Seven Mile

   What does a guy who is well known for “not selling domains” know about selling domain names?  Well I might just know a thing or two.  As the title of this post states:  Everybody sells.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling cars, homes, financial instruments, religion..  everyone sells something.  Some of us are hard-sell : Timeshares on Maui spring to mind.  Some of us are soft-sell: Water in the desert for example. Make no mistake, the global economy functions on sales and whether you’re paparazzi or a politician, a plumber or a pastor, everyone sells something.

A few years back I was approached by a company and encouraged to place my domain names for sale through their marketplace. I was given a host of reasons why this was a good idea. “These names don’t make any money”.. “ Selling the names will actually improve my overall portfolio’s value”..  “Selective pruning is just prudent”. Shortly thereafter, a second domain marketplace called. They suggested I sell my names through ‘them’ and that I should cap my purchase prices at $5,000 because that was the limit of automated credit card processors in their scenario..  They even sent me a list of names that I should sell..  tens of thousands of them that don’t make enough to cover their renewals..  and If I could get $2,000-$5,000 each wouldn’t that be Fabulous?!  The problem as I looked through my list was that many of the names they suggested I sell were pretty good.  I’d pay more than 2-5k for many of these names if they were dropping at auction.  I politely declined their offer.

Understanding the Ecosystem

Years ago before I began in the domain business, before I had built the grubstake in real-estate which I’d ultimately use to kick-start my move to the Caribbean, I worked for a glass manufacturer/distributor and sold crates of flat glass to assorted manufacturers. Glass (like domain names) is a commodity business. Everyone is going to need glass at some point, whether they know it or not. The guy who hired me was named Ralph. I watched Ralph in awe as he took orders and worked his calculator selling hundreds of thousands of dollars in glass, pushing buttons on his phone to get trucks moving and called on clients who seemed genuinely delighted to see him.

Ralph was a great salesman in the pure, honest and wholesome sense.  He was a facilitator and he made things happen.  The most important lesson Ralph ever taught me was never to sell your product too cheaply.  We’d make sales calls and very convincing glass buyers would swear up and down that the maximum they could pay for a crate of glass was .75 cents a foot. They’d threaten to purchase the product elsewhere, they swore they had a lower offer, they’d beg and cajole using the carrot and the stick. Ralph would switch the conversation to a personal tack, disarm them with his personable manner and elegantly decline to sell.

On the drive to lunch I’d ask Ralph why he wouldn’t fill the order when we were making 20 or 30 percent margins on that ton of glass.. “Because they can easily afford to pay more” he’d reply..  “and once I sell that crate it’s gone, it will take 3 months before I get another crate..  somebody else will buy it because it’s a specialty size with low cut-loss”, and if I sell it at that price, next time he’ll ask for another nickel discount.. “

Ralph knew his customers, he knew their business and most importantly he intimately understood the ecosystem of the pond in which he lived. Ralph knew that if he discounted this glass then his competitor wouldn’t get the order and his competitor would have to sell something else at a discount, hurting Ralph’s margins on that other product which would potentially unravel Ralph’s other orders for the other product at ‘that’ price, forcing Ralph to compete against his competitor on yet other products he wasn’t as strong in - In the final analysis, there were a dozen good reasons not to take the order at that price.

I was a young sales-guy-in-training and this ran completely counter to my order-taking instinct,  but as time wore on I came to respect and appreciate the eco system of our pond and Ralph’s logic. I could bust my hump running around town to sell ten crates of glass for 10% margin or I could put my feet up on my desk, sell just two crates at a 50% margin, making the same profit and still have another 8 crates to sell on another day!

“Good” Domain Names — more like Oil than Glass.

The domain name business is much simpler than the glass business.  If you look at the names which people want, you’ll find that sales (and sales inquiries) occur for names which get some kind of traffic.  I’m not talking about revenues from PPC.  You can have poorly implemented domain names which make no money from the traffic that comes to them, that still get some trickle of type-in traffic.  I am talking about a heartbeat folks..  Names which somebody will either type into their address bar because the string means something to them, or names which people look-up the whois record of, to see who owns it.  Names which compell other human beings to take some form of action. Some domain sellers suspend this law of physics by baiting and switching — taking buyers who are looking for XX.com domain name because it has meaning, resonance, gravity, traffic and switching them into Y-Y.info domain name because it “feels similar” or costs one tenth / one-hundredth as much.  Those plays notwithstanding, the fuel that drives the machine and makes the magic possible are good meaningful domain names with resonance, gravity and a heart-beat of some kind. Unlike glass which is made of sand, these meaningful gems which bring warm bodies through the turnstiles are of a finite quantity — more like oil.

As mentioned previously, I’ve spent the better part of the last decade sifting through expiring domain name lists and I’ve gotten pretty good at telling the good ones from the bad ones.  I’ve also watched other people who do what I do, and learned how they interpret “good-ones” and “bad ones”.

In my 6 years of scanning expiring domain name lists I’ve found that only 7-12% of all names that expire mean anything to more than one person..  The rest are such poor made-up quality that they have no resonance or gravity and they will likely never be looked up on whois, or typed into the browser by anyone other than the name’s registrant. This other 88-93% of names are meaningful to the sole distinctive entity that registered them.  They include odd/trademarked strings, made up words, disjoined phrases. They are the trees in the forest, falling, that nobody is there to hear.  The successful people I see at domain shows who spank my wallet pocket with their bidder’s paddle seem to share my viewpoint of what constitutes a good name.

Domains Expire Every Day

In the past, the average daily-list of expiring domain names was reflective of the broader registered namespace. If 20,000 names expired, that would mirror a random sampling of 20,000 names from the registry zone file. Today, quality expiring names are even scarcer due to registrar/auction-house name withholding. Additionally, the high renewal rates and exhaustion of the name-space mean that a diminishing percentage of ‘all names’ meet this meaningful , resonant criteria. Today it’s 7-12% of names that fall into my “good bucket”..  in 5 years as more made up schlock gets added to the zone-file mix, it will be 5-7% of all names registered that have meaning.

To put this in perspective, the types of names which constitute my theoretical “best 7-12%” of all names registered include all 2 and 3 character names, nearly all 4 letters, any search-term no matter how far down the long-tail. It includes zip codes and popular screen-names, first/last name combos that are popular/less popular, pretty much anything that means anything to anybody and a second or third person. It includes the best .info’s .us names (even .mobi’s)…  All the “good ones” amount to just 7-12% of all names registered. The rest is an ever circulating torrent of backfill which expires and gets replaced in a grand water like cycle, with new garbage..  A never ending boulevard of broken dreams to come.

