News Review | New gTLDs Hucksters Lose Again: ICANN Says No $$$

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-09-03) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) New gTLDs 0-2: ICANN Nixes RySG Requests for $$$, 2)Names, Domains & Trademarks: .AFRICA Price Gouging?, Domain Name Do's and Don'ts, 3) ICYMI: Yahoo Data Breach Litigation, Internet Blacklisting, Censorship, Google Is A Bully, and more, 4) Most Read Posts.

1) New gTLDs and the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) now 0-2:
First, on July 26, 2017, ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker shot down (pdf) RySG's request to set a date now for the next round of new gTLDs;

Second, this past week ICANN Global Domains President Akram Atallah nixed (pdf) (embed below, highlighting added) RySG's requests for $$$ pending since March 14:

Editor's note: ICANN foolishly and incompetently expanded gTLDs (generic top-level domains) from just 22 (.com, .net, .org ... .gov, .mil, .edu, .int) to over 1200 starting in 2014, and now the new gTLDs hucksters (registry operators et al) are finding out that hundreds of new gTLDs are "unwanted and unneeded" and they are going broke, and want ICANN to "bail them out." ICANN has slowly begun to realize its own "pipe dream" about new gTLDs was delusional, and is now "looking out for #1" (#1 is the ICANN organization and its budget that pays the obscenely extravagant salary and benefits packages to ICANN management and much of the staff).

Other ICANN News:
•  ICANN Provides Update on Review of the Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) Process | ICANN.org 1 Sep 2017: "... The CPE provider has been producing documents on a rolling basis. FTI is currently evaluating whether the CPE provider’s production is complete. Once the underlying information and data collection is complete, FTI anticipates that it will be able to inform ICANN of its findings within two weeks. Recently, the ICANN Board and the ICANN organization have received numerous inquiries for documentation and information about the Review. These inquiries have been and will continue to be addressed through ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy (DIDP), and are published on the DIDP page ..."

•  ICANN 2017 Nominating Committee Announces Selections | ICANN.org Sep 1, 2017: "ICANN Board of Directors--Avri Doria (North America) and Sarah Deutsch (North America) ..."

2) Names, Domains & Trademarks

•  .AFRICA Price Gouging? Africans complain of ZACR's Price Gouging on .AFRICA and .CITY Domains | DomainNewsAfrica.com.

•  Do's and Don'ts of Securing a Domain Name | entrepreneur.com: "... Don't waste money on extensions other than .com ..."

•   Domain Name: 3 Early Investments Every Entrepreneur Should Make | entrepreneur.com: "... As a business owner for most of my life, I've seen companies mishandle or overlook myriad business investments, but the most common is the domain name space ... By taking more time initially to understand the company's brand and then determining the level of investment that it would take to buy a recognizable and memorable name, businesses can actually set themselves up for quicker and more efficient growth ..."

•   Buying a pre-owned domain? Check these 10 things first | SearchEngineLand.com

•  Brandsight.com: Domain industry veterans Matt Serlin and Elisa Cooper join Brandsight, a new corporate domain name registrar.

•  Domain Name System [DNS] is a Prime Target for Hackers: according to a 2017 Global DNS Threat Survey, highest DNS-related attack types are malware (35 percent), DDoS (32 percent), Cache Poisoning (23 percent), DNS Tunneling (22 percent), and Zero-Day exploits (19 percent)--CIOinsight.com.

•  WTF Google SERP: New Bittrex Phishing Scam Website Tops the Google Search Results | newsbtc.com

3) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

• Yahoo data breach litigation brought on behalf of well over 1 billion users--Yahoo must face litigation by data breach victims: U.S. judge | Reuters.com.

• If US-led internet oversight crumbles, tech sector will suffer | TheHill.com: "The truth, seldom discussed, is that the multistakeholder architecture is as unwieldy as the ponderous name that dignifies it."

• The Slippery Slope of Internet Blacklisting | pjmedia.com

• Journalists Overreach in Their Quest to Purge ‘Hate’ from the Web | NationalReview.com

• Google Is A Bully: Google forced out New America's Open Markets division. What's next? | The WashingtonPost.com: "Google is coming after critics in academia and journalism. It’s time to stop them."
• Internet censorship in China: new rules aim to prevent anyone who hasn't provided their real identity from commenting online | qz.com: China forbids anonymous posts in online communities and discussion forums, effective October 1.
• Will Britain’s crackdown on internet trolls undermine freedom of speech? | RT.com

• Internet Shutdowns in Africa Stifling Press Freedom | ipsnews.net

• Rural America Needs Faster Internet. Microsoft and Congress Have a Cheap and Easy Solution. | TheWeeklyStandard.com: "... Microsoft President Brad Smith announced his company’s Rural AirBand Initiative, a non-profit, public-private partnerships that aims to bring high-speed Internet to 2 million Americans within five years. As part of the initiative, Microsoft wants to reserve at least three white spaces in every network. Microsoft will pay the upfront capital, then recoup the costs by revenue sharing ..."

• Net Neutrality and Open Internet: 

Apple to FCC: Protect net neutrality and don’t allow online fast lanes | Recode.net 

Open Internet advocates push back as FCC moves to dismantle 'net neutrality' | StarTribune.com.

