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August 31, 2010
1:46
Name.com Homepage Gets a Facelift!
» ‎ The Official Name.com Blog

Okay, so maybe it’s not a full facelift, but we did smooth out a few wrinkles and clean up a few blotches. Now the homepage is looking nice and refreshed!

We’re currently testing a couple different versions of this page, so the one that you come across may not look like the screenshot above, it may look like this:

If you get this page, nothing is wrong, it’s very intentional. At least that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. ;)

Naturally, the most important part of this is your feedback. So far the response has been really positive, which we’ll admit is a nice ego boost, but we’ve also received some good constructive criticism.

What are your thoughts? Do you like the new direction? Dislike? Why? We’d love to hear from you!

0:56
Michael Phelps Foundation Sues Over Domain Name
» ‎ Domain Name Wire
Swimmer’s foundation goes after domain name owner.

The non-profit Michael Phelps Foundation, established by the Olympic swimmer, has sued to get the domain name MichaelPhelpsFoundation.com.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Maine, names Domains by Proxy, Inc., a domain whois proxy service, and Does 1-10 as defendants. It is typical for a proxy service to be named in a lawsuit and it is typically dropped once the proxy service transfers the domain back to its real owner.

The domain name was registered in 2008, just two days after Phelps won his record setting eighth gold medal in a single Olympics. Phelps had not yet started his foundation.

The domain was originally registered by a Minnesota man before the whois proxy service was used. The author of the web site at MichaelPhelpsFoundation.com claims that he had good intentions in registering the domain name:

To be quite clear, MPF was created as a “foundation” or a home “base” where fans, like yourself, can come to share, chat, research, debate, contribute, and connect with one another on the past, present and future surrounding, who some are considering to be the greatest hero in history, Michael Phelps.

It wasn’t until after MPF was created that we heard that Michael Phelps was, in fact, going to establish a new swimming foundation.

A blog on the web site has two entries from 2008.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

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0:54
Epik Mints Their Own Currency for Buying Domains & Funding Development + Latest Show News
» ‎ Domain Name Journal

Today in the Lowdown at DNJournal.com: Attendees at the Epik Developer's Conference coming up Sept. 15-17 will find a little something extra in their "goodie" bags - $795 worth of EpikBucks. We'll tell you exactly what those are + we have news updates on October's DN Cruise and T.R.A.F.F.I.C. South Beach conferences.

0:42
Lawsuit Against Original CamRoulette.com Owner Settled
» ‎ Domain Name Wire
Case dropped pending settlement.

A lawsuit filed against the original registrant of CamRoulette.com has been settled.

Craig Snyder (not related to the Oversee.net employee) originally registered CamRoulette.com and sold it for $1,200. But another person, Fraser Brown, said he had already agreed to purchase the domain name from Snyder for $700 before Snyder sold it to the other party for $1,200.

It likely wouldn’t have bothered anyone if it weren’t for the domain quickly being resold for $151,000 shortly thereafter. Brown sued, claiming damages for the difference between his $700 offer and the $151,000 sales price.

The terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed, and the case may be reopened within 30 days should the settlement fall through.

It’s not surprising to see an agreement reached. It appeared that Brown had identified another (wealthier) Craig Snyder as the culprit instead of the actual Snyder (who says he’s broke). There probably wasn’t much to gain by moving forward with the suit.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

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1. Domain Owner Wins Expenses in Lawsuit

August 30, 2010
23:24
U.S. National Science Foundation funds research on social impact of network surveillance technologies
» ‎ IGP Blog

Syracuse University Professor Milton Mueller was awarded $304,000 by the U.S. NSF for his research on “Deep Packet Inspection and the Governance of the Internet.” The research grant was made by the Science, Technology and Society program of the Social, Economic and Behavioral Science Directorate of NSF. The research will take place over two academic years, 2010-11 and 2011-2012.
Deep packet inspection (DPI) is a new network surveillance and traffic analysis capability that enables network operators to scan the payload of TCP/IP packets in real time and make automated decisions about whether to intercept, block, slow down, speed up or otherwise manipulate traffic streams based on that information. Mueller’s research will investigate whether the use of DPI by Internet service providers is producing major changes in the way users and suppliers of Internet services are governed.

