ICANN revolving door: invisible whiteboard lady jumps to Afilias

In yet another shocking example of the unregulated “revolving door” between ICANN and powerful companies in the domain name industry, a blurry lady using an invisible whiteboard appears to be working for ICANN and Afilias at the same time.
Proof can be found in these screenshots, taken today from afilias.info and newgtlds.icann.org.
The photographs appear to have been digitally altered to disguise the mystery double-agent’s appearance, but it’s clearly the same woman.
ICANN:

Afilias:

Call your lawyers! Write to the Department of Commerce! We have ourselves a scandal!
UPDATE: She works for CentralNic too!!!

13 Comments Tagged: afilias, ICANN

M+M offers .brand gTLDs from $25k

Minds + Machines is promoting its gTLD registry services to brand owners at the International Trademark Association meeting in Washington DC, revealing prices as low as $25,000 a year.
Its .brand package covers preparing and filing the application with ICANN and then running the technical back-end.
The company also appears to have introduced a price ceiling of $100,000 a year for .brand clients, according to a press release.
M+M is even offering to throw in a private, ICANN-accredited registrar. I believe the company may be the first registry to publicize this kind of bundled service.
The company is targeting brand owners that may not be convinced by the attractiveness of a .brand, and may have no clue what to do with one, but which nevertheless do not want to be left behind in the event that the second round of new gTLD applications is delayed for many years.
M+M CEO Antony Van Couvering is quoted as saying:

There are a lot of innovative ways for brands to use new gTLDs, but most brands want to first secure their gTLD for a reasonable price, and maybe use it internally, before deciding on the next step.

M+M, which hired former ICANN chair Peter Dengate Thrush as chairman in June, has been among the most aggressive marketers of new gTLDs (which are, after all, it’s entire raison d’etre).
Its enthusiasm has already caused a couple of raised eyebrows.
A teaser announcement from M+M earlier this week, which mentioned how its “registry platform is connected with all major registrars, including MarkMonitor” caused MarkMonitor to issue a clarification stating that it has “no business relationship” with the company.
While MarkMonitor is plugged into CoCCA, the registry platform that handles dozens of ccTLDs, it is not plugged into Espresso, which is M+M’s in-house version of the open-source CoCCA software, the company said in a blog post.
(UPDATE: M+M’s Antony Van Couvering notes in the comments below that MarkMonitor accepts .fm registrations, and that the .fm registry uses Espresso)
CoCCA itself felt compelled to issue a statement in July, clarifying that CoCCA and M+M are not working together on Espresso, as some had inferred from an M+M interview.

7 Comments Tagged: .brands, cocca, espresso, ICANN, m+m, markmonitor, Minds + Machines, new gTLDs, new TLDs

As new gTLDs loom, ICANN expands

ICANN plans to upgrade its offices in California and Brussels to deal with anticipated staff growth as the new top-level domains program kicks off.
In a resolution passed late last week, the board of directors said that ICANN should start negotiating for more space at its current location, or to find a new location in Marina Del Rey.
It also resolved to lease a permanent office in Brussels, where it’s currently paying month-to-month at a Regus managed office facility.
Both resolutions are redacted of the specifics of price and locations of interest, presumably in order to not jinx ICANN’s negotiating position with its landlords.
ICANN employs 124 staff, and has job openings for 21 more, according to its latest CEO’s report. Many of its open positions are intended to support the new gTLD program.
Its fiscal 2012 budget includes $2.1 million to pay for its offices in Marina Del Rey, Brussels, Washington DC, Palo Alto and Sydney.
Also in Friday’s board meeting, ICANN approved the formation of a search committee to find itself a new CEO, following the announcement of Rod Beckstrom’s July 2012 departure.
The committee isn’t likely to be formed until the next meeting, in Dakar, October 28, so don’t all start typing up your resumes just yet.
The board also approved the appointment of new chief financial officer Xavier Calvez, who was named to the post on an interim basis earlier this month.
He will receive a salary of $250,000, with a 30% ($75,000) performance-based bonus. That’s compared to his predecessor’s $170,000 base and 20% bonus.