• Judge Cracks Down on LinkedIn’s Shameful Abuse of Computer Break-In Law | Electronic Frontier Foundation | EFF.org: "Good news out of a court in San Francisco: a judge just issued an early ruling against LinkedIn’s abuse of the notorious Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to block a competing service from perfectly legal uses of publicly available data on its website ..."
• Don’t Lock Laws Behind Paywalls | Electronic Frontier Foundation | EFF.org: "It’s almost too strange to believe, but a federal court ruled earlier this year that copyright can be used to control access to parts of our state and federal laws—forcing people to pay a fee or sign a contract to read and share them. On behalf of Public.Resource.Org, a nonprofit dedicated to improving public access to law, yesterday EFF challenged that ruling in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ..."
• Cyberspace Supremacy? "Although cyberspace is important for economic growth, countries must also have supremacy in it through their ability to navigate it for intelligence gathering and cyberwarfare."--TheWire.in

• Hurricane Harvey recovery report--Sep 1, 2017--"The cities/towns directly hit by the hurricane are mostly without power and some, water. Amazingly, full power is expected by mid next week. Crews from all over the country are working 14 hour days. Houston did not get the wind, so lines not affected. Some of the sub-stations flooded causing power outage but it was quickly remedied. Postings of banks reopened are online. They are waiving fees for non customer ATM use."--WolfStreet.com

4) Most read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1.  News Review | Report: ICANN's New gTLDs As Global DNS Malware (this post set a new record at DomainMondo.com for "most read" in just one week--and is already #3 on the all-time "most read" list).

2.  Tech Review | Chrome OS: Say Goodbye To Microsoft Windows Forever

3.  Monday: Amazon.com, Inc. + Whole Foods, Immediately Lower Prices

4. Tech Review | Apple Event Sept 12: New iPhones, Apple Watch & Apple TV

5. Chinese AI News Aggregator Unicorn Startup Toutiao, TopBuzz in US:

6. Tech Revenue Per Employee: .COM Registry Operator VeriSign $VRSN #4

7. Rovio Startup HATCH Tests New Netflix-Style Mobile Gaming Platform

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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News Review: ICANN's Extortionate .BRAND Scam Failing

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-07-09), with analysis and opinion:  Features •  1) ICANN's Extortionate .BRAND Scam Failing,  2)ICANN Collaborates with Moscow-Based PIR Center, 3) How Phony Are New gTLDs' Stats? 4) Most Read Posts This Past Week on Domain Mondo.

1) ICANN's Extortionate .BRAND Scam Failing

"ICANN is just a scam and the entire industry is based on monopolistic fraud with DC payoffs."--Mike Mann, domain name registrant, March 30, 2017.

ICANN's new gTLDs program, an "ill-conceived clusterf*ck" driven by greed, incompetence, cronyism, and conflicts of interest, grossly over-expanded the internet's generic top-level domains (gTLDs) from just 22 to over 1200 beginning in 2014. One of the key parts of the new ICANN program opening in 2012 was the ability of corporations to apply to control their very own "piece of the internet" (gTLD) by applying to use their own trademark(s) or brand name(s), e.g., .BARCLAYS, .BMW, .BNPPARIBAS (that's not a misspell), etc., as a new gTLD, something completely counter to the historic principles of the internet (see RFC 1591) as well as ICANN's (and the U.S. government's) position in the recent Weinstein case that TLDs are not property but global public resources. In addition, the .BRAND program has been criticized as contributing to the decline of the free and open internet by encouraging silos of TLDs controlled by profit-making enterprises who also control internet access and have no hesitancy in limiting access to only certain domains if not restrained by governments. Trademarks and corporations exist (and are limited) by virtue of sovereign laws. Some have said ICANN's unbounded desire to serve as the lap dog of a few big corporations in its capacity as the world's supranational policy-making authority and "coordinator" of the global internet DNS, led to the creation of .BRAND gTLDs. Finally, lawyers tell me there are also huge risks in making a trademark a generic top-level domain--ever hear of genericide? Which is why I guess some trademark lawyer wanted to change the word "generic" to "global" in GNSO at ICANN59.

Notwithstanding the above, ICANN proceeded to open the new gTLDs program in 2012 to this new sub-category of generic top-level domains (gTLDs), and by ICANN's standards, it was a big success--a total of 664 brands (34% of all applications) were conned into submitting applications to ICANN--although most applications were, and still are, purely "defensive." Read the U.S. Senate testimony (pdf) of Dawn Grove, corporate counsel for the parent of the manufacturer of  PING golf equipment. ICANN knows no shame.  

One complete list (updated as of 25 Jan 2017) of all the "dot BRAND" applications and their status is here. A review of that list indicates that the main beneficiaries (besides ICANN) of ICANN's dot BRAND program are principally just three companies which provide the bulk of the .BRAND back-end registry services): Afilias (whose Executive Chairman Jonathan Robinson became GNSO Council Chair in 2012, and whose CTO Ram Mohan has been on the ICANN Board since 2008); Verisign (which is also registry operator of .COM and .NET); and Neustar (note that ARI Registry Services is now owned by Neustar). ICANN Board member Becky Burr (2016-2019), a Washington, D.C., "revolving door lawyer" (Burr used to work for the U.S. Department of Commerce (NTIA) and FTC), has been employed by Neustar since 2012. In addition, the current GNSO Council Vice Chair Donna Austin, a former ICANN employee, works for Neustar.

