2014-05-22

ICANN, new gTLD domain names, and the Law of Bad Ideas

My next post requires this background on ICANN, ICANN's new gTLDs (generic top level domain names), and the Law of Bad Ideas. Never heard of the Law of Bad Ideas? It's all explained below.

The Law of Bad Ideas [as explained by Domain Mondo in the context of ICANN and its new gTLDs program within brackets below]:

"Bad ideas don't go away until they have been tried and failed multiple times, and generally not even then[After ICANN repeatedly expands the gTLD domains (.mobi et al), none of them really take off, so ICANN decides to flood the market with hundreds of unwanted, unneeded new gTLD domains so cybercriminals, cybersquatters, and trademark infringers can have a field day, and ICANN, its insiders and opportunistic contractors can profit from the scheme.]

"Corollary One: Left alone, bad ideas get worse over time
[It is happening right before our eyes -- and just keep watching this new gTLDs program and ALL of its unintended consequences--including things ICANN didn't even consider or even think about before imposing its disaster on the global multistakeholder community.]

"Corollary Two: The overwhelming desire to implement bad ideas leads to compromises guaranteed to make things worse[price gouging for new gTLD domain name renewals, and remember the multistakeholder proposal to protect trademarks that was vetoed by ICANN insiders?]

"Corollary Three: Those in positions of political power not only have the worst ideas, they also have the means to see those ideas are implemented. [Think of ICANN's own Rod Beckstrom, Kurt Pritz,  Fadi Chehade a/k/a Mr. Charade, Steven Crocker a/k/a Dr. Crocket al]

"Corollary Four: The worse the idea, the more likely it is to be embraced by academia and political opportunists[And economic opportunists]

"Corollary Five: No politically acceptable idea is so bad it cannot be made worse." [Don't know about you, but I can hardly wait for ICANN's next round of new gTLDs!]

The reason this is all so bad is that institutional effort justification and confirmation bias have now taken hold of ICANN -- ICANN cannot dare admit it made a BIG mistake with its new gTLDs program -- ICANN will continue compounding its mistake. If you are in the domain name industry and have not yet formulated your own disaster recovery plan to deal with ICANN's disastrous new gTLDs program, you better get one now, the water is rising fast, and you haven't seen anything yet!





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