Go Daddy checkout charity raises $20k for Haiti

Go Daddy’s quietly launched “Round Up For Charity” scheme has so far raised over $20,000 for the Hope For Haiti appeal, according to the company.
The month-old initiative gives the domain name registrar’s customers the option to round their bill up to the nearest dollar when they buy a product on its web site. The proceeds go to the charity.
With a new .com costing $12.17, that works out to a $0.83 donation every time somebody checks the box. With that in mind, $20,000 works out to the equivalent of about 24,000 registrations.
I was expecting more, given how much business passes though Go Daddy’s site every day, but I guess not all donations will be as high as $0.83, and not everybody will check the box (there really is no excuse for not checking the box).
It’s a pretty cool idea, a good example of how a company can leverage scale to do some good in the world. Haiti could use all the help it can get at the moment.
Company CEO Bob Parsons has also promised to match his customers’ donations dollar for dollar, according to a press release. He’s also uploaded a video of a recent trip to Haiti here.

1 Comment Tagged: bob parsons, go daddy, haiti

“Corruption” claims as .africa fight heats up

The fight for the right to run .africa as a top-level domain has been heating up in recent weeks, culminating today in claims of “corruption” and “large-scale illegality”.
A organization called DotConnectAfrica has been mustering support for .africa for a few years, but since March it has faced a rival bid from AfTLD, an association of African country-code TLDs.
The contest has already degenerated into quite a fierce war of words, with allegations of corruption coming from one side and counter-claims of FUD coming from the other.
DCA claims the AfTLD initiative is using “double-dealing” to “unfairly” win the endorsement of the African Union, while AfTLD says DCA is using “intimidation” to get its way.
Under ICANN’s proposed rules, any entity that wants to apply for a TLD purporting to represent a large geographic region must secure the support of 60% of the nations in that region.
It’s not explicit, but it’s quite possible that African Union support may cover this requirement. Backing from the AU therefore could be the deal-breaker for .africa bidders.
DCA has a letter, signed by AU Commission chair Jean Ping, dated August 2009, which offers to support the DCA application.
But there’s good reason to believe that this support may have been revoked last year, and that the AU Commission has opened up its options once more.
The Commission last November annnounced (pdf) a new Task Force, charged with finding an entity to act as the official applicant for .africa when the ICANN new gTLD program opens.
DCA seems to believe that this Task Force has been captured by supporters of the rival AfTLD bid. In a press release today, it says:

there is a dangerous nexus between a certain cabal within the AU Task Force on Dot Africa and the AfTLD – and this nexus has been established in order to disingenuously facilitate ‘insider’ help for AfTLD’s Expression of Interest to the AU and prospective bid to ICANN.

The release goes on to make a number of allegations, such as:

AU Task Force members on DotAfrica are also advisors and confederates of AfTLD. DCA believes that such affiliations are unwholesome and foster corruption, nepotism, abuse of office, and large-scale illegality.

DCA appears to be concerned (to put it lightly), that some of the members of the AU Commission Task Force appear to have conflicts of interest.
The Task Force’s chair, Pierre Dandjinou, and its vice-chair, Nii Quaynor (a former ICANN director) have both previously put their names to a different and now apparently defunct .africa project that also intended to compete with DCA for .africa.
Another member of the Task Force, Abibu Ntahigiye, manager of Tanzania’s .tz domain, also appears to sit on the executive committee of AfTLD as its treasurer.
I’m not sure if any of this cross-pollination meets the definition of “corruption” or “illegality”, but I can understand why DCA is worried.
The DCA press release follows an AfTLD meeting in Ghana last month at which attendees were urged to “don’t believe what others claim” and “entertain no intimidation” when it comes to the .africa contest.
A presentation (pdf) delivered by AfTLD general manager Vika Mpisane says: “AfTLD, just like the AU, recognizes no any alleged pre-endorsements of any alleged bidder by the AU.”
Mpisane has been quoted recently heavily implying that DCA plans to put its commercial interests before the good of Africans, saying:

On one side is the self-serving commercial interest that some entities are already championing; these are entities that are in it purely for the money; on the other side is a community-serving commercial interest that most of the African internet community prefers.