Of course there are others--ICANN thrives on greed and conflicts of interest--including a menagerie of brand consultants, strategists (e.g., here and here), as well as an assortment of hucksters, lawyers, charlatans, and snake oil salesmen who thought they would get filthy rich off all the big "dumb" rich trademark holders who were told they must pay to defensively register their trademark as an ICANN .BRAND TLD or risk losing their "brand name" and trademark on the internet to other claimants. ICANN charged an initial $185,000 "shakedown" fee per brand name upfront, plus periodic fees thereafter for the "privilege" of operating the .BRAND TLD. Of course, that may be just a drop in the bucket compared to the fees charged by the consultants, lawyers, back end registry service providers, and others, including the aforesaid charlatans.

Despite the best efforts of ICANN, its "partners" Afilias, Verisign, Neustar, et al, and the menagerie of other hucksters, the dot BRAND program is failing with well-known global brand McDonald's recently throwing in the towel on their .MCD (pdf) and .MCDONALDS new gTLDs:

McDonald's back end registry services had been provided by Neustar. McDonald's had also been a client of Fairwinds Partners.  I guess greed and conflicts of interest have their limits.

2)  ICANN Collaborates with Moscow-Based PIR Center to Present a Collection of Articles on Cyberspace | ICANN.org. See also: PIRcenter.org: Global Internet Governance and Cyber Security: As Viewed by Russian Experts.

3) How Phony Are The Stats on New gTLDs' Domain Name Registrations? Nobody really knows. ICANN is too inept to collect and publish the true data. Update July 13, 2017: 

Above data courtesy ntldstats.com July 13, 2017: if the "millions" of new gTLD domain names 'owned' by registry operators were NOT shown above (see second tweet below), how much worse would the actual situation be? ICANN doesn't want to know and doesn't want YOU to know.

Top 5 #GTLD's now account for 50% of all Regs. 500 split/suck other 50%. The weak, getting weaker. #Domains https://t.co/8SrF9wBtW0

— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) July 3, 2017

Actually, 28% of all regs shared by 480 new #GTLD's. Look behind the numbers & you'll see regisrtries own MILLIONS! #Fake #Pityful #Domains

— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) July 3, 2017

4) Most read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review: ICANN59 Report; .NET Greed: ICANN + Verisign $VRSN

2. a16z VC Marc Andreessen On Tech Valuations and More (podcast)

3. Mobile Economy: Anindya Ghose Says Life Getting Even Faster With Tech 

4.  G20 Summit, July 7-8: A Push For More Restrictions on Internet Freedom?

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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DISCLAIMER

News Review: ICANN, New gTLD Domain Names, Consumer Fraud

Domain Mondo's review of the past week and look ahead [pdf]: 

Consumer Fraud, ICANN, and new gTLD domain names? A lot of misinformation has been propagated about new gTLDs (new generic top-level domains), by both ICANN and its domain name industry partners a/k/a ICANN's customers, and at the same time, important information for consumers (domain name registrants) concerning universal acceptance issues in new gTLDs--new gTLD domain names "failing to work as expected on the internet" or "break stuff,"--has not been fully disclosed by either ICANN or its partners.

New gTLD domain names and Google Search Rank: here's the truth--What The New ICANN Domain Names Mean For Google Rankings & SEO: Nothing | SearchEngineLand.com--read that June 20, 2011, posting for all the particulars. But below is an example of the misleading, deceptive, false, unfair or fraudulent claims that ICANN's partners are still pushing in the marketplace to an unaware, uninformed consumer public:

False claims about ICANN's new gTLDs exposed--new gTLD hucksters slapped down again by Google's John Mueller--

"Google says keywords in the TLD part of your URL are ignored for ranking purposes | SearchEngineLand.com: "Google’s John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a Google Hangout that keyword-rich TLDs, such as the new top-level domains that have keywords in them — like .LIVE, .NEWS, .ATTORNEY and so on — do not count for ranking purposes. Mueller said Google completely ignores that for ranking purposes. He said this at the 12:45 minute mark into the hangout: “The TLD is not something we take into account there,” he said, and added that they [Google] “completely” ignore the words in the TLD portion of the URL. There was some controversy recently around a sponsored article published here on Search Engine Land, Can moving to a new TLD boost search rankings? That article [purportedly] showed how one lawyer switched from a .COM to a .ATTORNEY domain and saw a nice lift in organic traffic. Both Mueller and Gary Illyes from Google said this is not true and urged webmasters not to switch from their current TLDs to the new TLDs for “vague promises” of ranking boosts." (emphasis added)

If you dig down into that "sponsored article" cited above and its underlying "report," you 'discover' how the results are tainted by comparing a stale .COM website and a redeployed new gTLD website utilizing a SEO (search engine optimization) content strategy:

"In addition to the relaunch, Eric’s team concentrated on posting blog entries (initially about seven per month) containing keywords they hadn’t yet been ranked on search results. Very quickly, Jacksonville.Attorney started seeing fantastic results in organic Google listings." (emphasis added)

That's no surprise to anyone familiar with search engine optimization and improving Google search rank by regularly posting fresh original content. When it comes to "Google search rank," having a new gTLD (new generic top-level domain a/k/a domain name extension) will not help you. No matter how many times the new gTLD hucksters try to mislead you, no matter that ICANN does nothing to stop this misinformation from being propagated by its "partners," no matter how much Akram Atallah or others at ICANN, or Rightside, or Donuts, or Afilias, or ARI Registry Services n/k/a Neustar might wish it to be true, it just isn't. Listen to what Google and others have confirmed over and over again. Don't listen to the people trying to make a buck by misleading you. For ICANN and the hucksters, it's all about the money.