If you’ve read this far and you buy into my viewpoint, or just suspend your disbelief and follow my thought process, you will see why blanket-selling names that mean something for $2500-5,000 is not as sustainable as it may seem.  Businesses will think nothing of spending $10,000 or $15,000 for a one month, one-time insertion into a trade publication, or for 2 months employment of a junior staff member.. yet the meaningful domain name which quietly keeps on giving and can itself be resold at a profit is somehow worth whatever you can get, simply because it hasn’t generated any PPC revenue yet? I believe a  great deal of overall portfolio value is lost as large scale sellers accidentally burn the furniture, selling names with even 30 uniques a month but no PPC revenue,  I see it as destroying long-term portfolio value in the name of short-term EBITDA.

A Hundred Million Bucks Ain’t What it Used to Be.

Forget the correction in commodities and the rise in stocks this last week, the bottom line is that papering over problems with more paper, and bailing-out ‘the troubled’ will only hasten the demise of the currency doing the papering.  If a credit expansion renews and continues at all cost, then warm up your wheelbarrows folks..  you’ll need one per name.

The supply of meaningful and generic domain names is tight as a drum today. In an effort to increase revenues for itself and to simultaneously ease that demand, ICANN plans to start entertaining proposals for new namespaces in about a year’s time. I predict this will do little to quell the desire for meaningful .com, net and CC TLD names. Corporate IT departments overwhelmed by the task of managing existing .com typos simply won’t be up to the challenge of managing a corporate GTLD such as .COKE or .IBM.  Even with the help of a presently absent killer app from the likes of Godaddy, Enom or Tucows such sideshows will be an uphill push in a recession year. If my hunch is correct then .web .blog and other new .extensions will come to pass and they will marginalize the .info, .us, .eu, .asia and .mobi namespaces just as those namespaces relegated .ws and .cc to obscurity before them.  I predict that .com and other established namespaces will continue to thrive with some very minor marginalization at the fringes . The failure of former would-be contenders such as .travel, .biz and .pro to satiate demand for coveted names, shows us that adding more skim milk to the mix will not stop the cream from rising, and that cream is .com. 

I suppose all this brings me back to my first point..  With 6+ billion would-be “sellers” on our planet and just 10 to 18 million “meaningful” domain names across “all extensions” good enough to do the selling, this might just be the right time to put your feet on your desk and triple your prices - or to not sell at all.

Some would argue that not selling anything may be a bit extreme.. and that may be.  Fortune favors the bold after all.  But we live in unprecedented times, amid an unprecedented sea-change. In the future, fortune could well favor those who didn’t sell their good domain names too cheaply, or too boldly.

The draft gTLD Registry Failover Plan has been updated (see http://www.icann.org/registries/failover/draft-plan-27nov07.htm.pdf). The public comment announcement is at http://www.icann.org/public_comment/#registry-failover-plan. This will be tested in January and reported to the community for the ICANN meeting in Delhi.

  Take a straw poll of the general public and many will believe that ICANN’s primary role is that of an ombudsman, overseeing the security of their domain registrations.  In my view there are few higher callings than registrant security.  It’s nearly 2008 and the broader namespace has evolved dramatically over the past 7 years.  Many of today’s registrants have significant capital invested in their domain names. Given this new leveraged environment, it’s surprising how little insurance registrants have that nothing will go fundamentally wrong at their registrar.. While it’s not possible to mother the inner workings of every registrar,  it “is” possible to build a safety net in case the unthinkable happens at one or two of them..  kudos to ICANN staffers for working to fashion said net.

  In the Washington Post no less:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112801679.html?hpid=moreheadlines

As reported a few weeks ago this is a very thorough action targeting certain practices and practitioners.

Quote: “”The complaint names three registrars as defendants — BelgiumDomains, CapitolDomains, and DomainDoorman — as well as what Dell claims are nearly a dozen Caribbean shell companies that allegedly served as the entities registering the domains. “”

The rumor is that several of these registrars would buy obvious trademark domains that get traffic..  Keep them active and resolving to paid-search parking pages powered by Google .. and then dump them on day 5, only to repurchase them at another one of their registrars for another five days..  Like a piston engine, churning through obvious “problem names” never paying for them and pawning of the brand intent traffic.

More: “”According to one example cited in Dell’s lawsuit, on May 25, 2007, DomainDoorman registered “dellfinacncialservices.com.” On May 30, the registrar deleted the domain from its stable of Web site names. Minutes later, that same Web site name was snatched up by BelgiumDomains, which then dropped the name on June 4. That same day, dellfinacncialservices.com was grabbed by CapitolDomains, which in turn relinquished it on June 9, the same day that site was re-registered again by DomainDoorman.  The complaint further charges that the registrars created and controlled a series of shell corporations in the Bahamas to act as the entities registering the domains, including Caribbean Online International, Domain Drop S.A., Domibot, Highlands International Investment, Keyword Marketing Inc., Maison Tropicale, Marketing Total S.A, Click Cons Ltd., Wan-Fu China Ltd. and Web Advertising Corp.”"

“Thank God” they chose the Bahamas and not the Caymans..  I’ve got enough confusion problems in my neighborhood.  The bummer reading this list of co’s like “Highlands International Investment” is that all these co’s actually hold good generic domain names as well.  In fact Highlands related co’s were held out as the 2nd largest holder of domain names back in 2001..  These guys own a lot of really good stuff. 

  I’m surprised a suit this thorough didn’t name Google as a co-defendant..  Then again,  maybe it’s not that surprising because Google offers a well liked product, has a lot more money; and a search partnership with Dell that allows Dell to share in the profit when its users engage in “right of the dot” typosquatting on Dell keyboards.  It’s funny because one day Dell could find itself on the defendant’s side of the courtroom defending unfair competition charges relating to shared typosquatting profits on keyboard fat-finger search partnerships.

The single biggest thing that struck me reading this story and lawsuit, is how the domain holder is such a patsy in this.. like a mule in the drug trade. 