AfTLD says it recently closed an RFP for a back-end registry provider to join its bid for .africa (and .afrique, which it also plans to apply for) and will announce the winner soon.
The AU Commission is expected to launch an RFP for a registry manager to endorse.

6 Comments Tagged: africa, african union, aftld, dotconnectafrica, ICANN, new TLDs

ICANN tries to dodge .jobs legal fees

“Please don’t sue us!”
That’s the message some are taking away from the latest round of published correspondence between lawyers representing ICANN and .jobs registry Employ Media.
Employ Media last week said it will take ICANN to the International Chamber of Commerce, after they failed to resolve their dispute over the company’s controversial Universe.jobs venture.
Now ICANN has asked the registry’s executives to return to the negotiating table, apparently to reduce the risk of having to spend millions of dollars on lawyering.
In a letter (pdf) to Employ Media’s attorneys, ICANN outside counsel Eric Enson of Jones Day said that ICANN wishes to avoid “costly legal fees associated with arbitration or litigation”:

I again request a meeting among the business persons involved in this matter to discuss potential resolutions before spending more of ICANN’s funding on unnecessary litigation.

The latest round of published correspondence, like the last one, and the one before that, seems to contain a fair bit of legal posturing, with both sides accusing the other of conducting negotiations in “bad faith” for various reasons.
Filing the arbitration notice with the ICC might turn out to be a smart move by Employ Media, knowing how risk-averse and cash-conscious ICANN is.
ICANN is still smarting from the last time it headed to arbitration, for its Independent Review Panel over ICM Registry’s .xxx top-level domain.
ICANN lost that case in February 2010, and had to cover the panel’s almost $500,000 in costs, as well as its own legal fees. The overall price tag is believed to have comfortably made it into seven figures.
But that may well turn out to be small beer compared to the price of losing arbitration against the .jobs registry.
Unlike the IRP, in which both parties pay their own lawyers no matter who wins, Employ Media’s contract states that the losing party in arbitration must pay the legal fees of the winner.
To go up against .jobs at the ICC and lose could hit ICANN’s coffers harder than the .xxx dispute, in other words. That’s not to say it would lose, but with matters as complex as this there is that risk.
It’s worth noting that Employ Media’s lead attorney has form when it comes to reaching into ICANN’s pockets – Crowell & Moring’s Arif Ali also represented ICM Registry in the .xxx IRP case.

4 Comments Tagged: .jobs, crowell & moring, employ media, ICANN, icc, icm registry, xxx

Graham beats Doria to ICANN board

Bill Graham of the Internet Society has won an election to ICANN’s board of directors.
Graham beat academic Avri Doria by 8 votes to 5 in the second round of polling from the Non-Contracted Parties House of the GNSO Council.
He will take his seat at the end of ICANN’s meeting in Singapore next month, June 24, replacing trademark lawyer Rita Rodin Johnson, who is reaching the end of her term.
Graham currently leads ISOC’s “strategic global engagement” initiatives.
(UPDATE: Thanks to Graham for alerting us to the fact that he actually retired from ISOC a week ago).
Until 2007, he was director of international telecommunications policy with Industry Canada, the Canadian government’s department responsible for the technology economy.
In that role, he also served as vice-chair of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee.
The current GAC chair, who also has a non-voting seat on the ICANN board, is Heather Dryden, also a senior policy adviser at Industry Canada.
Graham will become the fourth former GAC member to join the ICANN board, after former CEO Paul Twomey of Australia and current directors Bertrand de la Chapelle of France and Gonzalo Navarro of Chile.
Here’s a useful infographic, courtesy of ICANN, that shows how the board is composed (click to enlarge).

The two green squares are set aside for members of the GNSO. One is for “contracted parties” such as registrars and registries. Graham, elected by the NCPH, will take the other.
In the first round of voting, which concluded a week ago, Doria led by 7 votes to 6, one short of the 8 votes needed to win.
While the voting was private, it is believed that non-commercial and commercial stakeholders voted in blocs in the first round – commercial for Graham, non-commercial for Doria. In the second round, two of her supporters evidently switched sides.
Graham and Doria were the only candidates to be nominated.