ICANN doesn't care about consumers (domain name registrants or internet users) other than to help its "partners" exploit domain name registrants for purposes of monetary gain. See also Consumer Trust? Not at ICANN Compliance | circleid.com and ICANN Fails Consumers (Again) | circleid.com: "The Compliance department of ICANN is an unmitigated disaster when it comes to earning the consumer trust."

I doubt this will be the last time Google has to "correct the record" concerning search rank and new gTLDs. The new gTLD hucksters continue spreading this same big fat lie, over and over again. Eventually the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) or state consumer protection agency(s) or one or more state attorney generals, or some Attorney in a court of law, will hold them accountable via an award of money damages or imposition of fines and penalties for consumer fraud. One would think that new gTLD hucksters realized by now that their phony baloney about new gTLDs and Google search rank just paints them as pathetic liars.

Today, even when a domain name registry operator representative tries to impart useful information for domain name registrants--see, e.g., 7 Key Questions to Ask When Choosing a Domain Name Extension | circleid.com--she (or he) is immediately attacked by one or more new gTLD trolls--my published comment to the article cited above:

"Useful information Jeannie, particularly for domain name registrants (and please ignore the new gTLD trolls). But you could have also added "pricing predictability" in renewing .COM domain names compared to new gTLDs. One issue you did raise, known as the "universal acceptance" problems of new gTLDs "failing to work as expected on the internet" and "breaking stuff" is very problematic for both domain name registrants and end users. ICANN tried to absolve itself of all liability for universal acceptance problems in its registry agreements with new gTLD registry operators. One or more class actions on behalf of new gTLD domain name registrants may be forthcoming once the IANA transition is complete." (link added)

See also on Domain Mondo:  New gTLD Domain Names, Defects, ICANN Liability, FTC Complaints and ICANN, Domain Registry Operators, Monopoly, Antitrust, FTC Statement.

********

•  Different strokes for different folks re: IANA stewardship transition--

• Bloomberg | BNA.com: "[Larry] Strickling told reporters June 9 that NTIA is also studying a provision in pending appropriations legislation that would prohibit the agency from spending money to effect the transition. But he said the contract will expire of its own accord Sept. 30, and he didn't believe allowing the contract to expire would violate the prohibition." (emphasis added)
• The Battle Over Obama’s Internet Surrender | WSJ.com: "... Time is running out for Congress to insist that the U.S. continue to protect Americans and everyone around the world who values the open internet."  See also Opinion Journal: Adios, Internet Freedom? (video) | WSJ.com:  Columnist Gordon Crovitz on the Obama Administration's decision to give up control of the Internet's domain name system.

ICANN Hub Offices & Engagement Offices (source: icann.org)

• ICANN & Online Censorship: Other than LA, ICANN also has "hubs" in Istanbul (Turkey) and Singapore (both selected while Fadi Chehade was ICANN President & CEO--he planned on "moving to Singapore")--both of which appear to be actively censoring the internet: Singapore cuts off web access for government workers | CNN.com: "... The move was criticized online as being a retrograde step and one that could lead to wider restrictions on internet freedom in the city-state."  As for Istanbul, since 2013, Freedom House ranks Turkey as "Not Free."

• Shuffling chairs on the deck of the Titanic: Changes to ICANN’s Global Leadership Team | ICANN.org.

• Governance Risk: ICANN's Board of Directors should be held to the standards of a fiduciary (stewards of a global public resource). Unfortunately, ICANN Directors fall far short in executing their duties as fiduciaries--Three Ways to Identify Governance Risk | cfainstitute.org: "The recent tribulations of Zenefits, a San Francisco start-up operating in the health insurance and human resources space, demonstrate how analyzing a firm’s culture can help identify potential red flags. Earlier this year, Zenefits’s replacement CEO announced that the company suffered from issues with its culture and tone, writing that “our internal processes, controls and actions around compliance have been inadequate.” One month later, Fidelity announced that it was marking down its investment stake in the company ... As a fiduciary, ... once you’ve identified something as a risk, you have no choice but to look at it.”--London-based Newton Investment Management recommends before investing conducting thorough research to analyze and understand a company on three particular levels:

• Board of Directors: How is the board composed in terms of diversity, tenure, and independence? [In the case of ICANN you should probably add as important criteria both competence (it's not an 'honorary' appointment) and conflicts of interest.] 
• History: Does the company have a track record of ... carelessness or infractions [e.g., dot SUCKS, dot AFRICA, dot AMAZON, NETmundial Initiative (outside mission and scope), secrecy (see ICANN Internet Governance Initiatives Sanctioned by Secret September Board Resolution | InternetCommerce.org), new gTLD fiascos, conflicts of interest, etc.]?
• Culture: How does the firm engage with the [global internet] community and exercise stewardship over shareholder [stakeholders, domain name registrants, et al] resources [e.g., the global DNS, and millions of dollars in fees collected from registrants worldwide from each gTLD domain name registered]?

•  Cybersquatters beware: Cyber-pest ordered to pay $1,946 in legal costs to Donald Trump | NYDailyNews.com: "... Yung sued Trump to overturn a judgment by the World Intellectual Property Organization to transfer four domain names he owned bearing the real estate mogul's name: trumpindia.com; trumpmumbai.com; trumpabudhabi.com; and trumpbeijing.com. Trump counter-sued under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. Federal Judge Dora Irizarry ruled in 2014 that Yung was trying to profit off Trump and ordered him to surrender the infringing domain names plus $32,000 in legal fees ..."

•  Still no word from ICANN about the new RZMA (Root Zone Maintainer Agreement) with Verisign.

