Showing posts with label ccTLDs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ccTLDs. Show all posts

2017-09-17

News Review: ICANN New gTLDs Declining, But Other Domains Growing

News Review | ©2016 DomainMondo.com
Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-09-17) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) Internet Grew to 332 Million Domain Names in Q2 2017, But ICANN New gTLDs Declining, 2) ICANN news, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks News, 4) ICYMI Internet Domain News, 5) Most Read Posts.

1) Internet Grew to 332 Million Domain Names in Q2 2017, But ICANN New gTLDs Declining:
Verisign.com/DNIB September 2017 Domain Name Industry Brief | verisign.com (pdf)
.COM and .NET registry operator Verisign.com reported this week that globally, the internet grew to 331.9 million domain name registrations as of June 30, 2017 (end of Q2 2017), an increase of approximately 1.3 million registrations in Q2 2017, a growth rate of 0.4 percent over Q1 2017, and an increase in domain name registrations of 6.7 million, or 2.1 percent, year over year.

At the end of Q2 (June 30, 2017), the .COM domain name base totaled 129.2 million domain name registrations, an increase from Q1's 128.4 million, while the .NET domain name base totaled 15.1 million domain name registrations, a less than 1% decrease from Q1's 15.2 million (pdf). .NET registrations have slowly been declining since 2016, a trend likely to continue since global monopolies ICANN and Verisign seem intent on continuing their price-gouging of .NET consumers (registrants) worldwide. New .COM and .NET domain name registrations together totaled 9.2 million in Q2 2017 vs. 8.6 million in Q2 2016. Unlike .NET domains, .COM wholesale prices are presently capped and controlled by the U.S. Department of Commerce (NTIA). The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division is currently investigating ICANN and Verisign.

As of June 30 2017, Verisign reported the world's ten largest TLDs (top-level domains) were:
As of June 30 2017, Verisign reported the world's ten largest TLDs
As of June 30, 2017, there were 302 ccTLDs (country-code top-level domains) delegated in the internet root, including Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), with the top 10 ccTLDs comprising 64.8 percent of all ccTLD domain name registrations. Total ccTLD domain name registrations were approximately 144.2 million, a 0.8 percent increase over the first quarter of 2017, and a 2.6 percent increase year over year.

Summary as of  Q2 2017 (June 30, 2017) domain name registrations globally:
Summary as of Q2 2017 (June 30, 2017) domain name registrations globally
Editor's note: "other gTLDs" include ICANN's new gTLDs which were launched starting in 2014, and many are already referred to as "garbage extensions" by astute domain name registrants worldwide.

ICANN new gTLDs are failing, badly, in the global domain names marketplace--
New gTLDs’ domain name registrations declined in Q2 2017, and the decrease in registrations has continued—new gTLDs have lost more than 6 million domain name registrations in just 5 months--from April 13, 2017 (29,420,893), thru September 13, 2017 (23,245,161), a decline of -21% according to nTLDstats.com:
ntldstats.com
Source: ntldstats.com
As for some of the reasons why ICANN's new gTLDs are failing, losing millions of registrations, read on DomainMondo.com:
Obviously, ICANN and its "ICANN community" of lobbyists and "special interests," as well as most new gTLD registry applicants and operators, are clueless about what consumers (registrants) really want and need. Hardly surprising since most domain name registrants are excluded, by design, from ICANN policy-making structures.

2) ICANN news
•  Chairman’s Blog: Previewing the Montevideo Workshop | ICANN.org: "From 20-23 September 2017, the ICANN Board of Directors will be meeting in Montevideo for our last intersessional Board workshop of the year ..." and ICANN Board to Hold Public Session and Board Meeting During Montevideo Workshop - ICANN:
The sessions will be in English only. The format for each will be a listen-only session via Adobe Connect: https://participate.icann.org/opencommunity/.
Additional access numbers and participant codes here. More information: here.

•  ICANN 'Last Resort' Auction Proceeds CCWG Newsletter | August 2017 (pdf):"The CCWG will NOT make any recommendations or determinations with regards to specific funding decisions (i.e. which specific organizations or projects are to be funded or not)."

•  EU GDPR: Data Protection and Privacy: Progress Update and Next Steps | ICANN.org: "... an update on our data protection and privacy work as it relates to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ... We have now consolidated the information that was collected into a more easily readable format [PDF, 686 KB]. A high-level summary is also included in the document. We encourage you to review the submissions, and the summary ..."

•  Reconsideration Request 17-2: DotMusic Limited:
Requestor's Rebuttal to BAMC Recommendation on Reconsideration Request 17-2, 12 Sep 2017:
reconsideration-17-2-dotmusic-requestor-rebuttal-bamc-recommendation-12sep17-en.pdf [259 KB]
Annexes I to K, 12 Sep 2017: reconsideration-17-2-dotmusic-requestor-annexes-i-redacted-12sep17-en.pdf [1.15 MB].