5 Comments Tagged: avri doria, bill graham, board, election, gnso council, ICANN

Princess Kate’s brother registers domain for nude photo take-down threat

The brother of the newly installed Duchess of Cambridge (formerly known as Kate Middleton) reportedly posed as a lawyer in order to get his nude photos yanked from a porn site.
According to Gawker, James Middleton sent a take-down notice to its sister site, the porn blog Fleshbot, after it published some fairly tame photographs of his naked frat-boy antics.
The notice was sent via email, purportedly from “Nice Group London Legal” at nicelawyers.co.uk.
But the Whois record, as Gawker discovered, showed that the company was a phoney, and that Middleton himself was the registrant.
The creation date of the domain, April 10, suggests it was registered precisely in order to send this kind of take-down threat. Fleshbot continues to carry the photographs.
And the lesson here? I’m sure there is one. I’m just blogging it because I think it’s funny.

2 Comments Tagged: fleshbot, gawker, james middleton, kate middleton

US wants to delay new TLDs

With ICANN seemingly hell-bent on approving its new top-level domains program at its Singapore meeting, June 20, the US government wants to slam the brakes.
Congressmen from both sides of the aisle this week said the launch should be put on hold, and yesterday Lawrence Strickling, head of the NTIA, said he does not believe June 20 is realistic.
In a speech before the Global Internet Governance Academic Network, GigaNet, in Washington DC yesterday, Strickling said that ICANN needs to pay more heed to the advice of its Governmental Advisory Committee before it approves the program.

I commend ICANN for its efforts to respond to the GAC advice. Nonetheless, it is unclear to me today whether ICANN and the GAC can complete this process in a satisfactory manner for the Board to approve the guidebook on June 20, 2011, as ICANN has stated it wants to do.

While discussing the ongoing boogeyman threat of an International Telecommunications Union takeover of ICANN’s functions, he added:

Unless the GAC believes that ICANN has been sufficiently responsive to their concerns, I do not see how the Guidebook can be adopted on June 20th in Singapore in a manner that ensures continuing global governmental support of ICANN.

That’s incredibly strong stuff.
Strickling is suggesting that if ICANN rejects GAC advice about what goes into the new TLDs Applicant Guidebook, ICANN may be able to kiss international governmental support goodbye, potentially threatening the organization’s very existence.
And it wasn’t the only threat he raised.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is in the process of renewing and possibly amending ICANN’s IANA contract, which gives it the power to introduce new TLDs.
If anyone in any government is in a position to bargain directly with ICANN, it’s Strickling. He tackled this position of power head-on in his speech:

I heard from yesterday’s House hearing that some of the witnesses proposed that we use this contract as a vehicle for ensuring more accountability and transparency on the part of the company performing the IANA functions. We are seriously considering these suggestions and will be seeking further comment from the global Internet community on this issue.

I believe the only witness to raise this issue at the hearing was Josh Bourne of the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse. He wants a full audit of ICANN before the IANA contract is renewed.
The Congressional “oversight” hearing in question, before the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet, was not much more than a kangaroo court.
The Representatives in attendance read from prepared statements and from questions they frequently seemed to barely understand, stated fringe opinions as fact, asked inane questions that demonstrated the loosest of grasps on the subject before them, then came to the (foregone) conclusion that the new gTLD program should be delayed pending further work on protecting trademark holders.
I’m not saying these politicians need to be subject matter experts, but if the words “intellectual property” and “the internet” are in your job description, you ought be embarrassed if the words “new BGLTs, or whatever they’re called” come out of your mouth in public.
The Subcommittee has no direct power over ICANN, of course, beyond the fact that it belongs to the legislature of the country where ICANN is based.
But Strickling does.
In his speech yesterday, he also made it quite obvious that the NTIA currently has no plans to push ICANN further along the road to full independence by signing a Cooperative Agreement instead of a procurement contract for the IANA function.
That proposal was made by ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom, and supported by a small number of others in the industry, including Vint Cerf. But Strickling said:

The fact is, however, that NTIA does not have the legal authority to transition the IANA functions contract into a Cooperative Agreement with ICANN, nor do we have the statutory authority to enter into a Cooperative Agreement with ICANN, or any other organization, for the performance of the IANA functions.