Comment Tagged: budget, ICANN

There’s a new new gTLDs Applicant Guidebook and it’s quite boring

ICANN has released the eighth version of the Applicant Guidebook for the new generic top-level domains program as promised, and as expected it’s rather dull.
Here it is.
By far the most important change appears to be the firm inclusion of a new deadline: March 29, 2012.
If you’re a new gTLD applicant, and you have not registered with ICANN’s TLD Application System by 2359 UTC, March 29, 2012, you’re done – your application fails at the starting blocks.
Apart from that, there does not appear to be much to get excited about.
The long gap since the program was approved by the ICANN board on June 20 had some people scratching their heads, wondering whether major changes were in store.
But what’s been published tonight appears to differ very little from the draft published in May, and most of the edits are those specifically envisaged by the June resolution.
It has, for example, been updated to reflect some of the Governmental Advisory Committee’s requests that ICANN’s board of directors acceded to in Singapore.
There’s no longer a requirement for the GAC to reach consensus in a transparent way when it deliberates about new gTLD objections.
There’s also almost 40 new strings – variants of the Olympic, Olympiad, Red Cross and Red Crescent trademarks – that are now explicitly banned from the first round of gTLD applications. These are being called “Strings Ineligible for Delegation”, rather than “Reserved” strings.
(As an aside, while it’s easy to understand the GAC’s rationale for this, does it strike anyone else as a completely pointless move? The gTLD .olympic may be now banned, but the far better and more obvious squat, .olympics, is not.)
No redline version of the Guidebook – in which all the edits are highlighted – has yet been published, but ICANN has released a non-exhaustive document summarizing the changes here.
Not included in that summary is ICANN president Rod Beckstrom’s new introduction, which addresses the latest batch of criticisms leveled at the program (such as the perceived lack of publicity since June and the unfinished applicant support policy).
It also drops the “Dear Prospective Applicant” salutation found in previous versions of the Guidebook, which probably doesn’t mean anything.
The disclaimer that the Guidebook has not been approved has also disappeared. While the document could be considered a production copy, it by no means presents a full picture of the program
Some of the items of unfinished business I outlined in this article last month remain unfinished.
The aforementioned applicant support program, for example, is not likely to be approved until the ICANN board’s meeting in Dakar, October 28.
The new Guidebook explicitly punts this, now saying it will be handled “through a process independent of this Guidebook”.
The Singapore promise that ICANN would continue discussing the US and EU government concerns about cross ownership between registrars and registries does not appear to have led to any edits either, but that does not necessarily mean it’s settled law.
Also, the process the GAC will use internally to decide whether to raise objections to gTLD applications is still not known.
In summary, it appears that we have an Applicant Guidebook that is “approved”, but is unlikely to be the “final” version.

3 Comments Tagged: applicant guidebook, ICANN, new gTLDs, new TLDs

New gTLD events in London this week

If you’re in London, UK today or tomorrow, there are a couple of events relating to the new top-level domains program you may wish to attend.
Tonight, ICANN president Rod Beckstrom is hosting an informal gathering for UK domain name geeks and internet governance wonks from 5.30pm at the POP Bar of the Hilton Park Lane Hotel.
It’s an open-invitation event so, despite rumors I’ve seen on Twitter, I’m 99% certain it will not be a free bar.
I’m going anyway.
Tomorrow morning, there’s going to be a panel discussion and Q&A session on new gTLDs at the offices of the PR company Edelman.
Panelists include Beckstrom, Nominet chief executive Lesley Cowley, Com Laude director Lorna Gradden, and me. It’s being chaired by Edelman’s Jonathan Hargreaves.
Breakfast is served at 8am, and the panel runs from 8.30am until 10am. It’s an RSVP event, but I believe the venue holds 150, so there’s bound to be still plenty of available seats.
RSVP details can be found here.
Hopefully it will be an interesting discussion. If you’re attending and would like to introduce yourself, at these kinds of things I’m usually the guy looking vaguely out of place.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs, new TLDs

Get your first look at ICANN’s new gTLDs microsite

ICANN is stepping up its so-far lackluster new top-level domains outreach campaign with the launch tomorrow of a microsite dedicated to the topic.
The site is expected to host the long-anticipated “final” or production version of the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook, which could be published as early as Monday evening.
It’s designed to educate potential gTLD applicants from outside the usual crowd of insiders.
The site is scheduled to go live at roughly 1930 UTC tomorrow, but DI has had a sneaky peek and can bring you some exclusive preview screen captures today.
Unlike icann.org, which strikes many as confused and a little bewildering, the microsite adopts a more conventional, basic, business-focused design.
Abstract clip art? Check. Businessperson pointing to bar graph? Check. Globe? Check. Smiling Asian lady? Check.
Here’s a a grab of the front page.

And the Program Status tab gives an indication of what ICANN is planning for the web site a few months down the line.

Director of marketing and outreach Scott Pinzon also has a new blog on the microsite, possibly the first of a few.
Here’s a grab of the Applicant Guidebook page. The links are not yet working, but note the date.

The site has a video page. ICANN’s very well-received plain-English overview of new gTLDs has been uploaded, in addition to plain-French, plain-Russian, plain-Chinese and plain-Spanish versions.
There are several talking-head featurettes, which edit together soundbites from gTLD registry executives, giving a very high-level flavor of what it’s like running a registry. Here’s a sample.