•  Still no word from ICANN about date/time of its webinar re: Proposed Amendments to Base New gTLD Registry Agreement (comments close 13 Jul 2016 23:59 UTC).

•  Comments close this coming week at ICANN on Revisions to ICANN Expected Standards of Behaviors 25 Jun 2016 at 23:59 UTC.

•  U.S. Court of Appeals affirms FCC on net neutrality - next stop Supreme Court? Maybe not.

•  Russian State Censor Can Now Un-Delegate Website Domain Names Extrajudicially | Global Voices.org.

•  Intellectual Property Rights? Jack Ma Says Fakes “Better Quality and Better Price Than the Real Names” | WSJ.com: "They are exactly the same factories, exactly the same raw materials but they do not use the names.” Mr. Ma’s comments caused social-media outrage among some who felt he was dodging responsibility for the longstanding presence of counterfeit goods on Alibaba’s online bazaar Taobao [taobao.com]..."

•  Apple $AAPL & China: The intellectual property regulator of Beijing orders Apple to stop selling the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus | WSJ.com.

•   Nothing Succeeds Like Failure--at Yahoo--“Her core mistake was this belief that she could reinvent Yahoo”--Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer Stumbled After Secret Truce With Investor | WSJ.com:  "As tough as her job was from the start, Ms. Mayer made things even worse ... She failed to produce the pledged cost savings, plunged even deeper into her turnaround efforts and clung to the idea that she was going to save Yahoo, even when it became clear to insiders and other observers that the company was beyond saving ... If Yahoo is sold and Ms. Mayer is terminated as a result, she stands to receive about $55 million. Since joining Yahoo, she has received $118.2 million in cash and equity compensation ..." See also: How Yahoo derailed Tumblr | mashable.com and Here's What Happened To All 53 of Marissa Mayer's Yahoo Acquisitions | gizmodo.com.

• Bad Bots Behavior: On Artificial Viewers, Followers, and Chat Activity | blog.twitch.tv: "We at Twitch are well aware that view-bots, follow-bots, and chat-impersonation bots are a persistent frustration ... For those unaware, these bots are used to artificially inflate the apparent view count, follower count, and chat activity on a Twitch channel ... Other times, bots are used to harass other broadcasters in order to attempt to deny them partnership, or get their channel suspended. All of this is enabled by bot services offered by a handful of sellers who make misleading claims for their own commercial benefit." (emphasis added)

•   Brexit Vote is Thursday, June 23, read more at:  Brexit: EU Referendum Was A Terrible Mistake by David Cameron (video) | DomainMondo.com.

•  Five most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this week on DomainMondo.com:

1. News Review [12Jun]: IANA Transition Has Already Cost ICANN Over $28 Million
2. Systemic Risk and Asset Management in the Post Crisis Era (videos)
3. New gTLD AFRICA Litigation: Defendant ZACR Dismissed as a Party
4. WeChat, China's Everything App, Why Facebook Is Very Jealous (video)
5. TIE: a) Marc Andreessen on Twitter $TWTR, Startups, Technology, IPOs (videos) and b) FIFA Corruption Scandal A Warning for ICANN Post IANA Transition (video)

•  8 Other Reading Recommendations:

1. Internet of Things (IoT): Nest’s Biggest Problem Wasn’t Tony Fadell | technologyreview.com: "... most of us still aren’t convinced that we need or want all of our home appliances to be connected to the Internet."
2. Why Startups Are Struggling | technologyreview.com: "...“Even as the number of new ideas and potential for innovation is increasing, there seems to be a reduction in the ability of companies to scale in a meaningful and systematic way.” As many seeds as ever are being planted. But fewer trees are growing to the sky."
3. Dinosaur watch: 4 Reasons Microsoft Wasted $26.2 Billion To Buy LinkedIn | Forbes.com.
4. Easy Come, Easy Go: Li Ka-shing’s Fortunes Slide - China Real Time Report | WSJ.com: "Mr. Li was once Asia’s richest man, but is now third behind Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Chairman Jack Ma and Dalian Wanda Group Co.’s Wang Jianlin, according to Bloomberg."
5. " ... This Looks Terrible | WolfStreet.com: "... the Fed’s Industrial Production Index has been falling since November 2014. In May, it dropped to 103.6, down 2.9% from its peak in November. It has been in decline for 18 months! Every time this kind of decline occurred in recent decades, it was associated with a recession ..."
6. The World Nears Peak Fossil Fuels for Electricity | Bloomberg.com: "... eight massive shifts coming soon to power markets. 1. There Will Be No Golden Age of Gas ... costs of wind and solar power are falling too quickly for gas ever to dominate on a global scale ... rock-bottom prices won't be enough to derail a rapid global transition toward renewable energy ... peak year for coal, gas, and oil: 2025 ... 2. Renewables Attract $7.8 Trillion ... 3. Electric Cars Rescue Power Markets ..."
7. How to Psychologically Prepare Clients for Bear Markets | AdvisorPerspectives.com: "... it helps to understand that you, your clients and all the investors who are panicking as the bear claws its way through the markets are operating with three very different brains: (1) the Neo-cortex; (2) a set of ganglia below it that has the processing power of an unusually smart cat; (3) below that at the top of the spine, a cluster of neurons which, together, possess roughly the thinking power of a lizard ..."
8. Ego is the Enemy: The Legend of Genghis Khan | farnamstreetblog.com: "No matter what you’ve done up to this point, you better still be a student. If you’re not still learning, you’re already dying."

Have a great week!