The Beckstrom proposal always seemed like a long shot, but to have it dismissed so casually will surely be seen as a setback on the road to true ICANN independence from the US.

17 Comments Tagged: applicant guidebook, congress, gac, iana, ICANN, new TLDs, ntia

Europe asked the US to delay .xxx

European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes asked the US Department of Commerce to delay the introduction of the .xxx top-level domain after ICANN approved it, I can reveal.
In an April 6 letter to Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, a copy of which I have obtained, Kroes expressed dismay with ICANN’s decision, and wrote (my emphasis):

I would therefore consider it necessary for the [ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee] to reflect, at a senior level, on the broader implications of the Board’s decision on .XXX, and to do so before the TLD is introduced into the global Internet. I assume that the United States government would appreciate the opportunity to hear the views of other countries on this important issue, and I very much hope therefore that I can count on your support for such an initiative.

The letter was sent after ICANN had approved .xxx, but nine days before the National Telecommunications and Information Administration instructed VeriSign to add it to the DNS root.
It seems to be an implicit request for the NTIA to delay .xxx’s go-live date to give the Governmental Advisory Committee of ICANN time to regroup and consider how best to continue to oppose the domain.
As I reported this morning, assistant secretary Lawrence Strickling replied to Kroes later in April, agreeing with her in principle but saying that to intervene could do more harm than good.
Kroes objected on the grounds that GAC had “no active support” for .xxx, that national-level blocking of the TLD could threaten internet stability, and that parents will be given a “false sense of security” if they choose to filter .xxx domain names.
She also didn’t buy ICANN’s rationale for its decision, saying it contained “mostly procedural arguments that do not adequately reflect the significant political and cultural sensitivities” created by .xxx.
She additionally noted that:

Most importantly, perhaps, are the wider consequences that we have all have to deal with as a result of this decision. We are both aware of the broader geo-political Internet governance debate that continues regarding the legitimacy of the ICANN model. I am concerned therefore that ICANN’s decision to reject substantive GAC advice – of which there is also an apparent risk in relation to the new generic TLD process – may be detrimental to the multi-stakeholder, private sector-led model which many of us in the international community have been stoutly defending for years.

This seems to be a reference to the longstanding debate over whether the International Telecommunications Union, or another intergovernmental body, may be better suited to overseeing domain name system policy.
In his reply to Kroes, Strickling offered to meet her by teleconference or in person in Brussels, in order to discuss how to proceed.
The fallout from .xxx’s approval may not be over by a long shot.
UPDATE: Read the Kroes letter: Page One, Page Two.

10 Comments Tagged: department of commerce, european commission, gac, ICANN, icm registry, lawrence strickling, neelie kroes, ntia, xxx

Did Europe ask America to block .xxx?

The European Commission may have asked the US Department of Commerce to block or delay the .xxx top-level domain, it has emerged.
I’ve heard rumors for a few weeks that Neelie Kroes, vice president of the Commission responsible for the digital economy, wrote to Commerce in April, asking it to delay the go-live date for .xxx.
Today, a reply from Lawrence Strickling, assistant secretary at Commerce, has emerged, published on the blog of Polish technology consultant Andrzej Bartosiewicz.
It appears to confirm the rumors. Strickling wrote:

While the Obama Administration does not support ICANN’s decision, we respect the multi-stakeholder Internet governance process and do not think it is in the long-term best interest of the United States or the global Internet community for us unilaterally to reverse the decision.

