Amazon files appeal on rejected .amazon domain

Amazon has appealed the rejection of its proposed .amazon new gTLD.
The company this week told ICANN that it has invoked the Independent Review Process, after 18 months of informal negotiations proved fruitless.
Amazon’s .amazon application was controversially rejected by ICANN in May 2014, due to advice from the Governmental Advisory Committee.
The GAC, by a consensus, had told ICANN that .amazon should be rejected.
South American nations that share the Amazonia region of the continent had said the string was “geographic” and should therefore be unavailable to the US-based company.
The word “Amazon” is not protected by ICANN’s geographic string rules, because “Amazon” is not the name of a region, and was only rejected due to governmental interference.
The GAC’s decision came only after the US, which had been preventing consensus in order to protect one of its biggest native internet companies, decided to step aside.
Amazon has been in ICANN’s Cooperative Engagement Process — an informal set of talks designed to avoid the need for too many lawyers — since July 2014.
Those talks have now ended and Amazon has told ICANN that an IRP is incoming, according to ICANN documentation published on Tuesday (pdf).
The IRP documents themselves have not yet been published by ICANN.
UPDATE: This article originally incorrectly stated that the US withdrew its objection to the GAC consensus on .amazon after the IANA transition was announced. In fact, it did so several months prior to that announcement.

Amazon plotting registrar workaround?

Amazon has given an early hint at how it may manage its new gTLD registries.
The company seems to be planning to make its own web site the place to go to for its new gTLD domains, relegating registrars to secondary players in the sales path.
It also seems to be planning to up-sell registrants with services, possibly including hosting, before they even get to the registrar’s storefront.
Amazon has filed a Registry Services Evaluation Process request with ICANN, relating to its gTLD .moi (French for “.me”) covering a “Registration Authentication Platform”.
.moi isn’t a brand, but Amazon says it plans to verify registrant “eligibility” before allowing a registration to take place.
To date, it has not revealed what the eligibility requirements for .moi are.
Its RSEP filing says that it intends to offer registrants a suite of optional add-on “technology tools or applications” at the point of verification.
Crucially, that’s before they get bounced to their registrar of choice to actually register the name.
Amazon is basically putting its up-sell pitch into the sales path before registrars get to do the same.
The RSEP explains it like this:

After the customer selects the Technology Tools of interest and/or ancillary products or services (if any), the customer will select its registrar of choice from among the complete list of .MOI-accredited registrars and be directed to that registrar’s site to permit that registrar to collect the required registrant information for the domain name registration, and to submit payment for the selected .MOI domain name. Upon completion of these steps, the registrar, through the normal EPP processes, shall transmit the required registration information to the Registry and the .MOI domain name shall be registered. A customer that first visits a .MOI-accredited registrar’s website will be directed to the Registry’s .MOI website to undergo the process noted above. After pre-registration policy verification, those customers will be transitioned back to the originating registrar’s site.

The RSEP does not explain what the “technology tools” are, but I’d be very surprised if they did not include for example web hosting, a staple higher-margin registrar product.
It’s not entirely clear what, if any, consultations Amazon has had with registrars regarding its proposals. The RSEP language is evasive:

Amazon Registry reached out to several registrars to have general discussions about their experience with pre-registration policy verification and how that experience (including customer experience) could be improved. Any consultations that may have occurred regarding the Technology Tools and the ancillary products and services would have occurred subject to a Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement and cannot be disclosed.

Currently, the RSEP only covers .moi. Amazon would have to file additional RSEPs if it wanted the new service applied to its 32-TLD-strong portfolio, which includes the likes of .book, .song and .tunes.
ICANN has already made a preliminary determination that the RSEP “does not raise significant competition, security or stability issues”.
As usual, there’s a public comment period, which ends April 14.

