Tech Review | Amazon Reviews: What's Fake, What's Real? (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-12-22)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Amazon Reviews: What's Fake, What's Real?, 2) How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Focus on Europe, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Amazon Reviews: What's Fake, What's Real?

Amazon.com, Inc. $AMZN has a program where reviewers get free products in exchange for legitimate reviews. In other scenarios, vendors give products free to buyers who rate them five stars. WSJ's Joanna Stern caught up with a professional Amazon reviewer to find out how to spot the fakes. Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video above published Dec 20, 2018.

$AMZN

2) How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon

Chinese sellers resort to a wide range of cunning techniques to manipulate product listings on Amazon and boost sales. WSJ’s Jon Emont investigates their strategies and explains how consumers can detect sham listings. Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video above published Dec 17, 2018.

See also: Amazon to lower some fees for third-party sellers.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite -8.4% | S&P 500 Index -7.1% | DJIA -6.9%

Editor's note: the markets appear to be "spooked." U.S. consumer sentiment remains at record favorable highs:

source: University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey.

"Consumer confidence remained in December at the same record favorable levels as it has throughout the year. The Sentiment Index averaged 98.4 in 2018, the best year since 107.6 in 2000 ... Over the past half century, sentiment was higher in only two other time periods: 1964-65 and 1997-2000. These periods correspond to the two longest prior expansions since the mid 1800's. If the current expansion lasts past mid-2019, as is likely based on current data, it will become the longest expansion ever recorded."--University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey.

The Long View:

Investing Notes: Focus on Europe

"While the U.S. economy remains solid, our international business weakened during the quarter, especially in Europe"--FedEx lowers outlook on slowdown in Europe (Dec 18, 2018).

Europe’s Still Not Ready to Shore Up the Monetary Union ... Planned reforms are a start, but they won’t be much help in a crisis.--bloomberg.com.

Germany: "Germans are enthusiastic savers but reluctant shareholders. As a cohort, they demonstrate a counter-productive preference for fixed-income products. This inclination has barely changed even as income has fallen due to the European Central Bank (ECB)’s low interest rate policy."--“German Angst” Shapes Investment Decisions: Study | cfainstitute.org.

France to tax tech giants from 2019 as EU fails to act ... French economy minister says the country will introduce its own digital tax, dubbed “GAFA tax”, on large internet and technology companies from January 1--dw.com.

A WTO Brexit: "I have still not heard a scare story I believe, and do not think the EU will be able to mount some kind of self harming blockade of their trade with us after we leave. I find myself in the position of having more confidence in our Ministers’ abilities to make it (Brexit) work than they sometimes express in themselves. I have this confidence because most of what happens to ensure imports and exports work is nothing whatsoever to do with governments. It rests on a willing buyer and a willing seller, who will still  be there in abundance the day  we leave the EU"--John Redwood, Dec 18, 2018 (Redwood was Chief Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher).

4) ICYMI Tech News:

Apple $AAPL in India: only 24% of people in India own smartphones, and "the number of users is growing faster than in any other country," but "the number of iPhones shipped in India has fallen 40% so far this year compared with 2017, and Apple’s market share there has dropped to about 1% from about 2%."--wsj.com. See also Apple to pull some iPhones in Germany as Qualcomm $QCOM extends global patent wins--reuters.com.

Facebook $FB shares drop as data privacy fallout spreads--reuters.com. See also: As FAANG stocks falter, fund managers make bets on survivors--reuters.com. FAANG: Facebook Inc. $FB, Amazon.com Inc., $AMZN, Apple Inc., $AAPL, Netflix Inc., $NFLX, and Google (Alphabet) $GOOG, $GOOGL.

SoftBank's Vision Fund nearing $1.5 billion investment in SE Asia's Grab--reuters.com.

Cisco $CSCO announced it will pay $660 million in cash and assumed equity awards to acquire privately held semiconductor company Luxtera that uses silicon photonics technology to build integrated optics capabilities for webscale and enterprise data centers, service provider market segments, and other customers.

China hacked HPE, IBM and then attacked HPE's and IBM's clients--reuters.com. See also China resumes approvals of video games | technode.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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News Review: Uneducated and Illiterate, the Internet's Next Big User Group

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-08-13) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) Uneducated and Illiterate, Internet's Next Big User Group, 2) Names, Domains & Trademarks: Domain Name Industry In Decline,  3) ICANN news: a. Revenue, b. GDPR, c. Brazil Reiterates Opposition to new gTLD .AMAZON,  4) ICYMI Internet Domain News: Online Sex Trafficking Bill, 5) Investing: $BABA, $SPAN, $GDDY, $TCX, $NSR R.I.P.,  6) Most Read.