 •  Battle Over New gTLD .AMAZON Rejoined: ICANN Correspondence | ICANN.org: 07 September 2017 Letter from Scott Hayden & Brian Huseman to Steve Crocker [Published 12 September 2017] Vice President | Amazon New gTLD Application for .AMAZON

 •  ICYMI Quarterly Report | ICANN.org: FY17 Q4 Presentation (pdf)

 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks news
•  Caveat Emptor re: new gTLD registry operators:
•  Domain name registrar Web.com (Network Solutions, Register.com):
•  Harvey and Irma scams: "Real websites for first responders, insurance companies, construction, medical and other vital organizations in the Florida and Texas areas — are being targeted by these malicious spoofed domain registrations."--circleid.com. 


•  "Phishing scams seem to be getting more common and more sophisticated"--Fighting Phishing with Domain Name Disputes | circleid.com.
•  DNS vulnerability: What would happen if the DNS, the ‘phone book’ of the internet, were compromised? | MarketWatch.com: "... one crucial part of the internet’s infrastructure, the Domain Name System (DNS), isn’t diverse ... As applied to DNS, diversity means making sure these mission-critical services aren’t all the same type ..."

•  Booking.com Trademark: Booking it to the District Court | Dorsey & Whitney LLP | JDSupra.com: "This case is unusual because the trademark applicant, Booking.com, B.V., did not appeal the refusal decision to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but instead filed a civil suit against the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  This allowed the Virginia federal court to review the record de novo and as the finder of fact ..."

 •  Law Firm Squire Patton Boggs in battle over its name in China--worldtrademarkreview.com

•  Intellectual Property 101: What It Is and Why I Should Protect It | NatLawReview.com

 4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 
•  Internet Shutdowns in India: Govt issues first-ever rules to carry out internet shutdowns in India | HindustanTimes.com: "India has shut down the internet more than 40 times in 2017. The government has now come out with rules to order such blackouts." See also: India issues sweeping rule on internet shutdowns--CPJ.org.

•  Internet Tax: Doomed plan to tax online retailers | RStreet.org: "Gov. Charlie Baker wants Massachusetts to join a handful of other states in a doomed effort to pass an extraterritorial taxing scheme that the U.S. Supreme Court has already declared unconstitutional."

 •  Cuba’s Internet paradox: How controlled and censored Internet risks Cuba’s achievements in education | Amnesty.org. See also: Google included a freedom of information clause in deal with Cuba--"Google Global Cache uses local servers to store content from Gmail and YouTube, among others. The service, which began operating in Cuba in late April, is the result of a partnership with the state-owned telecommunications monopoly, ETECSA."--MiamiHerald.com

 •  Apple & China--"... it appears that instead of successfully pushing China towards more progressive ideals, Apple is conceding to continue massive profitability ..."--It’s Time To Be Honest About What Exactly Apple Is Doing In China | DailyCaller.com

 •  Vietnam's Facebook dissidents test the limits of Communist state | reuters.com

 •  Anonymity Online: We can’t let the dark web give online anonymity a bad name | WIRED.co.uk

 5) Most read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 
1. News Review: ICANN Webinars On DNS Abuse in ICANN's New gTLDs
2. Discovering The Next Unicorn Tech Startup (video)
3. Digital Winners Walmart $WMT & Giphy, + What Happens in an Internet Minute
4. Tech Review | Amazon HQ2: Second Headquarters North America (video)
5. 2017 Hurricane Season, Satellite Views, Weather App MyRadar, LIVE Feeds
6. The 'Hurricane Irma Trade' in Florida Oranges and Sugar (video)

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

 feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo



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2016-11-27

News Review: ICANN, ccTLDs, and the Domain Name Marketplace (slides)

News Review | ©2016 DomainMondo.com
Domain Mondo's weekly review of internet domain news [pdf]:

 Feature •  ICANN is struggling with its domain name marketplace index and the relevance of ccTLDs in the global domain marketplace in competition with gTLDs. See Incompetent ICANN Struggles With Its Domain Names Marketplace Index.

The slides (pdf) here (embed below) are from an ICANN57 session presentation authored by Andy Simpson, Principal Data Scientist at Verisign, about ccTLDs in the global domain name marketplace.