22:46
Why Push to Auction on Sedo Might Be a Bad Idea
» ‎ Elliot's Blog
From my perspective (as an infrequent buyer on Sedo), a seller pushing a domain name to Sedo auction after receiving a private offer is a bad idea, and it may cause the seller to leave money on the table, as I will explain below.

A couple of weeks ago, I made an offer on a domain name that I wanted to buy for somewhere in the $1,000 range. I don’t have a record of my opening offer, but it was in the ballpark of $500 and the owner’s counter offer was $1,000. Once I received the counter offer, I knew in my head that I was going to buy the domain name, but it was just a matter of how much I would spend, since the owner’s expectation and my expectation were in the same range.

I didn’t want to buy it now for $1,000, figuring that we’d meet somewhere in the middle between our two offers. I counter offered at $688, hoping the owner would either accept the offer or come down somewhere in the $800 range, where I probably would have bought it or countered at $750, with the idea being that I would get it for $200+/- less than what I wanted to pay.

Instead of doing what I expected, the seller sent the domain name to public auction, which is his right to do, although it was annoying to me. If I won the auction, I would either have to pay Sedo to keep the sale private (even more annoying), or my purchase price would be disclosed, thus taking away an advantage when I want to quickly re-sell the domain name.

As the auction came to an end, another bidder jumped in and bid $738. I opted to not outbid this price, and the domain name was sold for $738. I didn’t want to get carried away in a bidding war, and I didn’t want to allow the owner to make more money by using my private offer as leverage. As the saying goes, I cut my nose to spite my face, but there are plenty of other good deals out there.

Had the domain seller opted to initially reply that $1,000 was his final price, I would have bought it. Instead, he tried to squeeze as much money as possible out of the name by going to auction, and he lost out on $250+. Not a big deal when all is said and done, but it’s 25% left on the table. Had we been talking thousands and not hundreds, that would have been a nice chunk of change.

Pushing a domain name to auction may seem like a good idea to make as much money as possible from a domain name, but this is a real example of where it cost the seller some money.

Related posts:
1. One Thing That Bothers Me About Sedo – Seller’s Listing Price A few years ago, I made an offer on a...
2. Sedo to Repeat .mobi Auction According to a post on DomainNameNews.com and a post on...
3. .Mobi Shines in Sedo Auction Mouths dropped throughout the domain industry after the completion of...
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21:29
Court Wants Explanation for Conflict of Interest over TRAFFIC Auction
» ‎ Domain Name Wire
Court asks for explanation, but it’s probably a moot point anyway.

United States District Judge Susan Illston has asked DS Holdings and The United States to file a response to accusations that auctioning off domains previously held by John Zuccarini at a TRAFFIC auction would be a conflict of interest. Zuccarini complained to the court that this would be a conflict of interest since TRAFFIC co-organizer Howard Neu once represented him in the cybersquatting lawsuit that led to the judgment for which the domains would be auctioned.

The order states:

DS Holdings and the United States have moved to authorize auction of the domain names and distribution of the auction proceeds. In opposing the motion, Zuccarini asserts that the proposed auction site, the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Domain Conference & Expo, raises a conflict of interest because Howard Neu, an attorney who represented Zuccarini in the underlying action filed by Office Depot, is a co-owner and organizer of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Moving parties DS Holdings and the Unites States do not address this assertion in their reply. DS Holdings and the United States are therefore directed, within ten days of the date of this order, to file a response to Zuccarini’s contentions regarding conflict of interest.

Of course this is probably all a moot point anyway. The TRAFFIC show organizers have gone on record saying they want nothing to do with auctioning off Zuccarini’s domain names. Given that TRAFFIC auctions are actually run by Latona’s, and merely use TRAFFIC as a venue, it’s likely that Neu didn’t even know about the plans to auction off the domains at TRAFFIC before he was dragged into it thanks to the court filings.

Elsewhere in the Zuccarini saga, Zuccarini has filed a response (pdf) to Network Solutions’ motion to dismiss his lawsuit over the sale of expired domain names he owned that were later handed to a receiver.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

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20:45
Is ICANN in danger of overload? Yes!
» ‎ Stephane Van Gelder

Just read a post on the ICANN Blog entitled "is ICANN handling too many policy issues?". The post is a response by ICANN VP of Policy Development David Olive to an article published in another blog and asking that very question.