It’s certainly possible to infer from this that Kroes had asked the US to exercise its unique powers over the domain name system’s root database to block or delay .xxx.
The Kroes letter was evidently sent April 6, about 10 days before the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, part of Commerce, instructed VeriSign to add .xxx to the root.
In his April 20 response, Strickling shared Kroes’ “disappointment” with ICANN’s decision, saying the organization “ignored the clear advice of governments worldwide, including the United States”.
He said the decision “goes against the global public interest and will spur more efforts to block the Internet” and agreed that ICANN “needs to make to engage governments more effectively”.
To that end, Strickly offered to fly to Brussels to meet with Kroes to conduct a “senior level exchange” on how to better work with ICANN.
While it’s probably too late for any of this to affect .xxx, operated by ICM Registry, it is a clear sign that governments are taking a renewed interest in ICANN’s work.
ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee issued weak advice on .xxx, noting merely that no governments outright supported it, and that “several” were opposed. The was no consensus.
Because the GAC did not explicitly say “do not approve .xxx”, ICANN was able to rationalize its decision by saying it was not explicitly overruling governmental advice.
At least three countries — Saudi Arabia, India and Kenya — have already indicated that they may block .xxx domains within their borders.
UPDATE: Kroes did in fact ask Commerce to delay .xxx.

6 Comments Tagged: department of commerce, european commission, ICANN, icm registry, lawrence strickling, neelie kroes, ntia, xxx

Domain industry blasts Congress TLD hearing

Executives from over a dozen domain name companies have slammed a US Congressional subcommittee for its plan to hold a one-sided hearing on new top-level domains.
A letter, drafted by AusRegistry International’s chief strategy officer, Krista Papac, says the hearing is “not fairly balanced” and “will present a distorted picture of the new gTLD process.”
As I reported earlier this week, the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet called at least four representatives of the trademark lobby to discuss new TLDs.
Kurt Pritz, ICANN’s senior vice president, is the only person testifying today who could be considered wholly supportive of the new gTLD program. The other witnesses are either advocates of trademark interests or more governmental involvement in ICANN.
Papac wrote:

It is unfortunate that of the six witnesses on the panel, none comes from the perspective of an entity that plans to run a new gTLD and could discuss the innovation, consumer choice, and job growth they will provide. Nor will the committee hear from representatives who might counter some potentially over-reaching views of the intellectual property interests, such as representatives of non-commercial entities, privacy experts, and existing domain name service providers.

The letter goes on to say that IP interests have already been heard, are afforded many protections in the program, and that new TLDs will bring benefits to the US economy.
It was signed by executives from Worldwide Media, eNom, EuroDNS, Right Of The Dot, auDA, Momentous, Othello Technology Systems, Network Solutions, AboutUs.org, Cronon, Domain Dimensions, Tucows, DomainTools, Donuts, Minds + Machines and others.
The hearing begins at 10am in Washington DC today. Coverage later.

1 Comment Tagged: ausregistry international, congress, hearing, ICANN, new TLDs

.jobs takes ICANN to arbitration

Employ Media, manager of the .jobs top-level domain, has become the first registry operator to take ICANN to arbitration to fight off a shut-down threat.
The company in the last hour said it has filed a Request for Arbitration with the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, after informal efforts to reach agreement with ICANN broke down.
Employ Media CEO Tom Embrescia said in a statement:

This filing was necessary to ward off ICANN’s unwarranted and unprecedented threat of contract termination. That action created immediate uncertainty about the .JOBS TLD on the Internet and caused significant duress on our business.

ICANN had threatened to terminate the .jobs registry agreement – which I believe is pretty much the only option available to it in the case of a perceived breach – in February.
The filing means .jobs can operate as normal until the situation is resolved.
The dispute is essentially about Universe.jobs, a jobs listing service operated by the DirectEmployers Association using tens of thousands of generic .jobs domain names granted to it by Employ Media.
The .JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition, made up of independent jobs boards, complained to ICANN that Universe.jobs went against the spirit and letter of the original .jobs Charter.
Employ Media says that Universe.jobs was essentially authorized when ICANN approved its Phase Allocation process for handing out generic domains last year.
Employ Media is represented by lawyers from Crowell & Moring, some of the same individuals responsible for ICM Registry’s defeat of ICANN at its Independent Review Panel last year.
The request for arbitration can be read here in PDF format.

4 Comments Tagged: .jobs, .jobs charter compliance coalition, crowell & moring, employ media, ICANN, international chamber of commerce, universe.jobs