Main points:
  • Evaluating the domain marketplace using exclusively gTLDs introduces disproportionate regional bias to marketplace characterizations. 
  • 51% of registrants' portfolios in European countries are made up of national ccTLDs.
  • gTLDs and ccTLDs coexist and share of market varies from one country to the next.
  • Many ccTLDs market themselves on the global stage directly against gTLDs. [.CO being just one example of many.]
  • ccTLDs are a significant component of the domain name marketplace and any index that characterizes the health of that marketplace should consider the ccTLDs role and contribution.
Maybe ICANN, which does not have even one data scientist among its bloated, mostly overpaid management and staff, will get a clue and hire one. Even some ICANN stakeholders are aware of ICANN's incompetence in this area (see below). Unfortunately, ICANN has mostly relied on "junk science" experts, see, e.g., News Review [20Nov]: ICANN Used 'Junk Science' Firm to Justify New gTLDs.
New gTLDs - Competition, Consumer Trust & Consumer Choice Review Interim Findings & Next steps | ICANN.org: "One thing that has become clear to the CCT-RT is the need for additional data to be collected and curated by ICANN on a more regular basis. A large part of the recommendations will involve the need for robust and complete datasets for future review teams, outside analysts and policy development teams."

 Other Internet Domain News:

•  How Incompetent ICANN Helps Cybercriminals, Cybersquatters, & Spammers: Here’s a secret: É¢oogle.com is not google.com | AnalyticsEdge.com.

•  World's largest domain name registrar GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) is in talks to acquire Host Europe Group (HEG), expand into the more profitable web hosting business and broaden its customer base in Europe. HEG could be valued at about €1.7B, or over 12x its forecast 2016 core earnings of €140M according to a report in Reuters.com.

•  ICYMI: "You had said that the Governmental Advisory Committee in the ICANN was inherently unstable, and that it was like the UN within the ICANN. Now that the post-transition terms of engagement are established, do you think that still holds?" Milton Mueller: "It is. The problem with the GAC is not so much that it represents governments. But you have this one-government-one-position approach to it, which makes it just like an intergovernmental organisation."--Times of India | IndiaTimes.com.

•  DIDP Request 20161024-9, The Centre for Internet & Society:
Request (24 October 2016) (pdf): "... This is a request under your Documentary Information Disclosure Policy for information on ICANN’s process for verification of identity of gTLD bidders. There has been a lot of discussion about the legitimacy of Nu Dot Co which recently won the auction to control the .WEB domain name. Our specific questions are as follows: 1) Documents showing the process followed by ICANN to verify the identity of all gTLD bidders. 2) Affidavits filed by ICANN regarding the identity of Nu Dot Co. 3) Any other documentation showing that ICANN was able to verify the identity of Nu Dot Co. ..."
ICANN Response (23 November 2016) (pdf): "... Items 2 and 3 seek the disclosure of all “[a]ffidavits filed by ICANN regarding the identity of Nu Dot Co” and “[a]ny other documentation showing that ICANN was able to verify the identity of Nu Dot Co.” As you may be aware, Nu Dot Co.’s participation in an ICANN-facilitated auction is the subject of ongoing litigation. All pleadings filed in the Ruby Glen, LLC v. ICANN matter, including affidavits regarding the identity of Nu Dot Co. have been published on ICANN’s Litigation page at https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/ruby-glen-v-icann-2016-07-23-en. To the extent that there are any other documents responsive to this request, they are subject to the following Defined Conditions of Nondisclosure and are therefore not appropriate for public dissemination: • Information subject to the attorney– client, attorney work product privilege, or any other applicable privilege, or disclosure of which might prejudice any internal, governmental, or legal investigation ..."

•  Oracle and Dyn (Dyn.com): "On November 21, 2016, Oracle announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Dyn, the leading cloud-based Internet Performance and DNS provider that monitors, controls, and optimizes Internet applications and cloud services to deliver faster access, reduced page load times, and higher end-user satisfaction. The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Until the transaction closes, each company will continue to operate independently. Dyn's solution is powered by a global network that drives 40 billion traffic optimization decisions daily for more than 3,500 enterprise customers, including preeminent digital brands such as Netflix, Twitter, Pfizer and CNBC. Adding Dyn's best-in-class DNS solution extends the Oracle cloud computing platform and provides enterprise customers with a one-stop shop for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)." --Oracle.com (emphasis added). Note: Dyn is also an accredited domain name registrar with ICANN and suffered a recent DDoS attack.

• ICANN Public Comment Periods that close in December, 2016:

•  Digital Divide: Most people have access to Internet services but many do not actually use them. The spread of 3G and 4G networks across the world make the Internet increasingly available to more and more people. In 2016, mobile-broadband networks covered 84% of the world's population, yet with 47.1% Internet user penetration, the number of Internet users remain well below the number of people with network access. While infrastructure deployment is crucial, high prices and other barriers remain important challenges to getting more people to enter the digital world.--International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

•  Facebook Said to Create Censorship Tool to Get Back Into China | NYTimes.com: "Unveiling a new censorship tool in China could lead to more demands to suppress content from other countries. The fake-news problem, which has hit countries across the globe, has already led some governments to use the issue as an excuse to target sites of political rivals, or shut down social media sites altogether."