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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DISCLAIMER

News Review: Internet Boom Is Over, New gTLD XYZ Domains $0.01 Each

Domain Mondo's review of the past week and look ahead [pdf]:

• For a moment, forget about the spin at ICANN (e.g., read this, then this), about the IANA stewardship transition, the BIG news this week came on two other fronts:

•  Growth rate of internet users worldwide is essentially flat, and smartphone growth is slowing. Those sobering insights were among the hundreds packed into the much-awaited Internet Trends report, an annual tech industry ritual led by Mary Meeker, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (kpcb.com). Bloomberg's Lizette Chapman and Bloomberg Intelligence's John Butler discuss on "Bloomberg West" with Cory Johnson, in the video below, June 1, 2016:

Mary Meeker, KPCB: "Easy growth is behind us ... newest internet users are coming from less developed and less affluent countries ..." See: 2016 Internet Trends Report, Smartphone Growth Slowing, Video & Slides | DomainMondo.com. Related: Apple's iPhone had only 8.2% share of the China smartphone market in April 2016. In Greater China, Apple’s revenue is down by 26%. Leading Chinese manufacturers' shares were Xiaomi (26%), Huawei Honor (15.7%), Letv (10.5%), and Huawei (8.0%). South Korea's Samsung, which once led the Chinese domestic market, had only 3.2% share. Source: ChinaInternetWatch.com

• The headlines were screaming this week on the domaining blogs about Daniel Negari's new gTLD XYZ and its latest XYZ.COM LLC registry promotion with some registrars, offering .XYZ domain names for as little as $0.01 each (first year registration), which by the end of the week, had reportedly moved .XYZ ahead of .INFO as the fourth-largest generic top-level domain (gTLD) in total domain name registrations. In addition, a promotion of $0.22 per XYZ domain name continues at some registrars. If you have some loose change burning a hole in your pocket, and have a hankering for a XYZ domain name, here's your chance. How many of these millions of XYZ registrations will be renewed or dropped a year from now is unknown. In China, which has the majority (over 56%) of all registrations in the XYZ extension, the largest XYZ registrar West.cn announced a special subsidy for renewals at 18 yuan ($2.74). But some domainers maintain that aggressive promotions end up trashing the brand with many used by spammers and scammers. On the other hand, ICANN Global Domains Division President, Akram Atallah, who apparently just cares about the 'numbers', must be very happy receiving $0.25 for each XYZ domain name registered or renewed! Remember, for ICANN and its new gTLDs program, "it's all about the money."

• Whether these new gTLDs will ever be of practical use inside China is unknown right now: China might be inching closer to granting licenses for new TLDs | DomainNameWire.com: "This might be a sign that the licensing process is moving forward. A lot of people have their fingers crossed." And  "... a ray of hope emerged today in China ... "--allegravita.com. As they say, hope is NOT a strategy but it might bring in enough money for the hucksters to keep the creditors at bay.

• Speaking of new gTLDs and pricing, ICANN dropped a bombshell this week, opening for comment its Proposed Amendments to Base New gTLD Registry Agreement, which according to George Kirikos, would not be in the global public interest, and would be very bad for new gTLD domain name registrants, in particular, and further, calls into question ICANN's fitness as an organization to operate without governmental oversight:

"This proposed change (in both section 2.10(a) and 2.10(b) is perplexing and shocking. It would have the effect of registry fees being kept secret from the public (since agreements between registrars and registries typically contain confidentiality terms). This is unprecedented, and would be anti-competitive, and against ICANN's mission. Indeed, one of the ways ICANN is supposed to measure competitiveness is through things like wholesale pricing, yet now ICANN proposes to keep that valuable information from the public's eyes? Truly unbelievable, and unacceptable. TLDs are a public resource, not the private property of registry operators. They knew of the public notice requirements when they applied for new gTLDs. This is a one-sided change in favour of new gTLD operators, that does nothing for the public, and indeed will have harmful and anti-competitive impacts on consumers. And ICANN now proposes to deprive the public the ability to even measure that level of anti-competiveness, by removing the ability to see the true fees being charged to registrars (and the increase in those fees), which provide the baseline by which consumers ultimately get charged ... It is mind-boggling that ICANN would even propose such a "negotiated" change, when it is supposed to act in the public interest. This change alone provides strong evidence that ICANN has been captured by the "contracted parties" to the detriment of consumers (and registrants in particular) and the public. It violates all of the principles in the Affirmation of Commitments regarding transparency, competition and consumer trust. Given the "revolving door" between ICANN and its contracted parties, it really calls into question ICANN's independence and how hard it "negotiates" when it would think that such a change, making registry fees a secret unavailable to itself [and] the public, would be acceptable to anyone but a few ICANN insiders.

"(b) Section 6.7 (fee reduction waiver). Obviously this is a one-sided change that is unacceptable. New gTLD registries signed a contract. ICANN should not be granting any fee waivers whatsoever, especially ones that are at its discretion and on terms that it "negotiates." ICANN staff (see revolving door comment above) have long shown an inability to properly negotiate agreements in the public interest ....

"Combined, the proposed changes in Section 2.10 and Section 6.7 reinforce the view that the new gTLD experiment has failed, and that ICANN and its contracted parties know it. They are clear attempts to hide that failure from the public. Given that new gTLDs were the biggest decision ICANN has ever made, a decision that they got wrong, they should not be permitted to cover up that failure at this critical juncture, when the US government is assessing whether its oversight should continue in the future. Indeed, these proposed changes demonstrate that ICANN has not learned anything from past mistakes, and that they hope to continue with "business as usual" in a less transparent future where they can cover up mistakes and make new mistakes with impunity." (Emphasis added.) Read more here and here. ICANN has said it plans to hold a webinar in June 2016 (date and time not yet disclosed) on the proposed amendments. Comments close 13 Jul 2016 23:59 UTC.

