News Review | GDPR, EPDP, and ICANN WHOIS Data Liability

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-10-07 with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) GDPR, EPDP, and ICANN WHOIS Data Liability,  2)Other ICANN news: KSK Roll Oct 11, and more, 3) a. Malicious Domains, b..COM Domainers re: Verisign, NTIA & ICANN, c. WIPO Workshop, and more, 4) ICYMI Internet Domain News, 5) Most Read.

1) GDPR, EPDP, and ICANN WHOIS Data Liability

ICANN EPDP Meetings this coming week Tuesday Oct 9, and Wednesday Oct 10 (small group), and Thursday Oct 11: 2 meetings, see below. Non-members of the EPDP working group can follow these meetings via Adobe Connect, or audio cast via browser or application. Links to all EPDP meetings' transcripts and recordings are on the GNSO calendar. Other EPDP links: wiki, mail list, action items, Temp Spec, EPDP Charter (pdf), GNSO's EPDP page and updates.

Recording, Attendance & AC chat (Editor's note: the correct Adobe Connect replay link) for the EPDP call to discuss Independent legal counsel to assist the EPDP working group held on Wednesday, 10 October 2018 at 22:00 UTC. Chat transcript (pdf).

Thursday Oct 11 EPDP small group (agenda, links to chat transcript, Adobe Connect replay, MP3), 17:00 UTC (1pm EDT). Natural person vs legal entity 11 Oct 2018 (pdf).

Thursday Oct 11 EPDP Meeting (agenda, links to chat transcript, Adobe Connect replay, MP3), 13:00 UTC (9am EDT). Purpose B workbook (pdf); Meeting Transcript (pdf).

Wednesday Oct 10 small group (agenda, links to chat, Adobe replay, MP3), Small Team #3 relevant input (pdf), upd Background Info (pdf). This Small Group's working document:

Tuesday Oct 9 EPDP meeting wiki link (agenda), chat transcript (pdf), MP3, Adobe Connect replay,  Lawful Basis Memo (pdf); data elements workbook (including Purpose A), work products (pdfs) in relation to agenda item three: Data Elements Matrix, Purpose A,  Purpose M, Purpose N.  The meeting's focus was on Purpose A, leaving no time for Purposes M & N which also might involve transfer of Registrant data from Registrar to the Registry.

Editor's note: the ICANN EPDP working group grinds on under the inept 'leadership' of former ICANN 'Chief Strategy Officer' Kurt Pritz (appointed EPDP Chair by the GNSO Council), who has apparently been supplanted by CBI.org facilitators Gina Bartlett and David Plumb, when available, in leading EPDP meeting discussions:

Kurt Pritz, EPDP Chair: "I want to welcome David Plumb [CBI.org facilitator] who's on the call who will lead those discussion items. So I'm pretty darn pleased with that."  EPDP Oct 4 meeting, p.3.

Highlights from EPDP meetings last week (ending Oct 5):

Emily Taylor (RrSG): "Just to support Lindsay Hamilton-Reid’s remarks, in practice the technical contacts are often are all almost always duplicates of other contacts. If there’s a technical issue with a domain name there are two possible courses. One is contact the registrant and one is contract the registrar. Both of those details are in separate fields .... my own personal view is that these ancillary fields admin technical billing are all sort of relic from the old Whois format which is, you know, desired way back when in the 80s before there was really a hard concept of a domain name registrant having rights and responsibilities and before there was ever such a thing as a registrar. The market has moved on considerably and the Whois fields have not kept up to date. It’s way past the time where we have a good look at these fields and ... get rid of [some of] them entirely." [EPDP Oct 2 meeting, p. 38] 

Editor's note: My view is the same as Ms. Taylor's re: admin and technical contacts in the WHOIS directory. That kind of information, like billing contacts and credit card information, if needed at all, should only be held by and between the registrar and registrant. The WHOIS directory is like the Registrar's Office of real estate deeds showing who is the legal owner, or in the case of domain names, the domain name holder (registrant) of record. When you buy a car, the government agency that issues auto license plates, doesn't ask you who your mechanic (or 'technical contact') is, does it? My suggestion for revised WHOIS registrant data fields is here (pdf).