David joined ICANN earlier this year (February) to manage its policy department. As Vice Chair of the GNSO I was fortunate to work with him almost from the get-go while he took over from previous VP Policy Denise Michel (who is now advisor to the ICANN CEO). David is an instantly likeable guy: soft-spoken yet resolute, mild-mannered and extremely easy to get on with, he has brought a new energy to ICANN's policy team.

Now you guessed it, if I start off by being so nice about David it's because I'm about to criticise him . Well actually, not so much criticise as simply disagree with his latest post. David argues that ICANN isn't taking on too much policy work because a) everyone's issues are important and ICANN could not say "yes" to one and refuse another and b) the work isn't prioritised so it looks like it's all over the place when it actually isn't.

Continue reading "Is ICANN in danger of overload? Yes!"

20:04
German Domain Conference Kicks Off Thursday
» ‎ Domain Name Wire
German domain conference and auction takes place this week.

Germany’s only dedicated domain name conference, DomainvermarkterForum, will take place this Thursday and Friday in Munich. The event is at the five-star Hotel Sofitel Bayerpost. Gold sponsors for the event include PartnerGate and, as you might guess given its German headquarters, Sedo.

Sessions include: advantages of your own DENIC membership, speed networking, info on VeriSign Internet Profile Service, and a presentation on The Water School.

There will also be an auction Friday afternoon conducted with Moniker and Snapnames. Here are some of the domains in the auction along with their English translation, according to the show organizers:

Kameras.de Cameras
LeihWagen.de Rental Car
Militär.de Military
Lüfter.com Fan
DebitKarten.com Debit Card
Speisen.de Food

Information about the auction is available here.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

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19:36
Muscovitch: Canadian ccTLD Registry Rules in Need of an Overhaul
» ‎ Domain Name Wire
by Zak Muscovitch

[In this guest article, Zak Muscovitch argues that the .ca domain name needs to be liberalized. Muscovitch is a domain attorney who is running for a seat on CIRA's 2010 Board of Directors. -Andrew]

While many countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and India, have opened up their ccTLD registries to foreigners, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (“CIRA”) has been stuck with the same closed-door policy since it enacted its “Canadian Presence Requirements” in 2003.

CIRA’s Canadian Presence Requirements (“CPR”) make it exceedingly difficult for those residing outside of Canada to register a .ca domain name. According (pdf) to CIRA’s CPR, “CIRA is committed to reviewing these Canadian Presence Requirements from time to time in order to ensure they remain in the best interests of Canadians and the .ca registry”. An election is now underway for the Board of Directors of CIRA, and a re-examination of CIRA’s “Canadian Presence Requirements” should be a primary topic of debate throughout the election, with a view to finally making some substantial policy changes afterwards.

In a new study (.doc) of 12 ccTLD’s by DNattorney.com, we have concluded that Canada has one of the most restrictive presence requirements of any registry. It requires, inter alia, a prospective registrant to have a registered Canadian trademark or Canadian/provincial corporation, thereby closing the market to those who wish to easily expand their business into Canada or invest there.

The only country of the 12 reviewed, which appears to have more onerous restrictions on registration requirements, is China. China excludes all overseas registrations of their .cn domain name. By excluding all overseas registrations, they have severely restricted their market. This is evident, according to the Domain Name Industry Report 2009 (pdf) conducted by Nominet, which takes note that subsequent to the .cn registry restricted foreign registrations, the “growth in Chinese domain name has not continued, resulting in ccTLD growth rates falling”

While countries such as the United States and Australia permit registration by organizations, individuals and trademark holders who reside outside of the country but engage in activities within the country (such as trade, the buying and selling of goods or providing services to customers), Canada’s policy falls far short in comparison. It requires a Canadian corporation or Canadian trademark registered in Canada, even if the foreigner does business in Canada.

By requiring a registered trademark or corporation within the country before .ca domain name registration is permitted, CIRA limits its market and potential for investment in Canada. According to a study (pdf) conducted by EURid, the registry for the European Union, registration of ccTLD’s significantly increased with the liberalization of domain name policies. According to the EURid study, after Spain “liberalized [its ccTLD policy] in June 2005, its registry grew from 85 000 registrations in 2004 to 1.2 million in 2009”. Countries that employ a more progressive and liberalized approach to domain name registration appear to have higher domain name growth rates.