Overall, it looks like an encouraging step in the right direction.
The design is clean and accessible and there’s very little ICANNese and very few acronyms. As a gateway for the new gTLD program, it appears to be easily up to the task.

3 Comments Tagged: ICANN, microsite, new gTLDs, new TLDs

Watch ICANN’s president explain his departure

Rod Beckstrom explained his decision to leave ICANN next year, and gave a status report on the new top-level domains program, in a recent video.
The interview with ICANN freelancer Jim Trengrove was taped August 31 and uploaded to an ICANN video channel, but does not appear to have been made easily viewable anywhere yet.
In it, Beckstrom gives his version of events leading up to his August 16 resignation announcement, which some interpreted as a decision made by the ICANN board.
“I was only willing to make a three-year commitment in the first place and that’s what we came up with,” Beckstrom says. “We had some discussions with the board to make some contract changes and we did not come to agreement so I decided not to seek renewal.”
“The last thing I wanted to do was leave this organization in the lurch,” he says, explaining the early announcement. “As soon as I made my decision I decided the very next day to communicate that.”
The 16-minute video also gives a quick update into the gTLD program.

“Is ICANN ready?” Trengrove asks (a question I posed myself the very same day). Beckstrom responds:

ICANN is preparing very well for the program… There’s a lot of work to get done every single day still to prepare this program for the January 12 launch, but I’m pleased to say I think the team is performing and I think we will be ready. At the same time, it is going to put more visibility on ICANN and bring new pressures so it’s hard to say exactly how ICANN will respond to all those but I think all the preparation to run a proper program is being put in place.

At the time the video was taped, the growing anti-gTLDs campaign from the advertising industry was already well-evident, which may be what Beckstrom is referring to.
He goes into some detail about his thinking when it came to the decision to cut off interminable new gTLD policy debate in favor of getting on with execution.
The interview also touches on ICANN’s emerging ethical conundrum, which was most recently exemplified by Sen. Ron Wyden’s call for an anti-“revolving door” policy.
Beckstrom says that enforcing ethical behaviour is “extremely important for ICANN’s credibility”.
If the embedded video above does not work for you, you can watch it here.

1 Comment Tagged: ICANN, new gltds, new TLDs, rod beckstrom

Cheap gTLD drive adds to ICANN’s to-do list

ICANN may be given a huge to-do list before it starts accepting new top-level domain applications, in order to help level the playing field between rich and poor countries.
If sweeping new recommendations are approved, ICANN would have just a couple of months to create a new gTLD application review process, to find a panel to police it, and to find the money to cover it.
Since March 2010, a volunteer working group known as JAS has been debating the hows, whos and how muches of a program to provide financial support to gTLD applicants from developing nations.
It’s now come up with its Final Report (pdf), which contains a laundry list of things that JAS says ICANN needs to do before it starts accepting applications from anyone.
JAS has called for a reduction in the application fee from $185,000 to $47,000, as well as a provision allowing qualified applicants to pay the fee on a staggered schedule.
It also asks ICANN to create and partially fund a foundation to provide financial support, in addition to fee reductions, that eligible applicants would be able to draw from and pay back over time.
To qualify for the cheaper fees and other support, applicants would have to come from a developing economy found on certain UN lists. By my count, more than 80 countries would be eligible.
Recognized indigenous peoples – apparently including developed-world groups such as Native American tribes or Aboriginal Australians– would also qualify for assistance.
(I don’t know about you, but I immediately thought about the “Indian casino” model used to evade gambling prohibitions in parts of the US.)
Supported applicants would have to demonstrate that their gTLD would serve an under-served community or language group, and provide “genuine social benefit”.
So-called “.brand” applicants would be specifically excluded, but commercial entities operating in the public interest would be able to apply for the fee reductions and financial support.
The application procedure would be governed by a yet-to-be written Support Evaluation Process, overseen by a not-yet-created Support Application Review Panel, comprised of expert volunteers from inside and outside ICANN’s existing community structures.
The unpaid SARP panelists would have to be knowledgeable about the domain name industry and likely gaming patterns, in order to help prevent applicants exploiting the system.
The JAS says that all of this needs to be in place before the first round of applications:

there is a serious concern that, if support is not available to eligible applicants in the first round, the most obvious and valuable names (ASCII and IDNs) would be taken solely by wealthy investors.
…
Given the uncertainty regarding further rounds of new gTLD applications following the round planned for January 2012, it is necessary to make support available in the initial January 2012 round.