Registrars object to “unreasonable” .bank demands

Registrars are upset with fTLD Registry Services for trying to impose new rules on selling .bank domains that they say are “unreasonable”.
The Registrar Stakeholder Group formally relayed its concerns about a proposed revision of the .bank Registry-Registrar Agreement to ICANN at the weekend.
A key sticking point is fTLD’s demand that each registrar selling .bank domains have a dedicated .bank-branded web page.
Some registrars are not happy about this, saying it will “require extensive changes to the normal operation of the registrar.”
“Registrars should not be required to establish or maintain a “branded webpage” for any extension in order to offer said extension to its clients,” they told ICANN.
i gather that registrars without a full retail presence, such as corporate registrars that sell mainly offline, have a problem with this.
There’s also a slippery slope argument — if every gTLD required a branded web page, registrars would have hundreds of new storefronts to develop and maintain.
fTLD also wants registrars to more closely align their sales practices with its own, by submitting all registration requests from a single client in a single day via a bulk registration form, rather than live, or pay an extra $125 per-name fee.
This is to cut down on duplicate verification work at the registry, but registrars say it would put a “severe operational strain” on them.
There’s also a worry about a proposed change that would make registrars police the .bank namespace.
The new RRA says: “Registrar shall not enable, contribute to or willing aid any third party in violating Registry Operator’s standards, policies, procedures, or practices, and shall notify Registry Operator immediately upon becoming aware of any such violation.”
But registrars say this “will create a high liability risk for registrars” due to the possibility of accidentally overlooking abuse reports they receive.
The registrars’ complaints have been submitted to ICANN, which will have to decide whether fTLD is allowed to impose its new RRA or not.
The RrSG’s submission is not unanimously backed, however. One niche-specializing registrar, EnCirca, expressed strong support for the changes.
In a letter also sent to ICANN, it said that none of the proposed changes are “burdensome”, writing:

EnCirca fully supports the .BANK Registry’s efforts to ensure potential registrants are fully informed by Registrars of their obligations and limitations for .BANK.  This helps avoid confusion and mis‐use by registrants, which can cause a loss of trust in the Registry’s stated mission and commitments to the banking community.

fTLD says the proposed changes would bring the .bank RRA in line with the RRA for .insurance, which it also operates.
The .insurance contract has already been signed by several registrars, it told ICANN.

Cruz says Chehade is in China’s pocket

Terrifying US presidential candidate Ted Cruz has told outgoing ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade to recuse himself from crucial decisions, claiming Chehade is conflicted.
Republican Cruz yesterday said that Chehade can’t be trusted to make decisions related to the IANA transition because he’s already signed up to a Chinese internet governance committee.
Chehade said in December that he’s become co-chair of an advisory committee of the World Internet Conference.
Also known as the Wuzhen Summit, it’s a China-led talking shop that has been criticized for pushing China’s agenda of limiting free speech and promoting governmental control over the internet.
Cruz quizzed Chehade about his involvement in a letter earlier this month, basically fishing for evidence that Chehade was in some way conflicted.
In response (pdf), Chehade said he wasn’t being paid for the committee role, but that his travel expenses would probably be picked up.
Aha! Cruz seized on that admission, writing yesterday:

Travel compensation from the Chinese government can be a form of personal conflict of interest, which could impair Chehade’s ability to act impartially and in the best interest of the [US] government when performing under the [IANA] contract. As such, Chehade should recuse himself from all ICANN decisions that could impact the Chinese government, which include all negotiations and discussions pertaining to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition.

Chehade, who says he only joined the committee in order to promote the notion of multi-stakeholder internet governance, makes $900,000 a year at ICANN in salary and bonuses.
With pay so criminally low, it’s easy to see how he could be tempted to subvert his principles for any foreign government who offered him a free business-class flight and a few nights in a swanky Beijing hotel.
He has kids to feed and clothe, after all.
Cruz, on the other hand, has raised a mere $54 million in campaign contributions over the last five years, and not a single dollar of that will influence his political positions in any way whatsoever.

dotgay has a third crack at .gay appeal

dotgay LLC has filed another appeal with ICANN, hoping to get its community-based .gay application back in the race.
It submitted a third Request for Reconsideration (pdf) this week, arguing on a technicality that its bid should have another Community Priority Evaluation.
The company has already lost two CPEs based on the Economist Intelligence Unit CPE panel’s belief that its definition of “gay” is too broad because it includes straight people.
It’s also lost two RfRs, which are adjudicated by ICANN’s Board Governance Committee.
The newest RfR addresses not the core “not gay enough” issue, but a procedural error at the EIU it believes it has identified.
According to the filing, dotgay is in possession of emails from an EIU employee who was responsible for verifying some of the dozens of support letters it had received from dotgay’s backers (generally equal rights campaign groups).
The company argues, citing the BGC’s own words, that this employee was not one of the official CPE “evaluators”, which means the EIU broke its own rules of procedure:

considering the fact that the CPE Process Document – which is considered by the BGC to be “consistent with” and “strictly adheres to the Guidebook’s criteria and requirements”, it is clear that the verification of the letters should have been performed by an independent evaluator… and not by someone “responsible for communicating with the authors of support and opposition letters regarding verification in the ordinary course of his work for the EIU”.

