2014-07-11

All the things ICANN failed to think about before launching new gTLDs

When ICANN decided to do internet domain name public policy based primarily on the competing private, profit-making motives of  registry applicants who could "pay to play" at the rate of $185,000 per new gTLD, with limited input from mostly self-selected so-called multi-stakeholders who collectively form the "junket culture" within ICANN, or as some call it, the "gravy train," as ICANN has done with its new gTLDs domain names program, and in the process completely disregard the public interest -- ignoring objections and warnings from governments, businesses, trademark holders, and others -- ICANN should at least have thought through all of the ramifications, pitfalls, conflicts, and other problems now resulting. Instead, thanks to ICANN, we now have a multi-million-dollar boondoggle and corruption of the internet domain name space. Here's just one example, of many, of the disaster ICANN has created as a result of its new gTLDs process --

https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/roussos-to-crocker-et-al-01jul14-en.pdf (pdf)

240 pages all about just one new gTLD! Multiply that times 1300+ (the total number of new gTLDs to be launched in the "first phase") and you begin to get an idea of the magnitude of chaos and confusion ICANN has irresponsibly unleashed on the global Internet community. There was a better way and there is no excuse nor justification for what ICANN has done. ICANN, its Board of Directors, staff, and all others responsible, should be held accountable. But ICANN is "a monopolistic, hardly accountable private organisation that exercises public authority and power," with no membership and controlled by an "unelected, self-interested, self-legitimised corporate board, answerable, when it really comes down to it, only to itself." The remedy therefore is to replace ICANN.





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