Overall, India and the Netherlands hold the most progressive approaches by providing very little restriction on domain name registration and permitting any party worldwide to register the .in and .nl ccTLD’s, respectively. According to the SIDN, which is the Netherlands’ registry, this progressive approach appears to be beneficial; .nl has become the fourth largest country code top level domain name in the world, with 4 million domain names registered, only appearing behind domain name giants such as Germany, the United Kingdom and China. It is predicted by SIDN, that at this rate of growth “we should see the five- millionth .nl domain name within the next few years.” This massive growth rate is not by coincidence; it is directly attributable to liberalized registry policies.

Many countries within Europe such as Germany and the United Kingdom, who have engaged in more progressive approaches towards foreign domain name registrants, have seen vast growth in registration. In Germany for instance, all that is required for registration is a VAT number, an administrative contact and postal address. According to Nominet (pdf), with these few restrictions, Germany’s ccTLD has “continued to see [a] steady growth and regained its position as the largest ccTLD by volume” surpassing that of even China (which has actually decreased).

The approach of Germany, India and the Netherlands to ccTLD registration appears to be a model that CIRA should at least consider. By looking at the vast growth rates of registration amongst these countries, in such short periods of time, and their position in the global market, it appears that Canada and CIRA are currently at a disadvantage. Patrick Pichette, the CFO of Google said it best; “Every company now is global… Canadian companies [shouldn’t] miss the boat because we’re not set up [globally].” Mr. Pichette’s words about Canada lagging behind in the digital economy apply equally to Canada lagging behind in the registration of domain names. According to the Domain Name Industry Brief by VeriSign, Canada fails to even make it within the top 10 ccTLD’s by number of registrations. It lags behind Brazil, Italy and Poland. Clearly it has work to do. Although .ca registrations appear to be on an admirable “upward trajectory” according to CIRA CEO, Byron Holland, who has led this charge, when compared to other ccTLD’s, Canada clearly has an opportunity to greatly expand its registry. This will come, largely through liberalization of the registry together with greater promotion of the ccTLD.

Muscovitch’s campaign web site is zak-for-cira.ca. He prepared this article with the assistance and research of Natalie Ledra of DNattorney.com. You can download the ccTLD Foreign Registration Comparison Study here (.doc).

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

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19:32
10 Tools You Can Use to Predict and Profit From the Future
» ‎ DotSauce Magazine
I really love discovering the latest trends in online business, web development, domain names and technology. It helps me stay ahead of the competition and better understand the needs and interests of my blog readers today.

In this article I will share the tools and resources I use to take brief glimpses into the future. Using these tools, you too can gain insight into trends and make predictions about the course of your own industry.

Followed by the 10 resources I describe 6 ways you can take advantage of the data for potential profit. Enjoy!
1. Recorded Future
An amazing new service is now providing free updates on future events and trends related to any industry or topic. This brief video introduction to Recorded Future explains how you can use the service to learn about the future.

Select as many topics or as you wish and you will receive an email update for each topic either daily or weekly.

The emails feature a visual overview of the volume and scope of future events and a listing of article references.
2. Twitter

The media has embraced Twitter as an amazing source of breaking news accross the globe. If something big is happening tomorrow, it’s probably already being talked about on Twitter.

Twitter’s real-time nature makes for a great place to watch out for what’s new, emerging and promising. A visit to TweetMeme can show you what people are reading and sharing. There are also many apps and services for monitoring trends. What The Trend displays crowdsourced data on why things are trending.

Other useful services include TweetDeck which now is live streaming capable, TweetTabs live monitoring and TrendsMap local trends.

Use Twitter Lists to follow the news-makers, influencers and curators and #Hashtags to tap into global conversations.
3. Technical Researchers

Many wonderful organizations are working to analyze trends and data so that we might better understand society and the internet.

Here are some great places to start for the latest research on the internet and online business.
4. Futurists

I am a fan of Ray Kurzweil for his far reaching vision of the future (or it could be the sci-fi geek in me). His talks on the singularity event of exponential technological development make me thrilled to live in such an age of growth.

Futurists can also be a unique source of information for business in the short term. They use extensive experiences, public polling, deductive reasoning and other scientific studies to make predictions.