1) Uneducated and Illiterate, the Internet's Next Big User Group:

Video above published Aug 8, 2017, by WSJ.com: In India and elsewhere in the world, inexpensive smartphones and data plans are bringing a large, new group of users online: the uneducated and illiterate, who are adapting apps to fit their own needs and skills. Oh, BTW, good luck on trying to sell any domain names to these users.

2) Names, Domains & Trademarks

•  Domain Name Industry In Decline: Cold winds in the global domain industry | IIS.se: "... one doesn’t need to be especially gifted to guess what is about to happen in the domain industry. The market is mature and largely over-established. We see too much speculation, too many top-level domains, too many registries (that administer top-level domains), too many back-end providers (delivering systems for the administration of top-level domains) and apparently also too many ICANN registrars. This also means that much will decline in the future. We will see a decline in growth of domains in new top-level domains ... ICANN has to start re-thinking. Focus on costs, efficiency, lower travel costs for ICANN conferences ... In a situation when things “go down” for many in the industry, it could become even more difficult to get involved in ICANN’s multi-stakeholder process – and then it’s only the “rich” that are heard in the long run. Now, ICANN can certainly start a new round with applications of new top-level domains, but it will take at least three years and one may wonder if there’s really a need for new top-level domains ..."--Danny Aerts, CEO of IIS which manages ccTLD .SE (Sweden)(emphasis added).

[Editor's note: there really wasn't a need for more than two dozen new gTLDs, but that didn't stop inept ICANN nor its dysfunctional GNSO from expanding the global DNS root from just 22 gTLDs and less than 300 ccTLDs, to now over 1200 new gTLDs, an unmitigated ICANN-made disaster (see above and quotes of the week below). A better solution would have been to terminate and dissolve ICANN in 2012 or thereafter, after splitting off the IANA department, n/k/a PTI, to be run jointly by the Internet Society, Root Server Operators, and Registry Operators, and convert all (then 22) gTLDs to ccTLDs (all TLDs, both unrestricted such as .COM and .CO, and restricted such as .EDU and .EU, except .INT could be run by ITU as proposed in 2003 (pdf).) That is essentially how the internet was organized until 2000 (pdf), with .COM, .NET, and .ORG, run as open TLDs under U.S. government supervision. ICANN has proven to be unfit for the purpose for which it was intended. The "ICANN community" (particularly its policy-making GNSO) is neither representative of, nor accountable to, the global internet community, and ICANN policy-making and implementation are governed by greed, conflicts of interest, cronyism, and incompetence.]

One commenter: "... Good that someone can talk honestly about what many refer to as the ”ICANN Travelling Circus”, and it’s total overproduction of new gTLDs, which will not only produce more and more chaos for all internet users, but harm a lot of innocent people and companies too ..."

•  Quotes of the Week:

"ICANN's history is riddled with examples of bad policy suggestions that had theoretical benefits, and whose introduction was based on speculative demand that never was realized. It's time to assess those policies properly and honestly, and admit that they were failures .... While the new gTLD program has been a disaster, it hasn't been an underperformance of 99%+ of expectations (perhaps more like 80% to 90% underperformance). Thus, while it's obvious that both [new gTLDs and sunrise period] have been failures, sunrise usage is an even greater failure ..." --both quotes by George Kirikos on the gnso-rpm-wg public mail list (emphasis added).  

•   Canonical Domain: WWW vs Non-WWW: Google Says It Doesn't Matter | seroundtable.com

•   The China Domain Name Scam Redux | ChinaLawBlog.com

•   Millions of Australian domain name owners 'ripped off' | smh.com.au: "[auDA]'s been stacked at the board level by people with conflicts of interest who have made hundreds of millions of dollars out of this."--Sean Fogarty, auDA member

•  The ACCC Is About To Slap A Dodgy Aussie Domain Name Company | Gizmodo Australia | gizmodo.com.au:  another false billing scam.

