has also emerged publicly as a new gTLD consultancy.
The Washington DC-based company hope to use its track record of criticizing the new gTLD program to win the support of big brands skeptical about the ICANN process.
FairWinds said this week it’s taken on former ICANN director Michael Palage of Pharos Global, who has worked for both proponents and opponents of the program, apparently on a freelance basis.

5 Comments Tagged: cadna, fairwinds, ICANN, new gTLDs, new TLDs, pharos global, sedari

Om Malik switches from .me to .co

High-profile Silicon Valley tech blogger Om Malik has switched from a .me domain name to a .co.
His personal blog, found at omis.me, is now redirecting to om.co. It’s a personal “rebranding”, according to a blog post this evening from .CO Internet CEO Juan Calle.
Calle was responding to reports today about Overstock.com’s decision to slow down its transition to the O.co brand, which is arguably .CO Internet’s biggest customer win to date.
Malik is best known as the founder of GigaOm, a professional tech news/analysis blog. If it’s any gauge of his influence, he has almost 1.3 million Twitter followers.
GigaOm is sticking with its .com.

Comment Tagged: .co internet, om malik

Europe dislikes US-only IANA rule

The European Commission is disappointed that only US-based companies are eligible to apply to take over ICANN’s IANA contract, but has otherwise welcomed the new deal.
As I reported Friday, the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration has put the IANA contract, which gives ICANN its powers to create new top-level domains, up for rebid.
While ICANN is generally expected to be a shoo-in for the contract, the NTIA tilted the odds in its favor by refusing to consider bids from replacement candidates from outside the US.
The EC said in a statement today:

The Commission believes greater respect should be given by the IANA contractor to respecting applicable law (such as EU personal data protection laws)… In that context, it noted with regret that non-US companies are not allowed to compete for the forthcoming IANA contract.

Otherwise, the EC said it was happy with the new provisions in the IANA contract, which promise to enforce mandatory conflict of interests protections on the winning bidder.
Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda said in a press release:

The new IANA tender is a clear step forward for global internet governance. A more transparent, independent and accountable management of the Internet domain names and other resources will reinforce the Internet’s role as a global resource.

The EC is also pleased that ICANN/IANA “will have to provide specific documentation demonstrating how the underlying decision-making process was supportive of the public interest” when new gTLDs are approved.
How this provision will be implemented, and how much power it gives ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee to kill new gTLD applications, is perhaps the biggest question hanging over the contract today.
The current IANA contract expires at the end of March next year, shortly before the end of ICANN’s first new gTLDs application window.

Comment Tagged: conflicts of interest, european commission, iana, ICANN, neelie kroes, new gTLDs, new TLDs, ntia

One in five .рф domains have web sites

The .рф registry celebrated its first launch anniversary last week, with almost one million .рф names registered and apparently almost one in five domains with an active web site.
According to RU-Center, which says it is the registrar of record for 40% of .рф (.rf) names, about 18% of the Cyrillic domains registered in the last year resolve to full web sites.
The registrar said in a press release:

18% of names have website, 16% do redirect, 4% are on parking, 15% are just delegated but not available, and 15% have a plug webpage. 29% of .RF names are unused.

That compares to the 18.7% use penetration of .info, which has been around for over a decade, assuming RU-Center and Afilias compiled their numbers using a similar methodology.
RU-Center also said that 94% of .рф sunrise registrations have been renewed. The rate of landrush registration renewals, which give an indication of what speculators think of the space, will not be clear until December, it said.
It is apparently now also possible for non-Russians to obtain .рф domains.

3 Comments Tagged: .rf, cctld.ru, landrush, renewals, ru-center, sunrise, рф

Third-level casino.uk.com sells for $4,000

The third-level domain name casino.uk.com has been sold via Sedo for $4,000.
The uk.com namespace is not an official public domain extension – uk.com is one of several regular .com domains managed as alternative TLDs by CentralNic.
While .uk.com domains do occasionally pop up in search engine results, and are even used by brands such as Avon, it’s unusual to see one sell on the aftermarket.
The only other notable sale in the DI database of over 60,000 publicly reported transactions is restaurants.uk.com, which was bought for $1,650 last year.
Casino.com was one of the most expensive domains of all time, fetching $5.5 million in 2003.

Comment Tagged: .uk.com, casino.uk.com, centralnic

Overstock.com slows down O.co rebranding

Overstock.com is throttling its transition to the O.co brand after discovering consumers typed o.com even after watching the company’s commercials, according to a report.
The company’s $350,000 purchase of and subsequent rebranding around the o.co domain was possibly the single biggest single marketing coup for .CO Internet, the .co registry, to date.
But now it intends to keep the Overstock.com brand in the US for the time being, while using O.co overseas and on a new iPad app, according to a report in AdAge.
The O.co Coliseum, the stadium in Oakland for which Overstock bought the naming rights, will continue to bear the O.co name.
AdAge quoted Overstock president Jonathon Johnson saying that “a good portion” of people viewing its commercials tried to visit o.com, which is a non-resolving registry-reserved name, instead.
“We were going too fast and people were confused, which told us we didn’t do a good job,” he told AdAge. “We’re still focused on getting to O.co, just at a slower pace… We’re not flipping back, we’re just refocusing.”
This is obviously bad news for commercial new top-level domain applicants, many of which will be looking for all-important anchor tenants to validate their brands at launch.
Marketing people like to refer to the measurable results of others before pulling the trigger on new initiatives. The O.co case is unlikely to create enthusiasm for new TLDs.
On the other hand, it’s commonly believed that when it comes to breaking the .com mindset in the US, it will take more than a trickle of new TLDs such as .co. It will take a flood.
.CO Internet has always taken the position that .co adoption will take time, and that the ICANN new gTLD program will help its cause by raising awareness of non-.com domains.