While I’ve no doubt that the ICANN board of directors will be picking over these proposals during its two-day retreat, which kicked off today, the JAS report now needs to filter through the GNSO and the ALAC – the two ICANN community bodies that commissioned its work.
Realistically, the earliest ICANN can rubber-stamp these recommendations is at its meeting October 28 in Dakar, Senegal, which would give ICANN staff just two months to create and deploy the entire applicant support program and to educate likely users.
ICANN’s new chief financial officer could also have to oversee the recalculation of the new gTLD program budget to reflect the JAS group’s ideas about how the program should be funded.
For example, the JAS report states that the $60,000 component of a single full application fee currently designated to “risks” could be instead be used to cover the shortfall between the $47,000 supported-applicant fee and the $100,000 in anticipated processing costs for such an application.
If ICANN were to adopt the recommendation, it would beg the question of how well the $185,000 “cost recovery” fee was calculated in the first place.
While not unexpected, the JAS proposals are a complex, audacious 11th-hour bump in the wire for ICANN, which already appears to be struggling to get its ducks in a row in time for January 12.
Regardless of whether the program can be rolled out in time, its likely users are already at a disadvantage compared to their wealthier counterparts, which at least have numbers to put in their own budget.

Comment Tagged: applicant support, dakar, ICANN, jas, new gTLDs, new TLDs

Senator calls for ICANN ethics controls

An influential US senator has called on the US government to impose new ethics rules on ICANN.
In a letter to the US Department of Commerce, which has an oversight relationship with ICANN, Senator Ron Wyden said that new “strict ethics guidelines” should be created.
The letter appears to be in direct response to Peter Dengate Thrush’s move from his role as ICANN’s chairman to a potentially lucrative job with a new top-level domains applicant.
(And, presumably, at the behest of whoever told Wyden about it.)
Dengate Thrush’s last major act at ICANN was to lead the vote to approve its new generic top-level domains program, this June at ICANN’s public Singapore meeting.
Three weeks later, he joined Minds + Machines parent Top Level Domain Holdings, which plans to build its entire business model around applying for new gTLDs.
“As news reports have indicated, a formerly high-ranking official at ICANN has left the organization and was immediately hired by one of the domain name companies regulated by ICANN,” a Wyden press release reads.
Wyden wants new ethical guidelines designed to prevent a “revolving door” built into the IANA contract, which is the one way Commerce can still exert unilateral control over ICANN.
He wrote: “any IANA employees ought to be made subject to the same ethics rules in place as NTIA [National Telecommunications and Information Administration, part of Commerce] employees.”
The IANA contract is up for renewal before March next year.
Pretty much anybody with a vested interest in getting more control over of the DNS is currently doing their best to hack the contract by lobbying the NTIA, directly or indirectly.
I wonder who’s behind this particular appeal.

4 Comments Tagged: department of commerce, iana, ICANN, national telecommunications and information administration, ntia, ron wyden

RodBeckstrom.xxx will never see the light of day

ICM Registry has reserved the names of dozens of ICANN directors, former directors and members of staff from the new .xxx top-level domain.
RodBeckstrom.xxx, it seems, is going to be permanently protected from cybersquatters.
I’ve reported before that thousands of celebrity names – about 4,300, it has since emerged – were placed into Registry Reserved status.
I can’t believe it did not occur to me until now to see if any domain industry “personalities” were also given the same preemptive protection.
It seems that every current member of the ICANN board has had their name reserved. One borderline case appears to be Ray Plzak, who’s only protected as RaymondAPlzak.xxx.
Two former ICANN directors who left the board this year – Peter Dengate Thrush and Rita Rodin Johnston – are also reserved, though Rita only as RitaRodin.xxx.
Further back, there’s spotty coverage. Raimundo Beca (left the board in 2010), former CEO Paul Twomey (2009) and Michael Palage (2006) have their names reserved, but many others have not.
Lots of ICANN staffers have been bestowed reserved status too, but again it appears to be quite random whether they’re included or not.
It does not appear to be based on rank (some VPs are excluded, but some mid-level employee names are reserved) or profile (some reserved names will be unfamiliar to anybody who does not attend ICANN meetings).
ICM has also reserved the names of all of its own employees.
I have been unable to find any big industry names from outside ICM and ICANN that are on the list. Bob Parsons is going to have to defensively register bobparsons.xxx, for example.
It’s worth noting that it’s against ICM’s rules to register any personal name under .xxx that is not the registrant’s own legal name or stage name, no matter what their intentions are.
Unlike .com, with .xxx registrants have to enter into an agreement with the registry – not just the registrar – when they buy a .xxx name.
It’s quite possible – though I’ve yet to confirm – that ICM will be able to disable any unauthorized personal name registered in .xxx without the offended party having to file an expensive claim.
And because registrants’ identities will be checked by ICM at the time of registration, even if they use Whois privacy, that should presumably be fairly easy to enforce in most cases.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, icm registry, xxx