Stephanie Perrin (NCSG): "... The current educational resources/registrants rights and responsibilities package has been neglected for years ... Registrars should have procedures in place to inform registrants of their constitutional and charter rights, as well as their rights under GDPR ... note that the registrars will be held accountable for how well informed the individual [registrant] is. If they give away their rights because they were not well informed, it will be the registrars fault ... Caution is required here ... if civil society were to sue under the GDPR, in my view (remember, I am not even a lawyer let alone a litigator) the strategy would be to go for ICANN as data controller  responsible for the policy, and the registrar as data controller for the client relationship data." [EPDP Oct 3 chat, p.3]

Thomas Rickert (ISPCP): "Regarding a direct contract between ICANN and registrants: We are to review to the TS [temporary specification] and not to recreate a completely new gTLD world." Emily Taylor (RrSG): "Well said @Thomas." [EPDP Oct 4 chat, p. 3]

Stephanie Perrin (NCSG): "It is very very clear that the purpose of the GDPR is to address the imbalance of power in the data relationships of the Information Society." [EPDP Oct 4 chat, p.7]

 Questions for ICANN Org from EPDP meeting Oct 4, 2018:

1. ICANN org should have a general retention policy. As part of its GDPR-compliant data processing regime. If so, can this be provided to the EPDP Team?
2. We have spent most of this meeting exploring the role of compliance at ICANN, in order to support a proposal that ICANN has an implicit contract with the registrant and that therefore 6 1 b applies as a grounds for processing.  This would also facilitate ICANN operating a UAM on behalf of those who want the data.  It might also explain Goran’s [Marby, ICANN CEO] initiative in seeking some kind of recognition by EU authorities that ICANN has a kind of quasi-regulator status, as the authority vested with the responsibility to manage the DNS.  Given that all of this is outside the current configuration of ICANN as data controller, which would be more clear had we done a DPIA and had we adequate data maps to work with….can we either get back to our Charter questions that we were mandated to address by the GNSO, or get a full explanation of what is going on and why we continue to be focused on the access question? [emphasis and links added]
3. Is there a date limit for ICANN accepting a complaint or request to audit regarding a registration that has been deleted? If not, what is the case of the longest period of a deleted registration that was accepted and acted upon?

Request for independent legal counsel to assist the EPDP from  RySG (Registries Stakeholder Group), RrSG (Registrar Stakeholder Group), and NCSG (Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group)--Letter October 5, 2018 (pdf).

26 Sep 2018 Letter from Registrar Stakeholder Group (RrSG) to ICANN CEO Göran Marby, ICANN Board Chairman Cherine Chalaby, and ICANN DPO Daniel Halloran (pdf) published by ICANN 4 Oct 2018, embed below (Editor's note: read this carefully):

More info on Oct 2-5 EPDP meetings on last week's News Review.

Definition of "train wreck" -- a chaotic or disastrous situation that holds a peculiar fascination for observers.

Note also:

• ICANN Webinar (one hour) data protection/privacy (GDPR) update now scheduled for Oct 8, 2018, 15:00 UTC (11am EDT) via Adobe Connect. Dial-in info, questions, etc., here. 

UPDATE: Question asked: :Why hasn’t a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) been carried out to clarify data flows and ICANN’s relationship with the data subject in light of its acknowledged role as a joint controller and Article 35 of the GDPR?
RESPONSE: This question was also asked during the Data Protection/Privacy Update Webinar hosted by ICANN org on 8 October 2018. John Jeffrey, ICANN’s General Counsel and Secretary provided the following response:

“This is something that has been considered since the very beginning. One of the issues is when to do that in a way that is most timely and useful and how to do that. We continue to evolve the thinking of how the interpretation of GDPR applies to WHOIS. We have a number of questions which have been addressed directly to the DPAs and the EDPB and we’ve have an ongoing discussion with the EC about how to interpret the GDPR. We believe that those are a better format at this point than doing the assessment, but we continue to evaluate whether that assessment would be the right thing to do and when.”

ICANN 8 Oct 2018 Webinar replay (Adobe Connect & audio) and presentation (slides) here.