I remember hearing about conversations at the Puerto Rico ICANN meetings relating to domain tasting.  Attorney’s for corporate clients like Dell were pleading with ICANN to “do something” about domain tasting. Rather than engage in a constructive dialog about the tasting problem and creating a timetable to stop it, ICANN basically stonewalled these lawyers.. “We’ll do a PDP to study the problems” .. (code for we’ll ignore the problem for two years) … What a pity.  Let’s hope these registrar’s above don’t fail due to this lawsuit, leaving millions of retail registrants in a Registerfly-style lerch because of ICANN’s shortsighted ambivalence.

  Why would ICANN ignore an obvious problem?  Everybody profits on this:  Versisign makes millions on this defendant’s portfolio of typosquatting names (on his  kept registrations) and assured renewals on good names from the “churning”..  they don’t want ICANN to change the rules.  ICANN gets considerable fees on each of the millions of kept registrations too, so it turns a blind-eye, promising to “study the tasting problem” (basically ignoring it), Google makes millions and millions more fencing the so called “stolen traffic”..  especially frustrating because the plaintiff is permitted to steal that same type of traffic with impunity in keyboard redirect applications which send same traffic to the same “fence”; Google.

And the cybersquatter, makes money too.. but he or she takes all the risk!  What a deal! 

If any good comes from this action it will be that the chain above gets people to re-examine and discuss.. to rethink the tasting issue and wholesale inequity of typo error-search takeovers ..  ICANN’s hands are not clean in this,  neither are Verisigns. Google’s hands simply can’t be considered clean and I view the Plaintiff as a thief punishing another thief…  Should the alleged ne’er-do-well registrant take the fall alone?  Let’s see what the courts say and what the river brings.

Industry scuttlebutt has it that a fairly large multifaceted legal action is coming down the chute involving, potentially, scores of litigants and defendants, multiple domain registrars and registrants.  As I understand the matter, it will seek to make a federal case out of folks who have tasted names using an active parking page to monetize Trademark typo domains which were held and monetized during the short term 5 day grace period before being deleted..  or deleted and re-registered…  This has been brewing for some time but I’ve chosen to blog about it now because the word is out in the community - several outsiders are now chatting about what will surely be a messy situation. 

If you don’t deliberately/accidentally taste and monetize large swaths of trademark typo domains you should be fine..  But if you’re a retail registrant who has names at an ICANN accredited registrar where large-scale tasting has occurred, you may have issues with that registrar..  This could potentially turn into a mess for ICANN if a Registerfly situation occurs where innocent retail registrants are caught up within a registrar which starts to implode as a result of legal action stemming from this mess. It would be unfortunate if a registrar is somehow taken down (hardware seized etc) and can’t function for a some period of time, or can’t serve it’s retail registrants.

The stage has been setting for a larger battle relating to domain-tasting and may have been avoided if tasters had not activated and monetized during the 5 day grace period or if they had pre-screened large swaths of overt typos.. keeping only generic typos or longertail generics.

  Of course, none of this speaks to the inequity of error search traffic which acts in precisely the same manner as the typo domain names targeted in this action..  Unfortunately for all legitimate registrants, it is much easier for litigants today to pursue an action related to domain names than it is to pursue an action related to ill-gotten error traffic taken via ISP or Browser.   That will be a story for another day. If anything,  this serves as a harbinger of things to come. The lines of “right” and “wrong” related to monetizing error traffic and trademark-intent traffic are being defined for us..  The writing is on the wall.

Vint Cerf says that a controlling agency (of the net) set up by governments is likely to fail.

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1420689320071114?sp=true

   Or as   Dr. John Berryhill aptly put it when he sent me this handy graphic “Sometimes It’s Better to Be on The Outside Looking In” ..  This image nicely encapsulates the emotion pumping through the veins of well minded ICANN board members and Domainers who know more about Internet navigation than they’d wish to.

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=30&ContentID=46307

***FS***  A great question with no simple answer.  I have long viewed domain names as synonymous with “the Internet” ..  No domain names, no Internet..  Buy all the domain names, control the Internet.  Overly simplistic perhaps,  but there is certainly some truth to the theory.  I would prefer to see a US centric Internet..  “The Internet” would not have thrived, the way it has if naming were run by less-free societies such China or Russia or India or Brazil..  or God help us..  the UN.

 1.  Recycle.co.uk Sold for GBP150,000 to Become the Highest Value for a .co.uk Internet Domain Name: http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=212272

2.   ICANN, through the eyes of a new board member: http://www.domainesinfo.fr/english/135/icann-through-the-eyes-of-a-new-board-member.php

3.   FullTilt.com Domain For Sale(60+K Uniques a month):  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/11/prweb567429.htm

 Dr. John Berryhill takes us on a brief turn down memory lane and posits on the potential ‘tit for tat’ relating to the hijacking of user intent:

 “”Recall that when Sitefinder was operating, there was a BIND patch (put out by Vixie?) that would detect Verisign’s synthesized DNS results and “re-fix” them as NXDOMAIN.

So, you now have the stage set for a genuine tug-of-war over DNS results.

Move 1:  Verisign turns Sitefinder back on thus “trumping” Verizon.

Move 2:  Verizon counters by looking at DNS results coming back with Sitefinder IP addresses, and “takes back” those addresses, re-pointing to
Verizon Superpages.

Moves 3 and 4 can go in a couple of directions.  You also have to take into account the browser people, and their take/reaction to all of this.

For example,

Move 3:  MS patches IE to detect either Verizon or Verisign shenanigans, and points the browser to MSN Live Search.  Mozilla does the same thing, and points Firefox to Google.

Move 4:  Everyone decides that as long as DNS result tinkering is “fair game”, they all configure their systems to screw over domain registrants doing PPC the old-fashioned way.

Move 5:  “The Internet” becomes Compuserve circa 1996.

The somewhat amusing collateral upshot is that Verizon and Verisign - as Internet advertising service providers - finally get to square off on whose trademark is confusingly similar to whose (if anyone is keeping score on my “bold predictions”).”"

***FS*** This Verizon thing is just bad.  A common-carrier - a modern utility really.. placed in a position of great power, with great responsibility, taking over user intent and hijacking the browsing experience on a wholesale level for financial ends.  This type of unfair competition sets a poor example for others in similar positions of authority to follow.

   ICANN sets up new IP address for one of it’s thirteen root servers.  A daylight savings like call to IT folks everywhere.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/06/icann_rolls_out_new_root_name_server_address/

Peter Dengate Thrush to head ICANN.