2 Comments Tagged: .co internet, anchor tenants, ICANN, new gTLDs, new TLDs, o.co, overstock.com

US puts ICANN contract up for rebid

The US government has put the IANA contract, which currently gives ICANN its powers to create new top-level domains, up for competitive bidding.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration issued a request for proposals late yesterday, almost a week later than expected.
The Statement Of Work, which defines the IANA contractor’s responsibilities, is over twice at long as the current IANA contract, containing many deliverables and deadlines.
While the contract is open to bidders other than ICANN, ICANN is obviously the likely winner, so it’s fair to read the SOW in that context.
Notably, the section dealing with approving new gTLDs has been changed since the draft language released in June.
NTIA said previously that in order to delegate a new gTLD, ICANN/IANA “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 new SOW has dropped the “consensus support” requirement and instead states:

The Contractor must provide documentation verifying that ICANN followed its policy framework including specific documentation demonstrating how the process provided the opportunity for input from relevant stakeholders and was supportive of the global public interest.

This could be read as a softening of the language. No longer will ICANN have to prove consensus – which is not a requirement of the Applicant Guidebook – in order to approve a new gTLD.
However, the fact that it will have to document how a new gTLD is “supportive of the global public interest” may give extra weight to Governmental Advisory Committee objections.
If the GAC were to issue advice stating that a new gTLD application was not in “the global public interest”, it may prove tricky for ICANN to provide documentation showing that it is.
The SOW also addresses conflicts of interest, which has become a big issue for ICANN following the departure of chairman and new gTLD proponent Peter Dengate Thrush, and his subsequent employment by new gTLD applicant Minds + Machines, this June.
The SOW says that IANA needs to have a written conflicts of interest policy, adding:

At a minimum, this policy must address what conflicts based on personal relationships or bias, financial conflicts of interest, possible direct or indirect financial gain from the Contractor’s policy decisions and employment and post-employment activities. The conflict of interest policy must include appropriate sanctions in case on non-compliance, including suspension, dismissal and other penalties.

Overall, the SOW is a substantial document, with a lot of detail.
There’s much more NTIA micromanagement than in the current IANA contract. Any hopes ICANN had that the relationship would become much more arms-length have been dashed.
The SOW includes a list of 17 deadlines for ICANN/IANA, mainly various types of compliance reports that must be filed annually. The NTIA clearly intends to keep IANA on a fairly tight leash.
You can download the RFP documents here.

4 Comments Tagged: iana, ICANN, national telecommunications and information administration, new gTLDs, new TLDs, ntia

Lawley quits as .xxx sponsor chairman

ICM Registry president Stuart Lawley has stepped down as chairman of IFFOR, the sponsoring organization for .xxx, after ongoing criticism over potential conflicts of interest.
He will be replaced by Clyde Beattie, a former chair of .ca manager CIRA, who was already on IFFOR’s governing board of directors.
IFFOR, the International Foundation For Online Responsibility, was set up by ICM to act as the “sponsoring organization” required by ICANN’s 2004 new gTLD process.
The organization is supposed to be independent, consisting of a policy-creation committee overseen by a three-person board of directors.
However, it has come in for frequent criticism from the porn industry, notably the Free Speech Coalition, over the perception that it is basically an ICM puppet.
While the Policy Council has five out of nine members drawn from the porn industry, the FSC has often accused Lawley of having a “veto” on IFFOR’s decisions, which he has denied.
“Even though the bylaws ensured separation, the optics weren’t ideal,” said Lawley.
However, while Beattie takes over his role, Lawley’s empty seat on the IFFOR board will be filled by ICM general counsel Sheri Falco.
ICM still has a vote, in other words, but not the chair.
The third board member is Sebastien Bachollet, CEO of BBS Consulting. Bachollet also sits on ICANN’s board of directors as a representative of At-Large community.

Comment Tagged: free speech coalition, fsc, icm registry, iffor, international foundation for online responsibility, stuart lawley, xxx

Massive group forms to kill off new gTLDs

ICANN’s new nemesis is called CRIDO.
Eighty-seven companies and trade groups have formed the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight, a lobby group set up to kill ICANN’s “deeply flawed” top-level domains program.
It’s led by the Association of National Advertisers, which emerged this August as a vocal opponent of new gTLDs and has spent the last few months recruiting allies.
Its new domain, crido.org, is registered to the ANA’s PR firm and currently redirects to the ANA’s gTLD microsite.
The new group said in a press release today:

On behalf of its many constituencies and industries, CRIDO is committed to aggressively fighting ICANN’s proposed program, citing its deeply flawed justification, excessive cost and harm to brand owners, likelihood of predatory cyber harm to consumers and failure to act in the public interest, a core requirement of its commitment to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
…
If the ICANN program proceeds, CRIDO firmly believes, the loss of trust in Internet transactions will be substantial. In addition, the for profit and non-profit brand community will suffer from billions of dollars in unnecessary expenditures – money that could be better invested in product improvements, capital expenditures and job creation.

CRIDO’s members comprise 47 trade associations, most but not all American, and 40 companies, many of them major household names such as Coca-Cola, Burger King and Kellogg.
Together, they have signed a petition to the Department of Commerce, ICANN’s overseer in the US government, asking it put a halt to the new gTLDs program
The questions now are whether Commerce will do anything concrete to address the demands and, if not, whether CRIDO will decide to put its lawyers where its mouth is instead.
Here’s a handy table of all CRIDO’s members.
[table id=3 /]

13 Comments Tagged: ana, association of national advertisers, crido, department of commerce, ICANN, new gTLDs, new TLDs