• Pre-ICANN63 Policy Open House webcast: Thursday, 11 October 2018, 10:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC. The open house will run in English with simultaneous Spanish interpretation. The presentation materials will be translated into Spanish, and posted following the open house with the recordings of the sessions here. Register via this form by 8 Oct 2018. More info here. ICANN63 Full Schedule.

2) Other ICANN News

a. KSK Roll October 11--the change or "roll" of the cryptographic key for the internet DNS root on 11 October 2018. "It will mark the first time the key has been changed since it was first put in use in 2010"--ICANN.org. More information here and here (pdf).

b. ICANN Board Report September 2018 (pdf)

"... we held an Executive Team retreat in Visby, Sweden from 23-26 July."--Goran Marby, ICANN President & CEO (p. 3). Editor's note: No disclosure of the itemized and total costs paid by ICANN org for this annual extravagance.

c. If you think ICANN, notwithstanding its incompetence, conflicts of interest, and/or corruption, has a viable future, you may be interested in the ICANN Board and organization webinar on 9 October 2018 at 14:00 UTC (10am EDT) on ICANN strategic planning. More info here.

d. End of the Line: "Resolved (2018.10.03.02), the Board directs the President and CEO, or his designee(s), that the pending application for .HALAL and the pending application for .ISLAM not proceed ... Resolved (2018.10.03.01), the Board adopts the portion of the IRP Panel's recommendation that the application for .PERSIANGULF submitted in the current new gTLD round not proceed and directs the President and CEO, or his designee(s), to take all steps necessary to implement this decision."--Approved Board Resolutions | Special Meeting of the ICANN Board 03 Oct 2018.

e.  ICANN's new gTLD .BRAND Extortion Racket losing more: .epost and .bond. terminating.

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Malicious Domains: "using a cooling-off period for domain names can help catch those registered by known bad actors"--DarkReading.com.

b. .COM Domainers re: Verisign, NTIA & ICANN--StopThePriceIncreaseOf.com.

c. WIPO Advanced Workshop on Domain Name Dispute Resolution: Update on Precedent and Practice, Geneva, Switzerland, Tuesday and Wednesday, October 9 and 10, 2018.

d. Domainers Lament "Too many domains, no buyers"--Everyone Trying to Sell Their Portfolios but NOBODY is Buying Them. Now What? | ricksblog.com.

e. Alphabet’s new domain name tool could limit malware, censorship, and spying--internet domain lookups are typically unencrypted, meaning hackers and governments can manipulate them to block certain sites or serve up malware--FastCompany.com.

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

UPDATE on the UN Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation @UNSGdigicoop:

• Censorship could be just as common in an open internet as a closed one--qz.com.
• China: Why Would Google’s Ex-CEO Predict a Separate Chinese Internet?--nymag.com
• Zambia’s social media tax isn’t really about social media or freedom of speech--qz.com
• India: Reactions to the Aadhaar Judgement--internetfreedom.in; See also indianexpress.com: Surveillance after the Aadhaar judgment: What Internet freedom?
• Internet: Inside the Harvard research hub chronicling our relationship with the internet--siliconrepublic.com.

5) Most Read Posts this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review 1) ICANN Org vs EPDP Access? 2) New gTLDs Next Round?

2. Tech Review: Digital Outdoor Advertising Growth Due To GDPR? (video)

3. Iridium $IRDM + Amazon $AMZN AWS for IoT Internet SAT Network

4. Tech Review 1) Crypto & Crime, Innovation, Regulation, 2) $Esports (video)

-- John Poole, Editor • Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER

News Review: GDPR, ICANN EPDP Dysfunction, & WHOIS Misuse

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-09-09) with analysis and opinion: Features • 1) GDPR, ICANN EPDP Dysfunction, & WHOIS Misuse,  2)a. ICANN v. EPAG, b. SSR2, c. RDAP, and more, 3) a. Donuts, Domains, Fadi Chehade, Abry Partners & The Greater Fool Theory, b. Dumb Domainers, c.ICANN Survey, 4) ICYMI, 5) Most Read & Top Geolocations.

1) GDPR, ICANN EPDP Dysfunction, & WHOIS Misuse

Definition of "train wreck" -- a chaotic or disastrous situation that holds a peculiar fascination for observers.

