2015-06-15

dotSUCKS Dead End? Canada's "Big John" Rebuffs ICANN, Now What?

Photo of Akram Attalah, President of ICANN's Global Domains Division
Akram Attalah, President of
ICANN's Global Domains Division
UPDATE: Close of the TMCH Sunrise Period for dotSUCKS domain names is June 19th at 00:01 UTC. General Availability* starts June 21st at 00:01 UTC -- source: dotSucks Domain Name Registry

*'[Registry] operators are free to make their domains available to the public; a period called General Availability.'--source: Dawn of a New Internet Era | ICANN New gTLDs by Akram Attalah, President of ICANN's Global Domains Division (see photo--photo source: ICANN@AkramAtallah

For information on where to get dotSUCKS domain names starting June 21, 2015: https://www.registry.sucks/registrars
Industry Canada, Big Data, and John KnubleyDeputy Minister of Industry (Canada), who is simply known as "Big John" around Ottawa according to Domain Mondo's Canadian sources, discusses the government's adoption of big data and focus on promoting education in the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), in the video above, published April 17, 2014.

Photo of Canada's John Knubley shaking hands with Kathleen Merrigan USDA
Canada's "Big John" Knubley is a busy man--photo above:
John Knubley shakes hands with Kathleen Merrigan USDA
[2012 USDA photo by Bob Nichols]
The brain trust at ICANN came up with the bright idea of trying to pass off the dotSUCKS controversy to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Canada's Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA). See: The dot SUCKS Conundrum: ICANN, FTC, OCA, New gTLD Domains. ICANN received a letter in response from Edith Ramirez, Chair of the FTC, who reminded ICANN it had ignored all the sound advice the FTC had given ICANN about the new gTLDs program, and then proceeded to rub salt into the wound by lecturing ICANN on how to protect consumers. See: Dot SUCKS: FTC Lectures ICANN On How To Protect Consumers

ICANN's last remaining hope was Canada-- 

Whatever the ICANN brain trust was looking for from Canada's Office of Consurmer Affairs (OCA), Domain Mondo is pretty sure they didn't get it--below is the body of the letter that Canada's Deputy Minister of Industry, John Knubley, sent back to ICANN's General Counsel--Big John is obviously an experienced government minister who has mastered the fine bureaucratic art of "responding without responding" and wasn't about to endanger his career nor risk public embarrassment or humiliation by getting sucked into ICANN's dotSUCKS problems:

graphic: Canada's Letter Responding to ICANN re: dotSUCKS
Above: Canada's "Big John" Knubley's Letter Responding to ICANN re: dotSUCKS
This appears to be a modified form letter sent in order to close the file and move on to more important matters--John is obviously a busy man and has more important things to attend to (see video, photo, tweet above, and tweet, video below).



What Now ICANN?

See also: Frank Schilling's Uniregistry Is An Investor in New gTLD dot SUCKS

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