•  Censorship alive and well in Silicon Valley: "It is a worrying to see the censorship of those we disagree with"--NewStatesman.com--Reddit.com CEO Steve Huffman publicly admitted to editing comments on the pro-Donald Trump subreddit r/the_donald ... Huffman [also] deleted comments from the pro-Trump community on the site, and also altered comments that insulted him.“This legitimately should result in him being fired,”...“If it doesn't then we know reddit as a whole is no longer trustworthy and should abandon ship.”

 •  Delete yourself from the internet by pressing this button | TheNextWeb.com

•  Most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com:
  1. News Review [20Nov]: ICANN Used 'Junk Science' Firm to Justify New gTLDs
  2. MacroView [21Nov]: 12 Days Post-Election, the "Trump Effect" Takes Hold (video)
  3. TechReview[26Nov]: Trump Election Victory Aftershocks Hit Silicon Valley
  4. Scott Galloway: Wall Street is Wrong About Google and Amazon
  5. TechReview [19Nov]: Facebook's Anti-Trump Fake News, Was It Effective?

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


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2016-09-06

ICANN Litigation, Cooperative Engagement, and IRP Status Update

UPDATES (links provided further below):
1) ICANN response to Ruby Glen's Amended Complaint: Motion to Dismiss filed Oct. 26, 2016;
2) .AFRICA case remanded to California State Court by U.S. District Court Judge Oct 21, 2016;
3) Appellants Petition for Rehearing En Banc DENIED by Court of Appeals in Weinstein vs Iran;
_______

 Status Update: 1) ICANN Litigation; and 2) Cooperative Engagement Process (CEP) and Independent Review Process (IRP), in accordance with the sources referenced below:

1) Litigation:
Graphic: new gTLD .WEB © DomainMondo.com

•  Ruby Glen, LLC v. ICANN lawsuit filed in United States District Court for the Central District of California. Issue: new gTLD .WEB. Status: Plaintiff's motion for TRO denied; Plaintiff filed amended complaint on August 8, 2016. ICANN has until September 26, 2016 (pdf)--UPDATE--Wednesday, October 26, 2016 (pdf) to "answer, move to dismiss or otherwise respond to the Amended Complaint."  See on Domain Mondo: New gTLD WEB Loser, Ruby Glen, Files Amended Complaint vs ICANN.
UPDATE October 26 Ruby Glen, LLC v. ICANN:
Graphic: new gTLD .AFRICA © DomainMondo.com
•  DotConnectAfrica Trust v. ICANN lawsuit filed in United States District Court for the Central District of California. Issue: new gTLD .AFRICA. Status: jury trial (10-12 days) scheduled to begin February 28, 2017. Appeals of the preliminary injunction enjoining delegation of new gTLD .AFRICA, have been taken by ICANN and ZA Central Registry (ZACR). The appeals are now consolidated and pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Optional reply briefs are due September 9, 2016, and new gTLD applicant Dot Registry LLC has filed a motion for leave to file amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in support of DCA Trust on the issue of the enforceability of the ICANN "Release" in the new gTLD guidebook (pdf), required of all new gTLD applicants. See on Domain Mondo: New gTLD AFRICA Appeal: DCA Trust Answering Brief vs ICANN & ZACR. Dismissed defendant and appellant, ZACR, has also filed a motion to intervene in the U.S. District Court, to which Plaintiff responded August 29, 2016 (pdf)(highlighting added).

UPDATE DotConnectAfrica Trust v. ICANN Trial Court Proceeding:
ccTLDs: .IR (IRAN), .SY (Syria), .KP (North Korea)
•  Ben Haim v. Islamic Republic of Iran; Calderon-Cardona v. Democratic People's Republic of Korea; Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran; Stern v. Islamic Republic of Iran; Weinstein v. Islamic Republic of Iran; Wyatt v. Syrian Arab Republic filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Issue: whether ccTLDs .IR (IRAN), .SY (SYRIA), and .KP (North Korea), are property subject to judicial attachment. Status: US Court of Appeals Decision on August 2, 2016, affirming District Court that the ccTLDs are not subject to judicial attachment, handing ICANN and the "global community" a legal victory in a case that potentially could have jeopardized the IANA stewardship transition. Order and Judgment entered August 2, 2016 (pdf), by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Appellants have 90 days to file a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court (see U.S. Supreme Court Rule 13). See on Domain Mondo: US Court of Appeals Decision re: ICANN & Iran, Syria, North Korea ccTLDs.