3) ICANN news

a. ICANN Revenue by Source | Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 2016 | ICANN Operations (Excluding New gTLD) | ICANN.org (pdf)(highlighting added of sources contributing more than $1,000,000 in revenue):

b. Letter from ICANN (Theresa Swinehart) to GAC (Thomas Schneider) re: European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance Task Force:

"... It is our [ICANN] intention, through the work of reaching out as broadly as possible, to capture the respective user stories to help inform whether, and if so, to what extent, this impacts the current global policy as it relates to WHOIS. We fully agree it is essential to consult and proactively seek the input beyond the range of routine ICANN participants ..." (emphasis added)

c. Brazil Reiterates Opposition to new gTLD .AMAZON: Letter from Hartmut Glaser to Steve Crocker [Published 11 August 2017] The Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) re: Final Declaration of .AMAZON Independent Review Panel (highlighting added):

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

• Online sex trafficking bill prompts opposition from Silicon Valley | TheHill.com

Internet Association CEO on Combating Online Exploitation

Video above published Aug 4, 2017: Michael Beckerman, The Internet Association's (domain: InternetAssociation.org) chief executive officer, discusses the new legislation targeting website liability for sex trafficking ads. He spoke with Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde on "Bloomberg Technology."

• Cyber threats prompt return of radio for ship navigation | Reuters.com

• Crackdown on Online Criticism Chills Pakistani Social Media | NYTimes.com

• Russia: New Legislation Attacks Internet Anonymity | Human Rights Watch | hrw.org: "Two new laws in Russia jeopardize the privacy and security of internet users and aim to further control Russians’ freedom of expression."

5) Investing

•  Q2 2017 results this coming week: Alibaba Group $BABA LIVE Webcast Aug 17, 7:30am ET

•  Q2 2017 results this past week:

• Q2 2017 LIVE Webcasts August 8: GoDaddy $GDDY & Tucows $TCX

• Snap $SNAP Q2 2017 Earnings LIVE Webcast, August 10, 5pm EDT

•  R.I.P. $NSR:

NYSE: NSR No Longer Trading

Neustar ($NSR), like Rightside ($NAME), is no longer a publicly traded company, having been acquired and now privately held: Neustar Announces Completion of Acquisition by Group Led by Golden Gate Capital | neustar.biz: August 8, 2017: "Neustar, Inc. ... today announced the completion of the Company’s previously announced acquisition by a private investment group led by Golden Gate Capital. An affiliate of GIC also invested in Neustar and is now a minority owner of the Company. President and Chief Executive Officer Lisa Hook will continue to lead Neustar."

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

1. News Review: HTC Terminates New gTLD .HTC, ICANN .BRAND Scam

2. Tech Review: Amazon Plans to Disrupt Payments Industry (video)

3. Snap $SNAP Q2 2017 Earnings LIVE Webcast, August 10, 5pm EDT

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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News Review: HTC Terminates New gTLD .HTC, ICANN .BRAND Scam

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-08-06) with analysis and opinion: Features • 1) HTC Terminates New gTLD .HTC, 2) Other ICANN news: GAC Letter to ICANN re: GDPR, Geographic Names as Top-Level Domains (TLDs), 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: Untied.com, 4)  ICYMI Internet Domain News: Senator Ted Cruz & NTIA nominee Redl, 5) Investing: GoDaddy $GDDY, Tucows $TCX, Verisign $VRSN & .WEB, 6) Most Read Posts.

1)  HTC Terminates New gTLD .HTC: Well-known global brand HTC has joined McDonald's and other global name brands in rejecting ICANN's Extortionate .BRAND Scam:

 Registry Agreement Termination Information Page | ICANN.org:

ICANN hides its Registry Agreement Termination Information Page under "Proof of Concept Reports"

Like McDonald's, HTC's back end registry services provider was also Neustar

Letter from HTC to ICANN terminating new gTLD .HTC

News Review: ICANN's Extortionate .BRAND Scam Failing: "... an assortment of hucksters, lawyers, charlatans, and snake oil salesmen ... 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."

2) Other ICANN news:

a. Letter from GAC (Thomas Schneider) to ICANN (Theresa Swinehart) | ICANN.org re: GDPR Compliance Task Force: schneider-to-swinehart-24jul17-en.pdf [77.6 KB] embed below (highlighting added):

b. ICANN Management Organization Chart | ICANN.org 01 Aug 2017: management-org-01aug17-en.pdf (pdf) [131 KB]

c. Geographic Names as Top-Level Domains (TLDs): Letter from Avri Doria and Jeff Neuman to GNSO Chair James Bladel (pdf), embed below (highlighting added):

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

• The Curious Case of Untied.com: Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul | Techdirt.com. See also the Canadian Court's ruling (pdf).

• Domain Names Are Assets: Successful Brands Secrets Revealed | LinkedIn.com

• WIPO UDRP Overview 3.0 - What Brand Owners Need To Know | Lexology.com

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

• Politico.com reports U.S. Senator Ted Cruz is "slowing down the Senate Commerce Committee vote on NTIA Administrator-nominee David Redl" because Cruz "is seeking assurances related to the IANA transition."  

At the hearing on June 8, 2017 (photos above, video @1:09:17), Cruz asked Redl whether he thought the IANA transition had been “wise and prudent.”

• 10 major trends in Internet governance: mid-year review | Diplomacy.edu: "...; [individual] citizens are becoming less relevant in digital realpolitik. They are personally targeted in advertising and surveillance efforts by corporations and governments ... Governments are increasingly speaking about digital sovereignty and less about the empowerment of individuals. Citizens are becoming more and more the object of digital growth and less and less the engine behind it ..."
• China holds drill to shut down 'harmful' websites | Reuters.com and VPN crackdown an ‘unthinkable’ trial by firewall for China’s research world | South China Morning Post | scmp.com: "Beijing risks a brain drain and undermining international collaborations by cutting off academics reliant on virtual private networks, scholars say." 
• China trial paves way for ‘unhackable’ communications network | ft.com
• Ransomware victims have paid out more than $25 million in the last 2 years report researchers at Google, Chainalysis, UC San Diego, and the NYU Tandon School of Engineering--TheVerge.com.
• Tillerson reportedly considering shuttering US State Department cyber office | slate.com
• Google Fights Against Canada Supreme Court's Order to Change Global Search Results--WIRED.com: "Google is hoping to find a loophole on American soil by arguing this violates the First Amendment. “We’re taking this court action to defend the legal principle that one country shouldn’t be able to decide what information people in other countries can access online,” says David Price, senior product counsel at Google. “Undermining this core principle inevitably leads to a world where internet users are subject to the most restrictive content limitations from every country.”"
• Russia--TASS.com: Putin says everything should be allowed on Internet within law--"Russia has no censorship in any sector, Putin noted." But see also: Putin bans VPNs to stop Russians accessing prohibited websites | Reuters.com and Thousands March for Internet Freedom in Moscow | Breitbart.com.

5) Investing: GoDaddy $GDDY, Tucows $TCX, Verisign $VRSN & .WEB

• GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY), secondary offering lockup expiration: August 3, 2017.

• Q2 2017 earnings LIVE webcasts for GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) and Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX): August 8, 2017, at 5pm EDT.

• Verisign & .WEB: For 2017, Verisign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) expects to record revenues in the $1.155 billion to $1.165 billion range, while non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be between 64.5% and 65.25%. See also Verisign's FORM 10-Q for Q2 2017 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and VeriSign (VRSN) Q2 2017 Results - Earnings Call Transcript | SeekingAlpha.com:

"Well, there's really no update to provide on [new gTLD] .WEB at this point. With respect to our interactions with the Department of Justice [Antitrust Division], we continue to cooperate with DOJ as it pertains to the CID [civil investigative demand] we discussed last quarter. That dialogue is constructive, has been constructive. We produced documents and information. We'd answered questions as needed, and we're meeting with the department. So that's an ongoing process, and beyond that, there's really nothing to say at this point."--D. James Bidzos, VeriSign, Inc. CEO, July 27, 2017

Global Public Interest? Verisign enjoys the pricing power (pdf) of an ICANN-enabled global monopoly:

Even ICANN itself is "in on the greed" by charging $0.75 per .NET domain name vs. only $0.25 per domain name for new gTLDs' domain names. However, unlike .NET domain names, new gTLDs' domain names price increases are unlimited. 

And unlike the world's largest TLD (top-level domain) .COM (pdf), the new gTLDs are ICANN-enabled global monopolies with absolute, unlimited pricing-power. ICANN operates in the global public interest? LOL!

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

1. News Review: EFF Warns Registrants To Avoid New gTLD Domain Names

2. The Big Four: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google; & The New Rules (video)

3. Apple $AAPL Q3 FY17 Earnings Webcast, August 1, 5pm EDT

4. Tech Giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google: Above The Law? (video) 

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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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 

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News Review | Caveat Emptor: ICANN & New gTLD Domain Names

Domain Mondo's weekly review of internet domain news:

Features • 1) New gTLD Domain Name Registrants Caveat Emptor: ICANN & New gTLD Domain Names, 2) Tweets of the Week, 3) ICANN Accountability Work Stream 2 slippage, 4) Names, Domains & Trademarks: A Brave New World Without Sunrises or the TMCH? 5) ICYMI Internet Domain News: We Need A New Internet and the IETF is a Mess, 6) Q1 2017 Earnings Season: Qualcomm April 19, 7) Most Popular.

1) Caveat Emptor Registrants: ICANN Says New gTLDs' Domain Names May Not Work As Expected on the Internet--

"WTF ICANN?"

"1.2 Technical Feasibility of String. While ICANN has encouraged and will continue to encourage universal acceptance of all top-level domain strings across the Internet, certain top-level domain strings may encounter difficulty in acceptance by ISPs and webhosters and/or validation by web applications. Registry Operator shall be responsible for ensuring to its satisfaction the technical feasibility of the TLD string prior to entering into this Agreement."--ICANN Base Registry Agreement (pdf), updated 09 January 2014 (emphasis added).

ICANN press release April 11, 2017: "... According to one study, 13 percent of websites reject new domain names with more than three letters [in the TLD (top-level domain)] ... many applications still do not accept the new domains [new gTLD domain names]. Universal Acceptance [UA] has progressed [even] less for IDNs than for gTLDs ..." (emphasis added) (Editor's note: ICANN has known about this UA problem since at least 2003 and yet the greedy, grossly negligent, and incompetent ICANN decided to proceed with its new gTLDs program, collect the money, and delegate over 1200 new gTLDs knowing they would "break stuff," without any disclosures or warnings to the general public or domain name registrants!)

Add to the above the fact that ICANN's new gTLDs come with no limitations as to future price increases to consumers (domain name registrants).  Unlike .COM domain names, that shiny new gTLD domain name that cost you $XX this year to register could cost you $XX,000 next year to renew, and ICANN is in the process of deleting the requirement that new gTLD registry operators notify ICANN about price increases--better not put your new gTLD domain name on "auto-renew."

"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.

How did ICANN come to screw up its new gTLDs program so badly? There's plenty of blame to go around--inept ICANN leadership compounded by rampant conflicts of interest, incompetence, and cronyism, the effects of which continue to this day, but if I had to choose a single point failure it would be ICANN's decision to not follow the advice they were given by the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (pdf) via the U.S. Department of Commerce (NTIA) (pdf) in December, 2008:

U.S. Dept. of Justice Antitrust Division advice to ICANN (Dec 8, 2008), supra, p.2

See also on Domain Mondo: Global Public Interest: Why ICANN Will Always Be A #FAIL and New gTLDs Failing, ICANN58 Ends, ICANN in La La Land.

2) Tweets of the Week: 
(a) @DomainKing on ICANN's new gTLDs:

Remember one thing, there was no clamor by a single consumer on earth for new extensions. They don't care. Never will. #newgTLDS #Domains

— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) April 10, 2017

(b) @SwiftOnSecurity on new gTLD .TOP:

I'm not sure what ICANN is doing, but .top is so bad that the friggen registrar is blacklisted in our Palo Alto when I try to go there.

— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) April 12, 2017

Editor's note: What's ICANN doing? Nothing but collecting the money--.TOP is the second largest new gTLD in registrations--mostly in China (78%)--having a 15.4% market share among all new gTLDs.

3) ICANN Accountability-Work Stream 2 slippage, March 2017 status (updated 10 Apr 2017):

Note: Jurisdiction subgroup (see below), will miss its target date for completion of work. 3 other subgroups--Diversity, Ombuds Office, and Review of the CEP--are "behind schedule:"

Above: excerpt from Activity Dashboard embedded in full further below

CCWG Plenary,
I have attached a "discussion draft" of the Jurisdiction Subgroup's Revised Work Plan and Schedule.  While this was first reviewed at the Subgroup's meeting earlier today, it was based on earlier discussions in the Subgroup.--Greg Shatan, Rapporteur, April 12, 2017  --[see embed below, highlighting added]

• CCWG-WS2 public mail list: http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2017-April/013888.html
• The WS2-jurisdiction April 2017 Archive by date
• http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/ws2-jurisdiction/
• [Ws2-jurisdiction] Notes, recordings and transcript for WS2 Jurisdiction Subgroup Meeting # 26 | 11 April 2017: Next meeting 18 April 1900 UTC

CCWG-Accountability WS2 Activity Dashboard updated 10 April 2017:

4) Names, Domains & Trademarks

• A Brave New World Without Sunrises or the TMCH?--Review of all Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all gTLDs PDP Working Group | ICANN.org--see mail list topics here. 

• Registrar, Registry, Domain Name…A Quick Primer… | Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC | JDSupra.com: "... “What other documentation would be part of a domain name transfer (or sale)?” Excellent point. Beyond the processes above, if you are transferring a domain name to or from a third party, we generally recommend the parties enter into a Domain Name Transfer and Assignment Agreement that specifies domain to be transferred, the consideration to be paid between the parties (and when such amounts are paid), and contains at least three key concepts (sample wording for each is provided below) ..."

• India's Growing Internet Penetration and the Power of .COM by Prakhar Bindal | businessworld.in 12 Apr 2017: "So, even if you need to pay a little extra to get the domain name of your choice, it is almost always worth it. India’s growing online penetration spells a world of opportunity for Indian small businesses ... Choosing the right domain extension also matters. 79 percent of the SMBs in India currently prefer .com over other TLDs. Trust and the need for a professional image are the primary reasons driving this preference. This is in line with the global trend, where .com remains the most widely used TLD across the world ..."

• CEP and IRP Status Update – 14 April 2017 | ICANN.org  (pdf)

• TICK DIFFERENT – But Apparently Not All That Different? | Winthrop & Weinstine, P.A. | JDSupra.com: "... Swiss watchmaker Swatch AG finds itself embroiled in another trademark dispute with Apple, Inc. – this time, for the trademark TICK DIFFERENT. Swatch applied for the trademark in Switzerland, which Apple has challenged before the Swiss Federal Administrative Court. Apple, you may recall, coined the slogan THINK DIFFERENT in connection with a 1997 ad campaign ..."

• Trade Mark Scams - Beware of Unofficial Notices | Lexology.com

• Christian Dior sues more Chinese websites for selling fakes | SecuringIndustry.com

• No False Advertising Where There Is No Injury or Statements Are Opinions | McDermott Will & Emery | JDSupra.com: citing Verisign, Inc. v. XYZ.com LLC, Case No. 15-2526 (4th Cir., Feb. 8, 2017).

5)  ICYMI Internet Domain News 

• We Urgently Need a New Internet | circleid.com:  "... Unfortunately however, the current internet cannot be fixed. So we need a new one. My colleague Martin Geddes has written an excellent article on why the old net is broken and why it can't be fixed ..."
• Mend, Don't End, the IETF | circleid.com: "First things first: Martin is right. The IETF is a mess ..."
• The benefits and harms of e-commerce on competition law | Dentons | JDSupra.com
• DDoS attacks abusing exposed LDAP servers on the rise | InfoWorld.com: "Abusing the vulnerability could generate a "DDoS wildfire," Ixia's Murarasu said. It's also easy for attackers to find BIND servers that can be abused because all they have to do is set up a malicious nameserver to send a response and scan the internet for nameservers that respond with a large query."
• Why HTTPS Won't Keep Your Internet Usage Habits Secret | Inc.com: HTTPS will not protect you from an ISP that wants to sell information about your Internet usage habits.
• DDoS attack takes out Melbourne IT DNS servers | arnnet.com.au
• Wordpress hard pressed by malicious javascript and trojans | scmagazine.com
• Recognizing Access to the Internet as a “Basic Need,” Rejecting Blanket Bans on Internet Use, and Raising Questions as to the Scope of Monitoring Personal Computers | Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer P.A. | JDSupra.com
• Beware ICANN Groupthink: "Groupthink is when a group of individuals on a project become overly insular and fail to rely on outside thinking or fresh perspective.--Blattel Communications | JDSupra.com.

6) Q1 2017 Earnings Season coverage on Domain Mondo this coming week:

Qualcomm NASDAQ: QCOM (Domain: qualcomm.com) --Apr 19, 2017, 4:45pm EDT Qualcomm Q2 FY17 Earnings Conference Call--this Domain Mondo coverage due to pending Apple vs Qualcomm litigation.

See also: Why We Think We’re Better Investors Than We Are | NYTimes.com: "Studies have revealed significant overconfidence in the judgments of scientists, lawyers, engineers, doctors and those in other professions ..."

7) Most popular post (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: News Review | ICANN & Its New gTLDs: Pedophilia's Best New Friends?

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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