A New Zealand barrister with a specialization in intellectual property,

Josh asks:  “”What are his biases with respect to the public domain vs. trademark holders?”"

http://www.domainnamenews.com/icann-policy/icann-board-elects-peter-dengate-thrush-new-chairman/1293

icann wiki: http://icannwiki.org/Peter_Dengate_Thrush

***FS***  Most New Zealanders I’ve ever met strike me as fair minded straight-shooters.. there must be something in the water down there..  If that alone rings true in Mr. Thrush’s case then oportunity and entrepreneurship should continue to thrive across the naming spectrum. Fairness, balance and less ”beholden-ness” <– look mom I made up a word ..  and less “Verisign persuasion” are what ICANN needs more of.

Those of you who follow the activity (and recent inactivity) on this blog will know that I have been moving. 

I am a regular working class guy who is relocating into what I consider a palace.  I guess I should have known what I was getting myself into .. I’ve been writing checks on this place for 3 years now.

My wife Michele is the least materialistic person you will ever meet but she sure loves her "nest", so when I said "build whatever you want honey", she really went big.  I didn’t even know what my own office would look like and fellas, I suggest we all let our wives design our offices.

I’d never paid attention to so much as a color-swatch, but I feel surprisingly at home here.  This is the kind of office that Angelina Jolie would design for Brad Pitt. It’s ridiculous actually..  I love it!!

For the last 10 days our cleaning lady (she makes three times her peers salary) and a team of other girls has been tidying up dust, dirt and debris. Tonight I couldn’t stand stepping on another piece of moving-related gunk so I went to the Fosters Food Fair and loaded up on Swiffer pads.  All their Swiffer pads actually … Then I spent the next three hours Swiffering. The floor they couldn’t get clean in 10 days, is now clean.

It’s a humbling experience Swiffering. I’m out there replacing moist towel after moist towel on the Swiffer head, rolling up my sleeves and getting dirty in the trenches. It’s real. There is no "assistant" at 11pm on Saturday night.  It’s just me and the Swiffer, "Mano a Mano". The nooks and crannys that my cleaning lady has overlooked, have been re-discovered by a fresh set of eyes, somebody willing to reach that Swiffer wand out of the same old pattern..  Me..

Come Monday, my cleaning lady and I are going to have a ‘little chat’.  There is no way I’m paying three times the going rate if I can pick up "this much" dirt after 10 days straight of her (and her assistants) work.

After coming in and cleaning my feet in the office bathroom sink, I glanced at my email and saw this link sent by my colleague Sahar . In it, Paul Twomey seems to pontificate about what the Internet is/does, broadcasting his "vision" for the benefit of the uninformed on Main Street (who likely have little clue about what ICANN does or how the Internet works). Reading this, I couldn’t help but be struck that Paul has so insulated himself from the reality of the Internet that he’s drwaing on a whisp of ‘virtual reality’ to describe the direction it’s going.

I began to reflect on Paul Twomey’s tenure as CEO of ICANN..  Has he done that great a job?  Could the organization have done just as well without him?  Should we be satisfied with this level of public service?

Don’t get me wrong,  Paul looks and talks the part .. He has been a fine bureaucrat, but ICANN needs a leader who can do better than simply react and fill the vacuum. The organization needs more of a MacArthur or a Mulholland and less of a Gerald Ford.

Perhaps I’m being too hard on Dr. Twomey, but reading the leader of ICANN use his moment in the spotlight to hypothesize about the future of the virtual world as "virtual", struck me as odd and brought back a flood of unpleasant ICANN memories which may not have "come to be" under better management.

I suggest it’s time to elevate the status of the man with the mop (figurative of course,  I’m not stumping) or to place the mop firmly in Dr. Twomey’s hands so he can get re-acquainted with how the real "non-virtual", virtual world works.

I am not a "burning bush" of answers but believe ICANN can do better. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has plenty of capable bureaucrats. I suggest it’s time for Paul Twomey to step down and allow a fresh face to re-invigorate the organization. We need less "virtual reality" and healthy dose of "reality" at ICANN..

Let’s start at the top.

Sahar sends this link to a blog post covering an essay by Wendy Seltzer about the process by which ICANN is allocating new GTLDs.

I agree with the tenor of her essay.  It’s time for ICANN to stop being so rigid about the rules with which new GTLDs are launched.  While I’m not trying to be disrespectful to the GNSO’s efforts; the cumulative effect of this committee approach to setting guidelines of how new GTLDs get added, is decidedly negative. They have created the framework of a road to nowhere.

It’s time to simplify things relating to new GTLDs ..  Let’s throw out the rule-book and mix things up a bit.  Nothing begets nothing.

Quote: ""…To trust the market, ICANN must be willing to let new TLDs fail. Instead of insisting that every new business have a 100-year plan, we should prepare the businesses and their stakeholders for contingency. Ensuring the "stable and secure operation of the Internet’s unique identifier systems" should mean developing predictable responses to failure, not demanding impracticable guarantees of perpetual success.""

The irony of Wendy’s quote above is that many of the ICANN name-spaces "painstakingly approved for success" have been unabashed failures.. .COOP, .AERO, .TRAVEL  these namespaces are "JOKES" ..  think of all the ICANN man-hours that have gone into name-spaces like these without real registrants taking registrations in them.. and this is with them trying for success! 

It’s time for ICANN to take a page from Seinfeld’s George Costanza.  This sitcom character changed his life for the better by doing the exact opposite of what his instinct told him to do. Over the course of a season he had moved out of his parents home and landed a job working for the New York Yankees. It’s time for ICANN to change their pattern of failure relating to new GTLDs by doing the exact opposite of what instinct tells them.  Add .XXX add .WEB … stop listening so closely to supporting organizations, which are just that

Thansk for the link Dan!

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13168/53/

Quote: "We are going to keep this discussion going, get input from the wider community, and then we will make the changes needed to protect registrants and domain names."

If you’re an old-school domain registrant like me, you’re probably extraordinarily suspicious of anything ICANN promises to do in favor of registrants. But perhaps this Registerfly fiasco (where a predatory registrar operator went crazy and let your domain names lapse, taking payments without providing service) was just the wake-up call the organization needed.

While it may be difficult for outsiders to believe this, up till recently there was a huge disconnect at ICANN where philosophical policy types did business with "registries" and "registrars" and basically ignored the concerns of the registrants who were paying the bills! Like it or not, the naming system has become a business.. The salad-days of addressing being some nebulous, existential, honor system where monopolistic registries lord over naive techies and ICANN with impunity will not last forever. Better ICANN gets ahead of the curve and structures rules to make the business of naming run better.