 UPDATE: Petition for Rehearing En Banc:
“Relying on conjecture, it [D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals] significantly solidified ICANN’s monopoly over Internet governance (antagonizing many small Internet participants who have been bullied by ICANN over many years), massively altered the waiver doctrine, impaired the operation of 28 U.S.C. 1610(g), and injured judgment creditors who must recover their judgments from third-party garnishees.”--Appellants' Petition for Panel Rehearing and Hearing En Banc filed 31 August 2016, Weinstein et al. vs Islamic Republic of Iran et al. , U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C., (pdf 434 KB, highlighting added). 
UPDATE 19 Sep 2016: Order Denying Appellants’ Petition for Rehearing En Banc [PDF, 53 KB] 19 September 2016; and Order Denying Appellants’ Petition for Panel Rehearing [PDF, 53 KB] 19 September 2016. Formal Mandate of U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. [PDF, 54 KB] 27 September 2016.

ICANN Cooperative Engagement Process (CEP) and Independent Review Process (IRP) defined
2) Cooperative Engagement Processes (CEP) and Independent Review Processes (IRP) Status update as of August 22, 2016, via ICANN (pdf) embedded below (highlighting added):
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2016-08-07

News Review: ICANN Wins Appeal on ccTLDs But Castigated in IRP Loss

"… the BGC [ICANN Board Governance Committee] admittedly did not examine whether the EIU or ICANN staff engaged in unjustified discrimination or failed to fulfill transparency obligations.  It failed to make any reasonable investigation or to make certain that it had acted with due diligence and care to be sure that it had a reasonable amount of facts before it.--Dot Registry IRP Declaration--see this week's FEATURES further below.

DomainMondoShiningLight ©2013domainmondo.com All Rights Reserved
Domain Mondo's review and look ahead [pdf], starting with the macro view:

•  “The artist Christopher Wool has a word painting, 'Sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids.' That’s exactly how I feel – sell everything. Nothing here looks good ... The stock markets should be down massively but investors seem to have been hypnotized that nothing can go wrong."--Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital. See also: Goldman Turns Outright Bearish: Says To "Sell" Stocks Over Next 3 Months | ZeroHedge.com.

• China's Liquidity Trap: "For months now, those allied with the [China] central bank have warned that an ever-increasing reliance on looser liquidity is failing to juice the economy, arguing that monetary policy has reached its limits and abusing it would only cause consumer- and asset-price inflation ... China’s monetary policy ... [has] fallen into a “liquidity trap.” The term refers to an economic scenario where cash injections fail to reduce interest rates or generate more investments. Chinese companies were just hoarding the additional liquidity in the banking system instead of using it to expand investment ..."--WSJ.com

• Angela Merkel condemned: 'Germans have had enough' - thousands of people took to the streets of Berlin to protest against the German Chancellor’s open door policy - Polish experts claim 'Europe is dead' - Europe 'at the end of its existence' following a summer of terror and the EU’s free movement policy.  An ex-Polish counter-terror officer has warned 'the whole Balkans are flooded with weapons, and from the Balkans have come two million people. Together with them came arms dealers, gangsters, drug dealers. Buying a Kalashnikov in Bosnia and Herzegovina is as it was with us after the war. You can buy one for peanuts.' --DailyExpress.co.uk.

•  Rio 2016 Olympics not going to bump Brazil economy: "... Goldman Sachs' Alberto Ramos wrote in a note on Monday ... 'Furthermore, due to a number of large macroeconomic imbalances that have grown and permeated the economy and the severe drop in confidence indicators, total investment spending has actually been contracting uninterruptedly for 2.5 years. Gross Fixed Investment has now declined for ten consecutive quarters ... retrenched by a cumulative 27.0% between 4Q2013 and 1Q2016, and is now at the same level as 2Q2009.'"--BusinessInsider.com. See also: Carpet Cleaner Sues For Its Right to Tweet About the Olympics | gizmodo.com.

•  While easing interest rates to 0.25 percent (ECB is at -0-), Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said Britain could “handle” Brexit and insisted there was no danger of a recession. Referring to the outcome of the EU referendum, he spoke of the resilience of the British people and said the economy would continue to grow instead of stalling like much of the EU economy. The London Stock Exchange FTSE 100 ended the week UP 1% to close at 6,793.47 (see chart below). See Don’t blame Brexit for this rate cut. Blame Project Fear | telegraph.co.uk and Britain will succeed after Brexit insists Bank of England boss Mark Carney | Daily Express | express.co.uk. 

Chart: London Stock Exchange FTSE100 now UP 7% since Brexit vote
London Stock Exchange FTSE100 now UP 7% since Brexit vote
Chart: London Stock Exchange FTSE250 now UP 1% since Brexit vote
London Stock Exchange FTSE250 now UP 1% since Brexit vote
See also: Experts and the future | Matt Ridley | rationaloptimist.com: "The expert pollsters told the hedge funds Remain would win right up till when it lost, so the pound and the FTSE 100 rose, then crashed. The expert financial forecasters then told investors the FTSE 100 would fall further, but it quickly recovered all its lost ground and more. The expert analysts told us we should watch the FTSE 250 plunge instead, but that has now returned to the level it was at a week before the referendum (see chart above) ... there are no experts on the future. Explaining the present and the past requires expertise: “it’s your carburetor/prostate”. In forecasting the future, experts are generally no better than everybody else. They might be worse."