It wants the CPE to be conducted again, saying “it is obvious that the outcome of a process is often, if not always, determined by the fact whether the correct process has been followed”.
It’s difficult to see how the outcome of a third CPE, should one be undertaken, could be any different to the first two. Who verifies the support letters doesn’t seem to speak to the reason dotgay hasn’t scored enough points on its other two attempts.
But the alternative for the company is an expensive auction with the other .gay applicants.
Another CPE would at least buy it time to pile more political pressure on ICANN and the EIU.

DCA fails .africa evaluation

DotConnectAfrice application for the .africa gTLD has, as expected, failed its ICANN evaluation for want of government support.
The official decision (pdf) was handed down overnight.
According to the Extended Evaluation panel, DCA’s “required documentation of support or non-objection was either not provided or did not meet the criteria”.
In other words, DCA did not have a shred of support for its controversial application.
For gTLDs representing multinational regions, support or non-objection is required from 60% of the governments in that region.
In addition, there cannot be more than one objection from a government in that region.
Not only did DCA not have any support, it also had over a dozen governmental objections.
The company had relied on support letters from the African Union Commission and the UN Economic Commission for Africa, both of which have been retracted.
The AU and most African governments support rival, successful applicant ZACR.
ZACR signed its .africa registry contract with ICANN in March 2014, but its bid has been kept in limbo while DCA has exploited ICANN appeals processes to delay delegation.
Most recently, DCA sued ICANN, despite signing away its right to sue when it applied.
DCA was originally rejected due to Governmental Advisory Committee advice, before it had completed evaluation.
But the company won an Independent Review Process ruling stating that ICANN erred by accepting the advice with no explanation, compelling ICANN to put the DCA application back into evaluation.
After a six-month review, the Geographic Names Panel has now concluded that, duh, nobody supports DCA’s bid.
ICANN has now changed the status of DCA’s application from “Not Approved” to “Will Not Proceed”.
Oddly, and possibly incorrectly, this status cites the GAC advice as the reason for the failure, rather than the fact that DCA failed its evaluation.
Per ICANN practice, no application is truly dead until the applicant withdraws.

First registrar “breached” UDRP lock rule

ICANN has charged a registrar with failing to abide by “cyberflight” rules for the first time.
Visesh Infotecnics did not lock down e-campaigner.com within two days of it being hit by a UDRP a couple of weeks ago, ICANN said in a compliance notice (pdf) on Thursday.
Visesh is based in India and does business as Signdomains.com. It has roughly 5,000 gTLD domains under management.
The transfer lock rule became ICANN consensus policy binding on all registrars last July, following four years of policy and implementation work.
It’s designed to prevent cybersquatters switching registrars when a UDRP lands in their inbox, a practice known as cyberflight.
The registrant of e-campaigner.com did not in fact change registrars, judging by Whois records.
The UDRP appears to have been filed in late January by a currently undisclosed entity. Signdomains put the domain on client-hold status February 8, according to Whois records.
This is the first time ICANN has publicly accused a registrar of failing to abide by the policy.
ICANN also says that the registrar does not display Whois data in the correct format on its web site, and that it owes some accreditation fees.
It has until March 3 to rectify these alleged breaches.

DotMusic fails the “not gay enough” community test

DotMusic’s Community Priority Evaluation for the .music gTLD has failed, after the CPE panel decided the company was just trying to exploit ICANN rules to get its hands on a valuable string.
In a decision (pdf) published last night, the company score 10 of the available 16 points, four points shy of a passing score. The panel wrote:

The Panel determined that this application refers to a proposed community construed to obtain a sought-after generic word as a gTLD. As previously stated, the community as defined in the application does not have awareness and recognition among its members. Failing this kind of “cohesion,” the community defined by the application does not meet the [Applicant Guidebook’s] standards for a community.