I like this new "serve your customer" tune I hear coming from ICANN… and the customer is the registrant.

As if you needed another reason to stick with the .com namespace:

>>From Tralliance Corp. 10-Q:
We received a report from our independent accountants, relating to our December 31, 2006 audited financial statements, containing a paragraph stating that our recurring losses from operations and our accumulated deficit raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. The Company continues to incur substantial consolidated net losses and management believes the Company will continue to be unprofitable and use cash in its operations for the foreseeable future. Based upon our current cash resources of approximately $480 thousand at May 4, 2007, management does not believe the Company can operate as a going concern beyond May 2007.<<<

To my friends at ICANN:  Is there a "lifeboat registry" for the registrants of this name-space in the event that the Tralliance .travel registry can’t pay the bills and the lights go out? Incidentally, .travel has only 25,000 registrations, total.

Frank,

I saw your blog post: http://frankschilling.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/05/verisign_gets_n.html. I am managing ICANN’s registry failover project. I presented to the ccNSO in Lisbon and provided an update to the Board on 13 March (http://www.icann.org/minutes/minutes-13mar07.htm). In April I also posted on the ICANN blog about the project: http://blog.icann.org/?p=105. We will be posting a comprehensive document on registry failover before San Juan.

Regards,

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330

Marina del Rey, CA 90292

That is terrific.  I think it makes all registrants feel better knowing that ICANN is cognizant of the potential for problems and actively engaged in formulating contingency plans in case the unthinkable happens. Three cheers for all hard working ICANN staff like you. .. and thanks for the note.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/05/17/verisign_gets_nasdaq_notice/

This delay in filing is related to an ongoing options inquiry. Still it got me thinking..  we often talk about registrar failure, but what about registry failure?  The Registerfy situation is a wake-up call for us all. ICANN should create a back-up plan - some kind of ‘Registry Rescuer’ (a Plunge Protection Team) in case the unthinkable happens.  It also puts ICANN in a stronger position to de-accredit registries who break the rules and non-complying registries.

Want more proof the people shaping rules that govern domain use have very little clue about the environment in which they exist? The ‘at large advisory comittee’ (ALAC) has just published a paper on the multitude of reasons we should terminate domain tasting (which we all agree is [at this late stage] a huge problem which has to be removed) ..  But consider this post thread:

Let’s see, we have:

"2. Creation of consumer confusion

[…]

4. Facilitation of Trademark Abuse

[…]

5. Facilitation of Criminal Activity"

and

"a small number of registrars are tying up millions of domain names that could be registered by the remaining 600 registrars, inhibiting effective competition".

This report is a refreshing bold stand in favor enhanced competition in the areas of consumer confusion, trademark abuse, and criminal activity.

John Berryhill, Ph.d., Esq.
4 West Front St.
Media, PA  19063
(610) XXX-XXXX
(267) XXX-XXXX fax

John,

Several stories recently about how ICANN is giving you a 3 cent discount per name on previous renewals..  It’s like a game of 3 Card Monty in Times Square though, because most of us are going to give that all back (and more) on the next round of com/net price increases in October. Color this a "feel-good" bag of smoke.

In a further rant about the ICANN "Reserved Names" lists, Dr. Berryhill wants to know what they are smoking in Marina Del Rey…

>I do not have a problem with a company using tld.com for their
>own website. I do have a problem with a "registrar" offering 3rd
>level registrations under tld.com, especially if they tell you that
>this is the way the internet is structured,

Marcus, I do not disagree with the observation that there may be questionable practices.  My only question is whether this is a basis for a categorical exclusion of classes of domain names from registration to anyone on a planet of 6.5 billion people, because an ICANN working group knows what’s best.  If the question comes down to whether there is a problem with whether one does X or does Y with a domain name, then the question is one step removed from whether everyone must therefore be prohibited from registering said domain name.  Whether any particular domain name may be used abusively is a consideration that applies to all domain names.

"SexualPredators.tld", for an organization combating sexual predators, would probably pass the Marcus "problem" test.  The same name, used as an online meeting place and resource directory for sexual predators, would probably not pass the Marcus "problem" test.  My question is whether as a policy matter we need to prohibit registration of the domain name to anyone and everyone, on the ground that "someone" may do something "bad".

In the immediate context of the "Reserved Names" policy, there are substantial effects.  Leaving aside the ccTLDs for a moment, the "Reserved Names" have traditionally included the initials of various ICANN constituent organizations. 

For example, the strings "ASO" and "IAB" were prohibited from being registered in the 2000 round of new TLD’s, e.g. .info, and are mindlessly propagated to each new TLD. Now, the following are US registered trademarks to various companies:

2517102 ASO
2542704 ASO
2654072 ASO/PARTNERS
2539256 ASO
2198279 ASO
2045578 ASO COUNTER NEWS
1619707 ASO

3203966 IAB
3156668 IAB
3102783 IAB
1401532 IAB

You cannot on the one hand say that you don’t have a problem with companies registering their names and marks as domain names, and simultaneously support a policy which says, to the owners of these trademarks, "You will never be able to register your trademark as a domain name in a new TLD." But that is precisely what the Reserved Names Working Group is doing.  Which is why I noted that one has to separate "potential for abuse" which is a use-based issue from "zero legitimate use" which is a reason for a flat-out exclusionary policy.

Do we care whether BIO2 International, Inc., the owner of US Reg. TM. No.2539256 for "ASO" in connection with "stabilized oxygen for use as a dietary supplement" is able to register their trademark as a domain name in some new TLD?

Do we care whether Internal Audit Bureau Inc., the owner of US TM Reg. No.3203966 for "IAB" in connection with financial services is able to someday register IAB.finance?

No, we don’t, and they are not likely even aware of ICANN’s existence, and certainly not aware that there is a working group that is in the process of forever banning them from registering a domain name.

If you want to get on the telephone with the CEO’s of these companies (and there are quite a few among the various "reserved names" under consideration), and explain this situation to them, I’m sure they would have some choice words for this sort of policy nonsense.  If you let me listen, I’ll pay for the telephone calls.