 •  FEATURES: It was the best, and worst, week for ICANN

 The Good: More than six months after oral arguments were heard, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on August 2, 2016, issued its opinion affirming the U.S. District Court that the ccTLDs of Iran, Syria, and North Korea, were unattachable, thereby granting a victory to ICANN and the global internet community. Read more at US Court of Appeals Decision re: ICANN & Iran, Syria, North Korea ccTLDs. A post-decision discussion on the CCWG-Accountability (Weinstein v. ICANN) mail list, including ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker, Professor Milton Mueller and others, includes this from an attorney (from the U.S.):
"I have no real opinion on the case generally or the ccTLD/ICANN dispute.  But I think this is mistaken – of course if a registrar subject to an order chooses to resist the order and/or destroy the registry he can do that.  But subject to a lawful order, there is no reason to think that rebuilding the registry would be necessary – the court would simply order its transfer to the new registrar and an compliant loser would make the transfer ..."
Apparently, CCWG participant(s) do not know the difference between a registrar and registry operator!

The Bad: "... the [IRP] review panel findings cast heavy doubts on ICANN’s competence to manage without oversight."--ICANN can't: independent review finds group incompetent | TheStack.com. The Dot Registry IRP Declaration posted by ICANN on August 2, 2016, received critical commentary this past week, see ICANN IRP, Dot Registry New gTLDs INC LLC LLP, Tempest in a Teapot? The declaration (pdf) was a split decision (2-1), but included severe criticism of ICANN staff and the ICANN Board of Directors, including its Board Governance Committee (BGC).

While I have also been, and continue to be, a critic of the ill-advised and misbegotten new gTLDs program, both the policy and its implementation, as well as failures of ICANN leadership, in fairness, it should be noted the IRP (Independent Review Panel) declaration not only was a split decision, but the dissenting opinion stated, correctly I think, "The 'communities' proposed by Dot Registry ... do not demonstrate the characteristics of 'communities' under any definition" and therefore Dot Registry should not have passed the CPEs (Community Priority Evaluations) for .INC, .LLC, and .LLP.

 And yet the continuing internal operational problems of ICANN (see also the .AFRICA IRP) are troubling. As I stated in my comment to ICANN, July 20, 2016 (pdf):
"September 30, 2016, is fast approaching, and ICANN management and staff, particularly at the “Global Domains Division” (GDD) seem ill-prepared--still engaging in unprofessional, incompetent, inept or opaque practices ... Hopefully the ICANN Board and new ICANN President & CEO, in the near future, will reorganize ICANN’s corporate operational structure, and staffing, abolish the GDD completely (a GDD President is one too many “Presidents” for ICANN), and move “Contract Compliance” into a separate division or department that includes consumer trust and protection, as well as domain name registrants’ remedies and advocacy, reporting directly to the ICANN President & CEO, and the ICANN Board." 
The problems within ICANN's legal staff and the ICANN Board of Directors, as noted in the IRP Declaration, may be at the root of ICANN's problems. ICANN has had a weak, mostly passive, Board of Directors, e.g., the Board willingly enabled the former CEO's dysfunctional leadership, which brought about mission creep, conflicts of interest, and all of the inappropriate actions and omissions detailed in the Dot Registry IRP Declaration. Other than replacing current Board members with better, more independent, experienced, and competent Directors, perhaps ICANN could as I suggested last year:
"ICANN has quite a history of conflicts of interest, lack of accountability and transparency, secrecy, rewarding insiders including ICANN officers even after resigning due to "conflicts of interest". None of this comes as a surprise since Chehade's tenure as ICANN CEO has the worst record on conflicts of interest, appearances of impropriety, and "cronyism" in the history of ICANN--see Domain Mondo's RPMs comment (pdf). Complicating all of this is the ICANN Board's apparent dysfunction and failures in competent corporate governance, including its inability to have "in place" and "enforce" an effective code of conduct for all ICANN officers and staff. The Board appears to be in a constant "reactive" mode trapped between stakeholders (mostly "lobbyists") and ICANN officers/staff. CCWG-Accountability should have concentrated on core competencies including the selection, orientation, training and continuing education of ICANN Board members, ICANN officers and staff, as well as stakeholders. Anyone involved in ICANN needs to have at least a rudimentary understanding of California non-profit corporate law, ethics in the public non-profit corporate sphere, applicable U.S. law, and the common law system. Jurisdiction matters. A good joint project for ICANN legal, Jones Day, and CCWG's independent legal counsel, post-transition, would be to develop and publish an orientation and training program accessible to all online, which should be required of all ICANN directors, officers, and staff, as well as anyone choosing to stand for election or appointment to the ICANN Board. Good corporate governance is hard work and not easy--witness the scandals at organizations as diverse as FIFA and the American Red Cross." (emphasis added)
I would now change the reference to "ICANN legal, Jones Day" above, to a new independent outside counsel to the ICANN Board of Directors solely for the purpose of advising and educating ICANN directors of their duties under California and other applicable law, and providing independent legal advice concerning issues that come before the Board. ICANN legal staff and Jones Day are conflicted, representing corporate management and staff, and the corporation, respectively. The IANA transition end date, September 30, is only weeks away, and the Dot Registry IRP Declaration makes it clear the ICANN Board, ICANN management and staff, are not ready.