The CPE fell apart at the first hurdle, with the panel awarding 0 out of 4 points on the “community establishment”.
It essentially ruled that the “music community” does not exist, despite frequent statements to the contrary from DotMusic and its legion of supporters.
DotMusic appears to have been condemned for the same reason as dotgay, the failed .gay community applicant.
While DotMusic and dotgay lost points on different criteria, their undoing in both cases was attempting to define a community that their respective panels judged overly broad.
DotMusic’s application included a list of 40 or more North American Industry Classification System categories of industry that it said were within its music community.
However, where it said “music lawyers” or “music accountants”, it referred to the NAICS codes for just “lawyers” and “accountants”, the panel noted.
This seems to have been responsible to a large extent for it losing its points on the “community establishment” criteria.
The CPE panel could said that while its proposed community members exhibited a “commonality of interest” there was no evidence of “cohesion” among them.
Further, no one preexisting organization could be said to cover the interests of the over-broad community as defined. The panel wrote:

There should, therefore, be at least one entity that encompasses and organizes individuals and organizations in all of the more than 40 member categories included by the application. Based on information provided in the application materials and the Panel’s research, there is no entity that organizes the community defined in the application in all the breadth of categories explicitly defined.

A knock-on effect of this was that DotMusic also dropped a point on the “community endorsement” criteria, despite having hundreds of letters of support from members of the music industry.
It dropped a further point because the string “music” only “identifies” but does not “match” its proposed community.
DotMusic will perhaps not take comfort from the fact that its losing score of 10 comprehensively beat rival community applicant Far Further by seven points.
With both community applications ruled invalid, .music should now head to auction, where there are eight applicants in total.
But .music is a bit of a passion project for DotMusic CEO Constantine Roussos — one of the few applicants who publicly announced his intention to apply long before it was possible to do so — so I think an appeal through the ICANN process is inevitable.
While DotMusic has support from powerful music industry figures, I don’t think that support extends to the kind of financial backing that will let it win a seven-to-eight-figure auction.
Don’t expect to see .music in your registrar storefront any time soon.

New gTLDs top 12 million domains

The new gTLD universe passed 12 million domains for the first time today, according to zone files.
Today, we counted 12,001,346 domains across all the 2012-round gTLD zones, up by just under 60,000 names on the day.
Over 50,000 of the new names were split fairly evenly between .xyz and .club, which seem to be the beneficiaries of a domainer surge that’s been going on for the last four days.
As of today, .club has overtaken .wang to be the third-largest zone, with 638,565 names.
It’s taken less than one month for the new gTLDs to add their latest million names.
Our total zone file count topped 11 million on January 12.
.xyz alone has added over 380,000 names since then; .club another 90,000. Most of that growth has come in the last seven days.
Second-placed budget Chinese-run gTLD .top has added over 95,000 names in the last 30 days.
Zone files don’t take account of domains that are registered but don’t have name servers, so the actual number of registered names will be slightly higher.

ICANN names Göran Marby new CEO

ICANN has its sixth CEO in its 18-year history.
Swedish telecoms regulator Göran Marby will take on the job in May, two months after incumbent Fadi Chehade leaves.

Marby is currently director-general of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, which regulates telecommunications and the internet in Sweden. It’s a government job.
He’s been in that role since 2010, and was reappointed to the role in November (when, presumably, he was already interviewing with ICANN).
He’s not an ICANN insider, telling a press conference yesterday that he has worked with ICANN participants but does not himself have a history of participating.
Marby, like Chehade, has a background as a technology entrepreneur. He founded, managed, then sold the security company AppGate, which made network security appliances.
Attention was immediately drawn yesterday to a July 2015 article from Swedish national broadcaster Sverige Radio, in which several sources demanded Marby’s resignation.
These telco industry sources said Marby had an “unprofessional” and “aggressive” management style that did not inspire confidence in the industry he regulates.
One journalist interviewed for the piece said Marby had threatened and physically intimidated him during an interview.
At the time, Marby would not talk to Sverige Radio. However, during yesterday’s press conference he seemed to characterize the claims as sour grapes.
He said that the allegations had come from executives at regulated companies at a time when PTS had just made a decision requiring them to invest more heavily in their networks, which they weren’t happy about.
He said that the PTS staff, board, union, and then the Swedish government had backed him, noting his November reappointment to the role.
Technically, he’s the first European ICANN CEO (M Stuart Lynn was a Brit by birth, but had gone septic by the time he was employed by ICANN) but Crocker said that this fact was not particularly relevant to his hiring.
He’s going to move to Los Angeles, from his current home in Stockholm.
Chehade is due to leave March 15. Marby starts in May.
ICANN Global Domains Division president Akram Atallah will be interim CEO for the interregnum, as he was between Rod Beckstrom leaving and Chehade starting.