One futurist recently enlightened us that newspapers as we know them will be gone by 2022, to be replaced by crowdsourced journalism. This makes me excited to be on at center stage as the world discovers blogs and other homegrown online media.
5. Trend Hunters

I like to leave things to the experts in many situations. Trend hunting is no different.

The following examples are well-respected for staying on top of the latest in technology, media and more. Try to find the go-to sources for your niche.
6. Website Traffic

Arguably one of the best ways to predict the future is by viewing the trends in website traffic. This data can be found at Compete and Alexa.

Jacques Mattheij recently predicted that Facebook will overtake Google in the next 18 months using website traffic estimates.
7. Looxii Social Monitoring

While I have not had a chance to fully try out this curiously named service (I’m guessing they were going for ‘look see’), it does seem very promising as a social media monitoring tool.

With Looxii you can monitor up to 2 keywords for free and have reports emailed to you daily. The reports contain data of mentions and trends across blogs, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
8. PostRank Labs

The team at PostRank, which I have previously praised for their innovative new services, are showing no signs of slowing down.

PostRank Labs features a suite of amazing tools such as social trends, blog widgets, even a engagement analytics plugin for your Google Reader.

Their newest tool allows you to compare social engagement across 3 different domains.
9. Google AdWords & Insights

Advertisers bidding on keywords at Google want to know which terms will be most beneficial to them. The world’s best search engine has gone to great lengths to provide amazingly useful data for just that purpose.

Fire up the Google AdWords Keyword tool and you will see a small graph at the right of each row which represents the local search volume.

This data is particularly useful for web publishers and businesses looking to increase the effectiveness of their search optimization efforts.

Google Insights provides a one-year forecast, comparisons and notable news for multiple terms.

Lastly, I have something for you to watch out for. Google has recently acquired Metaweb and Freebase, a massive public database of virtually all types of data.
10. Bookmarking Data

I have noticed a few things having kept an eye on Delicious popular bookmarks off and on over the course of many months. Invisible trends and influences moving through the blogosphere, often at the highest levels on the most popular publications.

TechCrunch articles will cause spin-offs, one blog will counter with it’s own arguments, a popular piece (The Web Is Dead) may cause the whole internet to share their opinion. We’re all connected much more than you might think.

Other places to find out what people are reading and sharing include Reddit, Digg, Hacker News, and LikeButton.me.

6 Ways You Can Profit From Future Research
After checking out the above tools, you might be asking yourself, “How do I profit from knowing about the future?” Unfortunately, there are no lottery ticket numbers or sports scores to be had.

This is going to take some initiative and time invested, but the rewards can be great. Here are some ways I’ve come up with that you can use this information for profit.
1. Buy domain names of future products and services
As an example, I purchased HTML5Framework.com during the coding standard’s debut on the web. If I had decided to research this earlier, I could have registered countless other valuable HTML5 domain names.

Another example, RecycledFood.com; the business of turning food waste into energy and other products is growing rapidly. I registered this for a small fee and it may now be worth quite a bit.
2. Start a blog about a trending or emerging category
The sooner you begin publishing content the better, because the blogs of today may be some of the leading publications of tomorrow.

A prime example of this would be social media blogs. They are now some of the most heavily trafficked destinations on the web. One of the most popular, Social Media Examiner launched just 1 year ago and has already grown into a million dollar publication.
3. Invest in companies which show future potential
I enjoyed the following bit of information from Paul Graham, founder of startup incubator Y Combinator during a talk on the future of software and startups.

Hackers are a leading indicator of what people will be using in the future.

4. Get a head start on marketing products
Not many people know that Google TV is launching in the fall this year. I have been writing about it and sharing updates on this destined game-changer for several months now. This simple act of writing a post will give my site more authority and relevance for later coverage.

When it comes to web content and affiliate marketing, those who act first often come out as the winners as far as search rankings and eventual commission earnings.
5. Become an early adopter
Sharing all the latest news, resources and tools with your network is a great social media strategy. It also helps you learn the pulse of your industry and catalog all it’s resources.
6. Launch a startup or build the next big app
I just read this interesting bit of information recently on TechCrunch. There is a ton of opportunity for those who run ahead of the pack.

One company that has been overlooked as a potential platform for other startups to build a business on remains YouTube, which Google acquired for $1.65 billion in 2006.