The annual International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, which has been around for longer than the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, will NEVER be able to register "icann.event", solely due to the orgy of self-dealing which characterizes ICANN policy making.  In a world in which the string "ICANN" is legitimately used by different parties, I guess it is fortunate to be the "ICANN" which can absolutely ban the other ICANN’s from registering a domain name henceforth and forevermore.  It is good to be king.

The absolute best and most effective way to prevent abuse of domain names is for us simply to declare a moratorium on registration of domain names.  If people can’t register them, they can’t abuse them.  As an added bonus, everyone on this list will then have more time to spend with their families. My sense is that this is just not the correct constituency to advance "more reasons why people shouldn’t register domain names", which are so eloquently stated by those whose business does not relate to the registration of domain names. At the very least, the Reserved Names Working Group should find someone who can spell. Take a look at the .info reserved names here:

http://www.afilias.info/whois_search/reserved_names

It includes, and included the link because it is simply hard to believe, "bosnaihercegovina".

Now, I don’t know where BosnAI is, but I have heard of a place called BosnIA.  Surely enough, you cannot register bosnaihercegovina.info, because it was duly reserved by Afilias.

Did that stop a cybersquatter from registering bosnIAhercegovina.info? Nope.  No doubt the Balkans will again lapse into several more generations of armed conflict as a consequence. So again, at the very least, when this policy is finally made, perhaps we might try to avoid putting illiterate nitwits in charge of implementing it.

The .in registry did the same thing:
http://www.inregistry.in/policies/IN_Reserved_Names-Feb2005.pdf

because the same stupid typographical error is being propagated through generations of Reserved Name lists.

Maybe the next time they inadvertently ban growers of miniature Japanese trees from registering domain names.  But if someone figures out that "Cashmere" is merely an alternate spelling of "Kashmir", then we’ll have to quit buying wool clothing on the internet under an appropriate domain name.

There is no end to how stupid this is, and there is a distinct Anglo-centrism to the country list.  "Switzerland" is excluded in each of its four official languages, plus English because, well, you know, everyone *should* speak English after all.  You can register "Switzerland" in any other language, though, while some countries only get to exclude their name in English.  Absent an IDN system, for example, "Morocco" cannot be excluded in Arabic.  So instead it is excluded in English, while the other dominant language version corresponding to what is actually spoken in that country - (i.e. "Maroc" in French) - is free for anyone to register in new TLDs.

To go from "dumb" to "dumber" - all of these English designations are excluded from the .cat TLD, EVEN THOUGH IT IS A TLD SPECIFIC TO A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ENGLISH.

What DIDN’T they exclude from .cat?  The names of these countries IN CATALAN.  So, let me get this straight.  You can’t register "Switzerland" in .cat because (a) it is not a Catalan word, and (b) it is the name of a country that doesn’t even call itself "Switzerland" in ANY of its official languages, but it is on a "magic list".  You CAN, however, register "Suïssa" in .cat because (a) it IS a Catalan word, and (b) it is not on the "magic list", even though it is Catalan for "Switzerland".

Please, tell me where to find the medication required to think that policy makes sense.  These types of drugs are not legal in the United States.

Sooner or later, some country is going to change its name to "Porn", and growth of the Internet will come to a dead stop.  (And I wouldn’t doubt that certain wild-carded ccTLD operators haven’t thought about it.  You know who you are.)

As Tim pointed out, this sort of thinking only leads to temporally-based irregularities, because successive rounds of new TLDs have to have different exclusions applied to them, instead of a consistent policy across the board. One can maintain info.com, but not com.info.  Is there a useful purpose served by that?  Another odd example is that "DNSO" is duly reserved by Neulevel in .biz, but not by Afilias in .info.  Of course, the ICANN DNSO no longer exists, and the newer GNSO was already registered in .com, .net, and .org by a troublemaker before the ICANN GNSO was formed.  Nonetheless, "DNSO" is still supposed to be excluded.

Techies are used to checking a theorem against limiting cases.  The end point here, projecting forward, is that when the root zone is as large as the .com zone, it will be easy to obtain a new TLD, since there will not be any likelihood of populating it.  (I believe the growth/exclusion condition here defines a logarithmic growth curve, but the point is that each new TLD has less utility by one domain name)  It may not be the most realistic projection, but from a high-level perspective I just can’t see us lining up to say, "I prefer monotonically decreasing limits on growth curves."  But that’s what this policy imposes as a limiting condition.

Some things do make sense.  For example, the .eu registry reserved names list (http://www.eurid.eu/images/Documents/Blocked_names/1%20blocked.txt) thoughtfully included "1000-jaehriges-reich".  Irrational policies made by unaccountable authorities do indeed have a limited life span.

…Pre-emptive rights to "PG" in all future TLD’s (assuming they can duke it out with the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system).

> The cc.com business relies on confusing users and leaves them in the hands of a commercial institution with no oversight,

Such issues are not inherent in the two-letter strings themselves.  If there is an issue relating to how the strings are used, that is probably outside of the scope of domain name policy per se.

There is no reason why an entity named Hu is required to be beholden to the nation of Hungary for that entity’s inability to register its name as a domain name, any more than endeavors in the fields of electrical engineering or information technology (ee.jobs, it.jobs) should be blocked by "claims" of the nations of Estonia and Italy.

Must Procter & Gamble buy out the nation of Papua New Guinea simply to register their own trademark as a domain name?

PS - UM, MR. and MS. user, this sort of NO IQ BS BY policy fiat IS bad PR for US, of the kind that SO makes ME want TO throw things AT MY TV (IE - BE IT AN AX or similar instrument).

(That sentence is brought to by the ccTLD’s for Palestine, United States Minor Outlying Islands, Mauritania, Montserrat, Norway, Iraq, Bahamas, Belarus Iceland, Puerto Rico, the United States, Somalia, Montenegro, Tonga, Austria, Myanmar, Tuvalu, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands Antilles, or Aland Islands.)

Play on CC TLD’s courtesy of Dr.John Berryhill

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-27apr07.htm

Summary: Today ICANN sent out a solicitation of statements of interest, and the terminated registrar procedure relating to the Registerfly situation. This has never happened before. It’s really Internet history being made. This is the first time an ICANN accredited registrar went so far as to be terminated, its registrations and registrants transfered to a new lifeboat registrar. I think ICANN is learning a great deal from this process and I compliment those staff members burning the midnight oil to see that displaced registrants are taken care of.

The winning registrar will be in a good position to help with future meltdowns, should they occur.