• Pre-ICANN56 Policy Update Webinar | ICANN.org: The ICANN Policy Development Support Team will provide a Policy Update Webinar on Thursday, 16 June 2016 at 10:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC, in preparation for the upcoming ICANN Policy Forum in Helsinki. The purpose of the webinar is to summarize policy activities across the ICANN policy development community and briefing the community on the Cross-Community sessions taking place in Helsinki. RSVP via this form by 10 June 2016. Remote participation details will be sent the week of 13 June 2016.

• Via @EyeOnICANN: Is the ICANN Board too embarrassed to tell us they paid the former CEO [Fadi Chehade] a performance bonus for his last 4 months? https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2016-05-15-en#3, and ICANN bylaws state the Annual Report shall be delivered no later than 120 days after the close of the fiscal year. Today [June 3, 2016] is 339 days. Nearly a year since close of FY15 [June 30, 2015] for ICANN and still numerous financial reports are missing. https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/fiscal-2015-07-10-en

UPDATE: ICANN (as of June 6, 2016): "Future reports to be posted for FY2015 (ending June 30, 2015):

• Annual Report 
• Federal and State Tax Filings 
• Board Compensation Report 
• ccTLD Contributions Report 
• Financial Analysis: 1) Quarterly Reports (Unaudited); 2)Meetings Analysis"

•  Comments close this coming week at ICANN on Release of Country and Territory Names within the .HYUNDAI, .KIA and .GODADDY TLDs - ICANN: Close Date 9 Jun 2016 23:59 UTC.

•  DotConnectAfrica Trust vs ICANN and ZA Central Registry (ZACR) - Hearing on ZACR's Motion to Reconsider and Vacate Preliminary Injunction re new gTLD .AFRICA - Monday, June 6, 2016, 9:00 AM PDT, Courtroom 850, United States District Court at Los Angeles.

• CWG-Internet: Online Open Consultation (February- September 2016) | ITU.int: "Following the instructions of Council Resolution 1344 (Mod. 2015), the ITU Council Working Group on International Internet-related Public Policy Issues (CWG-Internet) decided on 18 February 2016 to hold an open consultation (online and physical) on the following topic:  ​ Building an enabling environment for access to the Internet - What are the elements of an enabling environment to promote Internet connectivity? What are the elements of an enabling environment to promote an affordable Internet? What are the elements of an enabling environment to promote the quality of access to the Internet? What are the elements of an enabling environment to build confidence and security in the use of the Internet? What is the role of Governments in building an enabling environment? Accordingly, all stakeholders are invited to provide their answers through the link provided [here] ..."

•  Internet Fragmentation via Taxation? India's `Google Tax' May Backfire | Bloomberg.com: "... Starting June 1, Indian advertisers must withhold the levy from the money they pay websites that aren't taxable entities in India, and hand it over to the government ... India's homespun solution to the problem of taxing cross-border online advertising risks clashing with a new OECD framework on base erosion and profit shifting, which urged countries to avoid working at cross purposes. To avoid artificially inflating the cost of doing business online, New Delhi should either press the OECD to accept the equalization levy as a global standard, or re-introduce the measure as a tax ..."

•  Five most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this week on DomainMondo.com:

1. News Review [May 29 2016]: ​IANA Transition, What If The World Gives Up On ICANN?
2. 2016 Internet Trends Report, Smartphone Growth Slowing, Video & Slides
3. The Biggest Apps, More Than A Billion Users Monthly, Timeline Chart
4. Amazon Video Direct, Amazon's New YouTube-Like Video Service (video)
5. Year Ahead in Global Tech Policy, Why It Matters, Google I/O 2016 Video

• Other Reading Recommendations:

1. Minimal Competition vs. Excessive Competition: How Miami's Condo Glut Differs From ICANN's New gTLDs Glut: Miami’s Condo Frenzy Ends With Inventory Piling Up in New Towers | Bloomberg.com: "“There’s always a glitzy selling process that happens, and they [buyers] believe it,” he said. “They don’t think about the economy -- they think about the building and how wonderful it will be.” Manageable Inventory --While some new towers have a large number of condos being flipped by their owners, an inventory glut will be mitigated by minimal competition from developers, who have a majority of their units under contract, data from Miami’s Downtown Development Authority show."
2. When 'Expertise' Is Of Little Value: The Seersucker Theory | blogs.cfainstitute.org: "I have come up with what I call the seersucker theory: No matter how much evidence exists that seers do not exist, suckers will pay for the existence of seers. One would expect experts to have reliable information for predicting change and to be able to utilize the information effectively. However, expertise beyond a minimal level is of little value in forecasting change. This conclusion is both surprising and useful, and its implication is clear: Don’t hire the best expert, hire the cheapest expert.”"
3. Dinosaur Watch: Microsoft sells patents to Xiaomi, builds 'long-term partnership' | Reuters.com. 
4. Easy Come, Easy Go: From $4.5 Billion To Nothing: Forbes Revises Estimated Net Worth Of Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes | Forbes.com. See also: Who Gets Venture Capital Funding? | Bloomberg.com: "... more founders of companies on our list dropped out of school than graduated from top universities ..." and: No Venture Capital Needed, or Wanted | NYTimes.com. 
5. The Structure of Collapse: 2016-2019 | charleshughsmith.blogspot.com: "... 2. Emergency measures [e.g., low (or even negative) interest rates] become permanent policies ... 6. Strapped for cash ... the state borrows more money and devalues its currency as a means of maintaining the illusion that it can fulfill all its promises..."
6. DoubleLine’s Gundlach Says Chanos Is Greatest Hedge Fund Manager | Bloomberg.com: "''The greatest hedge fund manager in the world is Jim Chanos,' says Jeff Gundlach, chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital ... 'Jim Chanos is a permanent bear. He’s dour, he’s curmudgeonly, he’s bearish as hell all the time.'"  And Chanos might be right about Alibaba: More Alarm Bells | SeekingAlpha.com: Is it $BABA or SoftBank or China or the SEC investigation? See also: DoubleLine's Gundlach calls May employment report 'real body blow' | Reuters.com.
7. Pentagon: Special Ops Killing of Pregnant Afghan Women Was “Appropriate” Use of Force | theintercept.com: ".... The internal investigation ordered by Gen. McChrystal into the Gardez raid is an incomplete accounting of this horrifying incident. It is also based on the word of the force that carried out the killings, whose personnel could have faced serious charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice if investigators had taken seriously the survivors’ allegations."--Jeremy Scahill
8. Amid a Growing Movement to Close Rikers, One Prisoner Approaches Six Years Without Trial | theintercept.com:  Alice Speri reports from New York City’s Rikers Island, where more than 300 prisoners have been detained without trial for more than two years."“When the National Institute of Corrections came to Rikers, they told them, ‘When are you going to get with the rest of the country?’” Greene recalled. “You guys are 50 years behind.”"
9. Jeff Bezos on Peter Thiel Gawker revenge | BusinessInsider.com: "I would say that as a public figure, the best defense to speech that you don't like about yourself as a public figure is to develop a thick skin because you can’t stop criticism. You are going to get it. If you're doing anything interesting in the world, you are going to have critics. You can't stop it. Move forward. It's not worth losing any sleep over. This country has the best free-speech laws in the world, you don't want to erode those. You don't want to create fear or chill."

Have a great week!

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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DISCLAIMER

Google Just Killed The Last Remaining Rationale for New gTLD Domains

Google just disrupted ICANN's new gTLD domains--it's called "innovation" [Update below] 

"... today we’re updating the algorithms that display URLs in the search results to better reflect the names of websites, using the real-world name of the site instead of the domain name, and the URL structure of the sites in a breadcrumbs-like format..."--Google, April 16, 2015 (emphasis added) 

The bad news for ICANN's new gTLDs just keeps piling up. While the domaining-domainer blogosphere was all lit up last week about Google's new search change now rolling out in mobile--the domain name extension (TLD) of the destination URL will not show in the search results--they missed the most important effect of the change: Google just killed the last remaining rationale for new gTLD domain names. Countless promoters, hustlers, speculators and "consultants," have invested their time and treasure in ICANN's new gTLDs based on the premise of the significance and importance of the "right of the dot" word for "branding" purposes! Oops! Never mind--Google is just serving up the website "title" without the TLD ("right of the dot word").

UPDATE: Many are still confused about "what just happened?"--it's called innovation, disintermediation--Google just disintermediated the new gTLDs. Impact on .COM, and ccTLDs? Minimal. They already have dominant "branding" and market share in their respective markets and are the "presumed TLD"--e.g., in the U.S. and global online market, it is a well-known fact that consumers and other users of the Internet will just type the name of the business or website and add .COM when doing direct navigation in a browser or application.

But you believed those new gTLD hucksters when they told you that Google would "ensure" the success of the new gTLDs? That new gTLDs would produce superior SEO results? FALSE. That first year new gTLD registrations would total 33 million or more? FALSE!

Let's add all the above to the other ways that new gTLD domain names have now reportedly failed, including, failing all the most important factors in choosing a domain name extension (top-level domain or "TLD"):

1. New gTLD domain names FAIL to work across the internet and "break stuff" (a/k/a the universal acceptance problem which ICANN has known about since at least 2003);

2. New gTLDs compromise the stability and security of the Internet (a corollary to the above).

3. New gTLD domain names lack pricing predictability--why invest time and money building a website on a new gTLD domain name only to be subject to the possibility of extortionate future price increases for annual registration renewals? Thanks to ICANN, new gTLD registry operators have sole discretion and control for new gTLD domain name pricing, including future increases for registration and renewal fees. A trusted, reliable registry operator with a history, practice, policy and/or requirement of pricing predictability for their TLDs, is a necessary requirement before most prudent registrants will even begin to invest their own hard-earned money in building a website on that TLD! But ICANN, its GNSO, and their "well-paid expert" never thought about that! And these are some of the same people, who, despite the pathetic registration numbers of new gTLDs, are still expecting everyone to start building major websites on these defective, untrustworthy new gTLDS (new generic top-level domains).

[ Note to ICANN: All the above is an example of what happens when you do not have a Registrant Stakeholder Group in ICANN. ]

Add all the above together and there is no doubt that the King was right--ICANN's new gTLD domain names, as a class, are a #FAIL. No wonder new gTLD Registry operators are getting increasingly desperate--giving domain names away for free or selling for only 49 cents each!--which only "trashes" the TLD further, attracting cybersquatters, cyber criminals, and other bad actors.

And to top it all off, Google just delivered the coup de grâce!

Caveat Emptor!


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