Thank you for taking the time to review these tools and resources for predicting the future and my ideas for profiting from future predictions. If you would like to suggest further resources or share your thoughts on this topic please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

There is a world of interesting data out there with many secrets yet to be discovered and it is only going to get better.

10 Tools You Can Use to Predict and Profit From the Future

19:16
DNCruise Giving Away Free Pass and Airfare
» ‎ Domain Name Wire
Cruise for domain industry sets sail in 6 weeks.

The inaugural DNCruise sets sail October 11, and show organizer Chef Patrick is offering a free pass plus airfare to one lucky guest.

In a post on his blog today, Patrick explains what you have to do to win the free pass. You’ll have to state your case on why you should get the free trip. Other than that the requirements are fairly minimal: you have to own 10 or more domains and have an interest in domaining.

The cruise leaves Miami on October 11 and returns October 15 with stops in Key West, Florida and Cozumel, Mexico. Passes and rooms start at $399. Patrick says 70 guests have already registered and speakers will include Michael Castello, Ron Jackson, Karen Bernstein, Gregg McNair, Donny Simonton, and Ron Sheridan. This should be a good event for the domain name industry.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

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18:39
WHY Why Push It To Auction?
» ‎ Domain Magnate
If you take a look at sedo auctions at any given time most of the auction listings only have one bid and the vast majority of them also end up with one single bid - the end user who made a bid and the seller decided to push it to auction.

When you push a domain with a high starting bid (high in relation to its reseller value) to auction one of the following is bound to happen, in this order of likelihood:
1. The domain will get no more bids and the initial bidder will win. However during the 7 days he had plenty of time to (a) find another domain; (b) reconsider his proposal and (c) also saw that no one else was interested in outbidding him - which only tells him that he is overpaying, and no one likes to pay more. The chances of the buyer not following through with the purchase are increasing significantly and we all know how high is the percentage of non paying buyers on Sedo.
2. The domain will receive one more bid from another interested buyer. Strangely enough many sedo auctions end with just two bids (not 3 or 4, but exactly 2) - with the first bidder not getting into a “bidding war”. However in that case the seller only gets an additional $50 for his domain - which usually is not worth the trouble of a 7 day auction.
3. The domain receives many additional bids and ends with a significantly higher price - this is very unlikely if the initial offer was higher than the market price already and is much more likely when the initial auction starting price (which also serves as the reserve in such auctions) is much lower than the market price.
Clearly the third case is the only one that justifies pushing a domain with a high initial offer to a sedo auction. However it’s only likely if there can be many potential end users for the domain, or if the initial price was low.

If the initial bid is higher than the market value don’t auction the domain, instead negotiate the max you can out the buyer and try to close the deal as quick as possible!

18:19
White House Requests Registrars Assist in Crackdown On Online Pharmacies
» ‎ DomainNews

The Obama administration has issued a request for domain name registrars to attend a meeting at the White House in late September to look at voluntary ways to crack down on online pharmacies that sell counterfeit prescription medications.
18:07
ICANN's Tokyo meeting provides a little more clarity on the New gTLD Program by Tony Kirsch
» ‎ DomainNews

New gTLDs continue to be a major topic of discussion within ICANN circles, and the regional meeting currently underway in Tokyo has revealed some interesting updates for potential applicants.

17:54
Is ICANN Handling Too Many Policy Issues?
» ‎ ICANN blog

Earlier this month, DomainNameWire.com published an article about ICANN’s policy development process. The author, Andrew Allemann, strives for balance but overall leaves the impression that ICANN has “policy overload,” handling too many policy efforts at once. Andrew also cites the technical and complex topics we ask the public to comment upon.

Since I was quoted briefly in the article, I’d like to share some additional thoughts.

Why so much Public Comment?

Public Comment periods are vital in satisfying ICANN’s goal to be a bottom-up multi-stakeholder policy making body and to provide openness and transparency in its policy development processes. An ICANN core value is to employ open and transparent mechanisms in policy development processes. Such openness promotes well-informed decisions, and ensures that people affected by a new policy can participate and assist in the policy’s formation. That’s why the Bylaws mandate public comment periods (for example, see Annex A, Sections 6 and 9).