While most of the world is busy chasing after little cybersquatters and trying to toughen laws against thousands of little ants around the world (most of whom control relatively little traffic), Microsoft and Google have been getting very rich from hot traffic and by ‘hot’ I mean illgotten. Searches for unregistered domain typos and unregistered domain trademarks, but more importantly error searches for legitimate websites.

5 years ago I started buying search engine data and was surprised by the number of times users entered domain names into the search-box.  A great many of us think we are at the address bar when we are at Google’s search box; and yes, most of those folks do not understand the difference.  So Google continues to take those users and monetize eyeballs intended for the owners of real websites. Not every name which gets entered at Google will take you to the site you intended to get to.

While that’s a huge problem, it’s not the biggest one.  The same search engine data showed a fairly large swath of users fat fingering their extension to the right of the dot!

It happened in .com with .cpm  or .xom.  It happened in every domain extension in the world: .couk rather than .co.uk; .dee rather than .de; .nett, .orf.  The most common variants garnered the most traffic (number of search occurrences).  When you type those "shadow domain extensions" in your address bar, the browser will take that traffic away by redirecting it to paid search pages of their own, in order to make money. Google got a boost in front door traffic from an arrangement with Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft got a huge lift to MSN/Live.com from their Internet Explorer browser.  What’s wrong with this? Everything. Firstly the browsers are stealing. They have dammed the river and add exactly NO value by impeding you from reaching what is clearly your intended destination.

When my wife types NeimanMarcus.xom, (her long nails bringing the error in extension), she is intending to go to the .com.  Neiman Marcus probably has more “right of the dot” error searches than others due to the length of their clientele’s finger nails.  It’s also thick with irony because Neiman Marcus (the company) has been vigilant in protecting its marks from cybersquatters, all while the most egregious and pernicious form of cybersquatting goes on unchecked.

What say the perpetrators?.. nothing at the moment. Partly because few understand this phenomenon. Even fewer understand the size of the problem or the amount of money at stake. Believe me when I say, the browsers would prefer you didn’t. Microsoft and Google may point out that they often display a link to the site people were hoping to get to. They make it difficult by design. Browser-search takeovers grow their branding and build mindshare by "helping" you.  They throw up their billboard, and those additional links to paid search ads cause many to take a wrong turn. The search engines (Live.com, Google.com) will not tell you how much of their traffic is really “your traffic” and they will not give this ill-gotten traffic back willingly because it would crucify their own traffic volume, lower revenues and undermine their strategic footing.  Some footing it is folks… “Your” traffic, their footing..  A large swath of Search Engine traffic originates in the browser or nested toolbar via error searches for real active websites.

So let’s look at the domain name world.. While these search engines make huge amounts of money from inactive “Shadow TLDs”,  ICANN is constantly vilified for doing nothing right. They are not doing enough to stop cybersquatters, not adding IDNs quick enough, they are hamstrung by politics, global interests and registries which keep them subservient and on an anemic budget.  They keep fooling around with adding new TLD’s; most of which ultimately flounder and fail to generate significant (consistent 100mm+)  revenues or meaningfully add to ICANN’s budget. At least part of ICANN’s problem is its inability to make enough money to attract the right people and run more efficiently, in order to serve the world better.

“The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind”.  ICANN could serve registrants, battle the world’s biggest cybersquatters and make more money for itself; all while making the Internet a better place for users by taking those Shadow TLD’s back!  If you think of a shadow domain name as an obvious mis-spelling of an existing domain extension .xom, .cpm and you accept (as I know) that a significant swath of “your traffic” is trapped in assorted browser-error shenanigans to the right of the dot, then you will absolutely pay to buy this domain extension if it was offered. I can tell you I would buy hundreds of thousands on behalf of myself and clients. This has nothing to do with allowing ‘other’ registrants the ability to take these shadows and nefariously point them to their site, it is purely an On-Off switch..  Pay your 6 or 8 dollars and get misspelled .xom flowing to the obviously intended .com..  Don’t pay it and continue to loose your error search to browser-thieves.

In my opinion, the next name you want to buy are variants of your own.  That’s where the traffic is. The biggest, most revolutionary TLD’s which have not yet been introduced are the misspellings of .com, .net .org and the CCTLD of the country you reside in. All domain registrants buy domain names “hoping for traffic”, hoping for people to visit their websites. ICANN could instantly double, perhaps triple the number of paid registrations globally by repossessing shadow TLD’s from those free-rider browser manufacturers and giving people an opportunity to purchase "their" traffic back. Would you pay $6-8 per name to get up to 8% more traffic?  Tens of millions globally would vote yes with their wallets and the Internet would be less shadowy.

Never a dull moment in naming…

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/24/icann_auerbach_interview_lisbon/

Very nice interview with Karl Auerbach where he labels ICANN "the USSR of the internet"

Quote:  "It is amazing how much ICANN resembles the old USSR. ICANN is very much like central bureaucracy that is drawing up five year plans for the internet. And like the USSR that had a never ending problem with getting the right products to customers, ICANN has warped internet innovation in the domain name space with enough red tape to choke a Godzilla or two."

In a funny coincidence, the "FIVE YEAR PLAN" is what we call getting EPP transfer authcodes from Registerfly

Wasn’t even going to blog about this…

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/87655

I would have thought that the day after 9/11, DHS, NSA, CIA, FBI, would have been monitoring the registry, root servers, had key signing, all of it. I’m frankly surprised they didn’t already have it.  Sign of the times that other contries are concerned about potential trampling of their sovereign rights as it relates to CCtld’s.

Very interesting to watch the Web evolve.

Little 3 min video speaks volumes.

http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-6172758.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

This may be a flanking manouver to avoid potential litigation from unhappy would-be GTLD operators and others.

From a related piece:  "This means that ICANN would be free from civil lawsuits, police searches and taxes, and its employees would have the kind of quasi-diplomatic status enabling them to import items into the country without paying customs duties, among other privileges.

Well, as the Web’s domain name registrar, you’d think such an exemption would be a no-brainer, but the Bush administration doesn’t seem to like the idea. If anything else, recent policy has tightened the administration’s grip on the organization, which is based in Marina del Rey, California"

http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org/2007q1/000431.html

This is the single worst piece of paper I have seen come from an ICANN advisory committee in years.  You would think it was written in 1995 not 2007.  They appear to bundle domain-tasting and all forms of domain monetization as mutual-ills.