• Comments close this coming week at ICANN on:

•  ICANN Quarterly Stakeholder Report – Register for the FY16 Q4 Call on 18 August‬‬ | ICANN.org: The FY16 Q4 (ended June 30, 2016) Stakeholder Call, will take place on 18 August at 1500 UTC. The call will focus on how ICANN has implemented the community's policies for the quarter ending 30 June 2016. More info at the link above.

•  IANA Stewardship Transition Implementation Planning Update (Volume 4) - ICANN:
Graphic: Implementation Timeline (source: ICANN 15 Jul 2016)
Implementation Timeline (source: ICANN 15 Jul 2016)
•  Request for Proposal Announcement - DNS Abuse Study - ICANN: "A number of safeguards were built into the [new gTLDs] Program that were intended to mitigate rates of abusive, malicious, and criminal activity in these new gTLDs, such as phishing, spam, malware distribution, and botnet command-and-control. ICANN is currently engaged in a review of these safeguards and their effects on rates of DNS abuse, and is seeking a provider to conduct a study examining rates of malicious and abusive behavior in the global DNS." Participant RFP proposals due by 25 August 2016 by 23:59 UTC. More info at link above.

•  Future Rounds of New gTLDs: Almost Free Domains for Almost Everyone | CircleID.com by John Levine: "My plan is simple: next time the application fee is nominal, say $1000. But if there are several applications for the same name, they all go to auction, and the auction income pays for the rest of the program ... This approach may seem cynical and venal. It is. But in practice is it any more so than the current approach? It may be cynical, but it's a lot simpler and a lot more transparent."

 •  Why Registry Service Providers Should be Accredited by ICANN | CircleID.com: "... it is equally apparent that the downward spiral of Registry Service Provider pricing will lead to cut corners. The result will be a failure ..."

• Trend in Naming & Branding:  Band Names Without Vowels: Why Artists Are Ditching Those Letters | Billboard: "From brands that shorten their names or use letters that don't go together to make names more easily trademarked, Cashion said the trend has spread across the business world and into pop culture. "In the short term, the challenge I tell clients is that the name might be less intuitive from a pronunciation point and in the short term it might be harder to find, but in the long term the ownability of it is higher." There's actually a name for it -- disemvoweling -- and a few years ago Wired wrote an obituary for the letter "e," in light of how many technology companies had decided to drop the most frequently used letter in the English alphabet."

•  Other News:

•  Q2 2016 Earnings Season ends this week on Domain Mondo with Rightside $NAME on August 9, and Alibaba $BABA which reports on August 11--Note: as now indicated on Domain Mondo's Stock Links page, beginning next quarter, Q3 2016, coverage of  quarterly earnings releases and webcasts of Yahoo $YHOO, Alibaba $BABA, and Web.com $WEB will no longer be provided by Domain Mondo.  Yahoo's core assets are being sold to Verizon, Alibaba is under scrutiny by the SEC and also subject to increasing control or manipulation by the government of China, while Web.com is in transition from domains to services with higher profit margins. This will leave 5 tech companies: Alphabet (Google); Amazon; Apple; Facebook; Twitter; and 4 domain name industry companies: GoDaddy; Neustar; Rightside; Verisign; on the quarterly earnings coverage list.

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

• 10 Other Reading Recommendations:
  1. ICYMI: "... the European Banking Authority released the stress test results on Friday [July 29]. Deutsche Bank didn’t fail in part because there was no way to fail. No bank could fail, not even Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena which is in full collapse-and-bailout mode at this moment ... Tier 1 capital ratio after in the “adverse scenario” made it possible to rank the banks. At Deutsche Bank, that ratio dropped to 7.8%, making it the 10th riskiest bank among all European banks in the stress test. Commerzbank, the second largest German bank ... was the 8th riskiest bank, ahead of Societe Generale in 9th place and behind Barclays in 7th place. Then came Irish, Italian, and Spanish banks. In third place was the Austrian cooperative banking group Raiffeisen-Landesbanken. In second place, Allied Irish Banks. And of course, the winner, Monte dei Paschi ..."--WolfStreet.com
  2. Donald Trump Warns Americans To Get Out Of The Stock Market As The Dow Falls For A 7th Day In A Row | washingtonsblog.com: "In Europe ... a “too big to fail” crisis is rapidly unfolding across the entire continent, but most Americans are totally oblivious to what is going on over there.  Instead, our major news outlets are feeding us an endless barrage of negative headlines about Donald Trump and a steady stream of positive headlines about Hillary Clinton. I wonder who they want to win the election? Of course I am being sarcastic.  The days when the mainstream media at least pretended to be “independent” are long gone."
  3. Keep An Eye On: Google has sold 30 million Chromecasts, 5 million in the past 2 months | 9to5Google.com.
  4. Dinosaur Watch: Another Retailer Leveraged Buyout Bites the Dust | WolfStreet.com. "... malls are getting hit as previously “pent-up” real-estate demand from retailers is expected to “fizzle.”... Mall Owners Begin to Feel the Pain of Brick & Mortar Retailers"
  5. The Paradox of Quant | thereformedbroker.com: "Once crowded, there are a few choices for practitioners of a given investing discipline: pretend it’s not over; adapt and move on to the next thing; leverage up; sell out to a competitor."
  6. Time to reevaluate blockchain hype: "Hong-Kong based Bitfinex exchange is short 119,756 bitcoins after being hacked on Tuesday, though nobody can be sure what’s really happened because ‘hacking’ is a loose term and can encapsulate almost anything, including an internal security breach ... mark-to-market value of the stolen coins is roughly $70m, but again who can really tell their true worth. Bitcoin is an asset class where the liquidation of 119,756 (approximately 0.8 per cent of total bitcoin circulation) can move the market more than 20 per cent, suggesting a certain fantastical element to the valuation."--FT.com
  7. Geopolitical Watch I: EU ‘unsustainable in its current form’| EurActiv.com: S&P Global Ratings added its voice to the growing number of politicians and analysts calling for change. “... the EU, as it’s currently constructed and operates ... [is] unsustainable in its current form,” S&P said ... A clear response is needed to address uncertainty about the future of the EU and to make it relevant to citizens ..."
  8. Geopolitical Watch II: For Post-Brexit British Vacationers, Staying Home Now Seems Appealing | NPR.org: "... Just off a beachfront carousel, Matthew Kirk's little boy squeals for ice cream. His dad says British resorts, some of which have seen better days, could rebound amid all this. Kirk says he's happy to help the local U.K. economy. "It'd be nice to see them making a living and thriving"..."
  9. TCO - Total Cost of Ownership: How Much Do Car Maintenance Costs Increase with Mileage? | YourMechanic.com: "The average car costs $1,400 to maintain up to 25,000 miles, then costs rise rapidly until 100,000 miles. Toyota wins as the cheapest car to maintain."
  10. Zika vaccine: NIH begins testing investigational Zika vaccine in humans | National Institutes of Health | NIH.gov and Zika vaccine gives complete protection and is ready for human trials, say scientists | telegraph.co.uk.

 -- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo

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2016-08-04

US Court of Appeals Decision re: ICANN & Iran, Syria, North Korea ccTLDs

28 U.S.C. § 1610 (g)(3): Exceptions to the immunity from attachment or execution: "(3) Third-party joint property holders. - Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to supersede the authority of a court to prevent appropriately the impairment of an interest held by a person who is not liable in the action giving rise to a judgment in property subject to attachment in aid of execution, or execution, upon such judgment."
Embedded below is the full decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, August 2, 2016, which affirmed the judgment of the U.S. District Court that the ccTLDs of Iran, Syria, and North Korea are unattachable under District of Columbia (D.C.) law.

The Court of Appeals, while assuming arguendo that the ccTLDs were attachable property, nonetheless relied upon 28 USC §1610(g)(3)--quoted above--in its opinion at pages 28-29:
"We assume without deciding that the ccTLDs the plaintiffs seek constitute “property” under the FSIA and, further, that the defendant sovereigns have some attachable ownership interest in them. Nonetheless, pursuant to the terrorist activity exception, the court has the “authority” to “prevent appropriately the impairment of an interest held by a person who is not liable in the action giving rise to a judgment”—i.e., we are expressly authorized to protect the interests of ICANN and other entities. 28 U.S.C. § 1610(g)(3). Because of the enormous third-party interests at stake—and because there is no way to execute on the plaintiffs’ judgments without impairing those interests—we cannot permit attachment." (emphasis added)
While the Appellants have options to seek review en banc by the Court of Appeals, and even review by the U.S. Supreme Court, our analysis and opinion is that this is a well-reasoned decision that removes the "wild card" referenced in the Domain Mondo News Review and Litigation Report, July 31, 2016.

 Embed below is the Court of Appeals decision Weinstein v. Iran et al (highlighting added):


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