The Affirmation of Commitments reflects the same principles, calling for ICANN to provide transparent and fact-based policy development, cross-community deliberations, and responsive consultation procedures. In the Affirmation, ICANN committed to provide detailed explanations of the basis for decisions — including how comments have influenced policy considerations.

Thus, the desire to hear all voices on each policy issue comes right from ICANN’s core. Frankly, we don’t want to limit public comments.

Is ICANN handling too many policy processes at the same time?

The answer is “No!” as soon as you consider the alternatives.

Three Supporting Organizations and a number of Advisory Committees can bring policy issues before the community. To which of them would we say, “Sorry, too busy to care about your issue; check back later”? Obviously, none of them.

An ICANN policy development process takes time to gather all viewpoints. Imagine how long it would take ICANN to address your particular policy issue if there were an arbitrary limit. If the ICANN community only handles seven or ten issues at once, that means all other issues remain parked indefinitely, probably for months. Notable achievements from this year, such as IDNs and DNSSEC going into the root, might still be waiting to happen. Do we want to slow our processes? Obviously, no. (Improve and prioritize better? Yes, indeed!)

Andrew reports that “some people” believe there are too many simultaneous policy issues pending, and are worried (with some justification) about overload in our volunteer community. This perception may be due to several factors, including:

• Our list of open issues initially looks confusing because issues have not been prioritized. The GNSO is about halfway through creating a method for prioritizing projects. Ranking their relative importance will help make them easier to take in all at once.
• Many policy-related reports exceed 100 pages. The GNSO has recently resolved that its reports should begin with an Executive Summary. This will help reduce the reading an individual has to do in deciding whether to comment.
• Our large, diverse volunteer community is avid and committed to follow the growing number of policy issues that reflects the increased global impact of the Internet.

We will also be examining the processes and mechanisms we use to manage the public comment process in hopes of identifying more effective and efficient ways to publicize, collect and organize community comments.

Policy development has an ebb and flow. Recently, we seem to be at high tide. Some of the tide will ebb when the new gTLD program launches and GNSO Improvements Initiative winds down. Five working groups will go away (one already has). Optimistically, the bulk of the GNSO improvements effort may be completed in early 2011.

We shouldn’t set an arbitrary limit to the number of issues evaluated by the ICANN Community. The issues arise from the community, and staff works diligently to support that work. We all recognize that many issues are both important and urgent to different parts of the ICANN community. I do not believe that ICANN is handling too many policy issues.

The ICANN community is also working hard to enhance our collective management of so many important issues, which is not always easy. Yet, if the current situation seems difficult, consider the alternative: Further delays in improvements to WHOIS. The 65% of Internet users who do not speak English await IDNs in their own languages. Communities still waiting more years for their new gTLDs. Phishers continue defrauding consumers using techniques that DNSSEC can stop. If we must err, it is better for ICANN to handle too much, than for ICANN to handle too little.

17:50
ICANN Temporary Drafting Group Work Session on New gTLD Registry Agreement Issues
» ‎ DomainNews

ICANN will be holding a third consultation on the new gTLD registry agreement issues at 18:30 UTC on 8 September.

17:34
Win A FREE DNCruise Pass, Cruise and Airfare
» ‎ ChefPatrick.com

Escrow.com and I are giving away a free DNCruise conference pass, cruise to Cozumel Mexico and even including round-trip airfare (up to $250). If you are a domain investor, own at least ten domain names and are available for a cruise from October 11-15 then keep reading. With less than 45 days to go we [...]

14:44
DomainName.com to be auctioned off tomorrow
» ‎ DomainNews

DomainConsultant.com will hls a private auction for DomainName.com on Tuesday,August 31 ,2010 .The winner will receive not just the domain name,but also 8000 existing domain registrations at $29,95 per year.
10:42
Microsoft gets hands on getpivotcom.com domain name
» ‎ DomainNews

An arbitrator with the National Arbitration Forum has awarded the getpivotcom.com domain name to Microsoft.All started when Microsoft submited a complaint to the National Arbitration Forum,claiming rights to the disputed domain name.
10:40
ICANN will hold another Temporary Drafting Group work session on new gTLD registry agreement issues
» ‎ DomainNews

ICANN will hold the third drafting group work session on 8 September 2010 at 18:30 ,to discuss community comments submitted on draft version 4 of the proposed new gTLD registry agreement.

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