Among other things, this paper unwittingly suggests that Google, Yahoo and scores of others devalue their public company stock up to 30%, by ceasing monetization of names without content. Who exactly would police for "content" (what passes for content) is unclear of course. If the wishes expressed in this paper were ‘magically granted’.. go-daddy, tucows, verisign and all Internet companies, would be worth much much less — tens of thousands unemployed through the trickle down.

I should have taken my cue how lost this group was when they wrote about domain tasting:  "At this point of time, we feel there still needs [to be] more concrete information to prove these problems actually exist".  As if millions of domain names registered and deleted themselves on their own.

Oh, and apparently domain names are not owned by the registrant..  they are "public goods" in the eyes of these wonks.. so if you are a registrant ..  you best not get too married to your domain name, lest "the public" repossess it.  Which member of the public would be entitled to unseat a registrant paying potential millions for the rights in a domain name is unclear as well.

I agree that Domain Tasting has evolved in an unholy way from its earliest days and needs to be fixed (stopped) at this late stage, but placing all forms of domain monetization into the same blender is a classic example of a bunch of policy philosophizers, that do not fully grasp the machinations going on within the world about which they write.. Here’s one of the faces behind this paper http://icannwiki.org/Izumi_Aizu. 

Hey Izumi;  Are you ALAC folks nuts? Call the owner of www.Loans.com. It has no content whatsoever (the name is a blind refresh). Tell that name’s owner they are abusing ‘public goods’ by monetizing eyeballs. When the laughter dies down, do the same with www.Love.com (who’s owner is an ICANN accredited registrar). Then go down the roster, pissing-off the rest of corporate America (public and private) from there.

Every member of this ALAC needs to step out of their insular world and give their head a shake..  it is 2007 not 1995.  The fortunes of millions rest on the shoulders of the Internet and many of your recommendations are so completely out of touch with the reality in which we live…  It’s a shame this is the best the ALAC has to offer. It gains the organization little respect or credit from anyone I know.

http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/03/dot-xxx-is-voted-down-dot-xxx-fires-back

Jay Westerdal proves to the world that hanging around a bar in Lisbon can lead to overhearing interesting things.

The vote was in favour by 9 votes to 5 with one abstention of the resolution ie rejecting dot xxx. There was minority dissent from Board members Crawford, Dengate-Thrush, Wodelet, Ito, and Ramaraj with abstention from Twomey.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/22/icann_registerfly_reform_registrar/

Summary:  That Paul Twomey is no slouch.. having fiddled as Rome burned only to see every major media outfit in the world pick up on the fiasco and point the finger back at ICANN for failing to act in timely fashion;  ICANN is now making themselves look busy with some "reforms".  This Registerfly situation is the domain name equivalent of FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina..

I think certain ICANN staff just blew it. I knew there were problems at that registrar.. many others did too (and we’re outsiders). So the negligence on the part of those in charge for failing to act sooner is reprehensible.

That said, in the interest of Global and US economic security, we need a strong ‘well run’ ICANN.  The Internet naming system and regulatory machinations around naming are absolutely vital to US centric commerce and global trade.  We can not — "must not" see the Internet run through some nebulous UN arm where those placed in charge are likely to be confused, befuddled, self-serving and anti-capitalistic.  That would be catastrophically bad for US interests and for the Internet (in my opinion).

A modern information society needs a strong, consistent ICANN, but the organization has an unholy culture that snakes to the top. There are some narcissistic, indifferent policy wonks in that organization (board and staff) that need to "cleaved out" so the remaining organization and decent hardworking people there can run the org. more effectively; and for the benefit of all netizens. Lack of consequences, leaving existing staff/leadership in place would send exactly the wrong message and lend support to those who wish to move global naming oversight to those who do not have economic prosperity and freedom at heart.

http://www.bloggernews.net/14882

Summary:  ICANN, Stupid.

In a highminded effort to keep hate out of GTLD’s (ie: .HATE as a domain extension instead of .COM), ICANN has painted themselves into a corner and angered free people everywhere by over-reaching.  In addition to any Country in the world being able to stop a new gTLD string, ICANN staff would also be able to prevent any idea that it deemed too controversial to exist in the new domain space.

Quote: “The 13 Feb proposal would essentially make ICANN the arbiter of public policy and morality in the new gTLD space, a frightening prospect for anyone who cares about democracy and free expression,”

Thank God. I don’t know how the net would function without ICANN making morality decisions for us :)  So much for dot Gay

Posted in my comments earlier.. I applaud ICANN for reaching out to try to help domain registrants..  This is certainly a welcome change. I’m paying my ICANN fees with a renewed spring in my step

Hi, I am ICANN’s general manager for public participation.

In recognition of the fact that RegisterFly customers are having trouble getting access to information about their domains, ICANN has posted an update today (http://blog.icann.org/?p=32) on the RegisterFly situation on its blog at http://blog.icann.org.

We will endeavour to provide regular updates on the situation, so please do keep checking the site. You can sign up to the blog’s RSS feed at http://blog.icann.org/?feed=rss2.

Denise Marshall
Office of the Chief Counsel

National Telecommunications and Information Administration

Washington

,

D.C.

  20230

Re: FOIA Request Regarding Communications with ICANN

Dear Ms. Marshall:

Under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, I am requesting copies of all materials relating to communications between the NTIA or the Department of Commerce (Department) generally with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) regarding the ICANN-accredited registrar known as RegisterFly, headquartered in Boonton, New Jersey.

I am writing to you in my capacity as Counsel to the Internet Commerce Association (ICA), a non-profit trade association dedicated to promoting and protecting the rights of professional domain name (DN) owners.

ICA

’s membership is composed of individuals and companies that own, buy, sell, resell, host and manage Internet traffic emanating from search engines, domain names and Internet links.

ICA

members rely upon ICANN’s registrar accreditation process as a fundamental protection of their substantial monetary investment in the acquisition and development of DNs and therefore have great concerns about the shortcomings of that process, particularly as regards oversight and enforcement of registrar accreditation agreements, that appear to have been revealed by the RegisterFly situation.

To help you identify the material I am seeking, ICANN has made available at its website (at http://www.icann.org/correspondence/registerfly-notice-of-breach-21feb07.pdf) a copy of a February 21, 2007 letter to Mr. Glenn Stansbury of RegisterFly.com signed by Kurt J. Pritz, Senior Vice President, Services. That letter, at page 6, contains the following sentence: