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Security faux pas in Nairobi

Kevin Murphy, March 11, 2010, Domain Policy

ICANN committed a diplomatic faux pas in its handling of the security scare before its meeting in Nairobi, according to the Kenyan Government Advisory Committee rep.
“We spent most of the months leading up to the meeting occupied and dealing with issues to do with security and I feel this was to do with badly handled communication,” Alice Munyua of the Communications Commission of Kenya said during a meeting on Tuesday.
“I feel that communicating people’s fears (continue reading)

Gossip: Blackouts, Dallas and Kanye

Kevin Murphy, March 9, 2010, Gossip

Eight moderately amusing links from the last 24 hours.

  • Apparently, ICANN didn’t trust Nairobi’s electrical grid or its hosts’ generators, so took backup power from the US embassy. All was well until a blackout took out the embassy… but not the Kenyatta.
  • Squatters prefer “www” typos shocker.
  • One-year registrations give you (continue reading)

ICANN chief slams African monopolies

Kevin Murphy, March 8, 2010, Domain Policy

ICANN may have been handed a lemon when it discovered six African nations will be crashing its party in Nairobi, but CEO Rod Beckstrom today sought to make lemonade.
Beckstrom “threw down the gauntlet” and invited IGAD nation leaders to “shatter telecom monopolies” and make high-speed internet access more affordable to the average African. (continue reading)

Oscar winners show desire for .movie

As a bit of a film buff, I’ve always thought the case for a .movie gTLD was a slam-dunk.
I’d really rather see movie posters containing URLs like sherlock.movie rather than sherlock-holmes-movie.warnerbros.com.
I thought I’d figure out how many of last night’s Oscar nominees managed to secure movietitle.tld for their official web sites and how many went for other options. (continue reading)

Cyber cop wants Whois privacy shake-up

Kevin Murphy, March 7, 2010, Domain Policy

Registrars should be made to police Whois so cops can take down illegal sites faster, even if domain name prices have to go up as a result, ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee has been told.
Speaking at the GAC hearing on new gTLDs in Nairobi this afternoon, Paul Hoare of the UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency called for (continue reading)

Gossip: Geldof, China and Site Finder

Kevin Murphy, March 7, 2010, Gossip

Eight Sunday morning tidbits.

  • Bob Geldof was on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show this morning, via satellite from Nairobi. It seems likely he’s there in relation to to IGAD conference on east-African drought, which is being held at the same venue as the ICANN meeting, which kicked off today. Let’s hope he’s (continue reading)

Political hell to descend on ICANN meeting

Kevin Murphy, March 5, 2010, Domain Policy

Forget terrorists, in-person attendees at ICANN’s Nairobi meeting will now have to contend with something potentially much worse: politicians.
About 200 civil servants and security goons from six east-African nations will descend on the Kenyatta International Conference Centre on Monday, just as ICANN’s 37th get-together gets together (continue reading)

Gossip: No booth babes for domainers

Kevin Murphy, March 4, 2010, Gossip

Eight interesting things collected from interesting web sites:

  • No booth babes? No magicians? No speakers? No Powerpoint malfunctions? What the hell kind of tech conference is DOMAINFest Europe? At least the beer will be cheap.
  • Speaking of Prague, you can add UDRP to (continue reading)

ICANN expects 400+ gTLD applications

If you’ve been wondering how many new gTLDs could be launching under the new streamlined ICANN approval process, ICANN has provided a partial answer.
According to a report into server load by the Root Server System Advisory Committee “demand in the initial round will be (continue reading)

Will .xxx be a slam dunk in Nairobi?

When .xxx appeared on the agenda (kinda) for ICANN’s Nairobi board meeting, it didn’t look to me like particularly spiriting news for ICM Registry.
The agenda item coyly reads “Consideration of the Independent Review Panel Declaration ICM Registry v. ICANN”.
This could quite be easily interpreted as a rather dry picking-over of the legal implications of the IRP’s findings; the board could still brush the ruling aside as “advisory” and hope Stuart Lawley isn’t waiting outside with a gang of armed (continue reading)