ICANN EPDP Team Meetings coming up: Tuesday Sep 11, and Thursday Sep 13, 13:00 UTC, 9am EDT. Non-members of the EPDP Team can follow the EPDP meetings via Adobe Connect: https://participate.icann.org/gnso-epdp-observers, or audio cast via browser or application.

Editor's note: links to the transcripts, Adobe Connect recordings, and MP3 audio, will be posted in UPDATES below (as made available by ICANN). Note that links to EPDP meetings' transcripts are usually posted on the GNSO calendar within 24 hours). See also EPDP Team wiki, mail list, Temp Spec, EPDP Charter (pdf), GNSO's EPDP page, & weekly updates to GNSO Council.

Thursday Sep 13, 2018, EPDP Team Meeting (wiki page); Agenda in slides embed below:

Notes:
a. 9/13 Meeting transcript (pdf), Chat transcript (pdf) embed below, Adobe Recording, and MP3.

b. 9/13 Notes & Action items (embed below), Action Items; re: agenda item 4 (Introduction to Appendix A), see DSI for Appendix A here; The data matrix for item 3 can be found here (under background documents).

c. EDPB Advice (pdf)(embed below):

Tuesday Sep 11, 2018, EPDP Team Meeting (agenda in meeting slides embed below).

Notes:
a. 9/11 Meeting Transcript (pdf)  Adobe Recording, MP3, Chat transcript (pdf) embed below; notes and action items;
b. 4.4. purpose overview by Thomas Rickert here and attachment; Google Sheet EPDP Team input (last 3 columns) by 19.00 UTC on Friday 14 September to allow the leadership team to work with Thomas and Benedict to prepare the subsequent discussion on this overview.

9/11 Chat transcript (highlighting added):

c. GDPR Training--Ayden Férdeline (NCSG) Sep 10: "This training is hopelessly inadequate and intended to ‘check a box’ rather than impart in EPDP members any new knowledge. The course is intended to take 45 minutes to complete and, from what I understand, has a retail price of £20 per user. The course offers no training on the powers of supervisory authorities, on how to perform a data protection impact assessment, or on privacy by design, among other obvious deficiencies in its curriculum. I was under the impression we were looking for a course that would take at least three hours to complete, if not one day. We cannot be taught too much in one day, but we could be taught a lot more than can be learned in this 45 minute course (which can be completed a lot quicker than that actually) intended for front-line employees. This is so disappointing and really does us a great disservice. This is not the training we needed, and it should have been obvious from the price alone it was not intended to be used by those who would be tasked with designing a GDPR-compliant policy or system." 
Chris Disspain: "Do you have an example of the sort of training to which your refer?"
Ayden Férdeline: "Yes, I would be looking to the catalogue of courses offered by the [International Association of Privacy Professionals](https://iapp.org). They have a number that I think would be sufficient for our purposes (some that looked suitable to me were those at the “train”, “GDPR ready”, “engage”, and “expertise” levels, but NOT “awareness”). We need to know how to implement the GDPR in a way that meets regulatory requirements while minimising risk to ICANN and the contracted parties, which is exactly what the 45-minute £20 course ICANN has found us does not help with (and was never intended by the provider to do)."
d. Triage Report 

Triage Report to be submitted to the GNSO Council Sep 11, 2018, excerpt: "The objective of this Triage Report is to document the EPDP’s level of agreement on specific provisions within the current Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data .... essentially no section of the Temporary Specification will be adopted without modifications. " (emphasis added)

* * * * * * *

Highlights from last week's ICANN EPDP Team meetings--excerpts from EPDP meeting Sep 6, 2018, transcript (pdf), references are to the transcript page number:

Kurt Pritz (the inept EPDP Chair appointed by the GNSO Council): "the triage report, you know, to me does not constrain us in any way in our future deliberations. I’m going to go ahead and [send] this [the triage report] to the GNSO Council ..." transcript, p. 4.

Kurt Pritz: "Can somebody from staff answer that? I think I know the answer but I’ve screwed up before." p. 5.

Alan Greenberg (ALAC): "I must admit I’m somewhat confused. Milton had suggested that we put together, you know, drafting teams, I think anyway, I think what he said is to not have competing individual positions suggested. I’ve heard that we have assigned or asked specific people to try redrafting. I haven't heard about any actual multi-group, multi-person teams being put together to try to find a consensus drafting which Amr sort of implied when in his intervention, and we are clearly getting competing proposals here. So I’d like some clarity on how are we supposed to move forward? We seem to be doing – going in three different directions at once and I’m not sure that’s really helpful." p. 12.

Mark Svancarek (BC): "Sorry for piling on with complaints about us having to review the last  document submitted last night as the first document to review this morning, but I just have to pile on. I really think this conversation has been pretty ineffective ..." p. 32.

Alan Greenberg (ALAC): "I have to say I find this whole thing surreal. We’re discussing this as if these are definitive changes and should we accept them or not but James has said these were largely drafted from registrar point of view ignoring other ICANN needs, so I’m not quite sure why we're doing this but I’ll continue ..." p. 36.

Thomas Rickert (ISPCP): "So I’m struggling with this entire discussion and I think that if we ask whether this group – what people think we're trying to achieve here we will probably get as many answers as we have participants on the call ..." p. 39.

More info and updates on last week's meetings in last week's News Review. Note also:

• The EPDP Team will finally get its requested GDPR training;

• Early Input from ICANN AC/SOs to EPDP Team;
• Comment on the 20 August 2018 “Draft Framework for a Possible Unified Access Model" from RySG & RrSG (pdf);
• 4 September 2018 Letter from ICANN CEO Göran Marby to Tucows CEO Elliot Noss (pdf) re: ICANN Registration Data Privacy, in reply to 7 June 2018 Letter from Elliot Noss to Göran Marby (pdf), embed below:

• Worth Reading Again: September 25, 2017 Memo (pdf) to ICANN's failed RDS WG re: Final responses to EU data protection questions re gTLD Registration Directory data.
•  Letter from ICANN CEO Göran Marby to GAC Chair Manal Ismail 04 Sep 2018 - Request for Guidance on GDPR and Providing Access to Non-Public WHOIS Data marby-to-ismail-04sep18-en.pdf [pdf, 305 KB].
•  Letter from Independent Compliance Working Party to ICANN (Jamie Hedlund), et al. 06 Sep 2018, re: ICWP Priorities, icwp-to-hedlund-et-al-06sep18-en.pdf [pdf, 132 KB].

• WHOIS Misuse Study:

WHOIS Misuse of Registrants' Data--from the EPDP mail list (emphasis and links added): "Piscatello’s blog post is almost pure fiction. For example, he claims that there’s no evidence that Whois affects spam, when systematic research commissioned by ICANN itself concluded: “The main finding of the descriptive study is that there is a statistically significant occurrence of WHOIS misuse affecting Registrants’ email addresses, postal addresses, and phone numbers, published in WHOIS when registering domains in these gTLDs. Overall, we find that 44% of Registrants experience one or more of these types of WHOIS misuse. Other types of WHOIS misuse are reported, but at a smaller, non-significant rate. Among those, a handful of reported cases appear to be highly elaborate attempts to achieve high attack impact.”"

Editor's note: the draft study (pdf) and final study (pdf) referenced above. Comments to the final WHOIS Misuse Study commissioned by ICANN are here. Of note are the comments submitted by the At-Large Advisory Committee (pdf): "The ALAC will support any useful measure to abate misuse," and the Noncommercial Users Constituency (pdf): "measures must now be taken to protect Registrants."  Excerpt below:

See also: https://whois.icann.org/en/file/misuse-study-final-13mar14-en.

2) Other ICANN News

a. ICANN v. EPAG Domainservices, GmbH--English Translation of ICANN's Response to EPAG's Comment on ICANN's Plea of Remonstrance  [PDF, 178 KB]. Original filing in German here (personal identifiable information was redacted by ICANN). More case documents here.

b. SSR2: The ICANN Security, Stability, and Resiliency of the Domain Name System Review Team (SSR2) finally re-started its work, holding an in-person meeting 22-23 Aug 2018, after being paused by the ICANN Board of Directors in October 2017. Read more here.

c. RDAP: Moving Forward with RDAP | ICANN.org (RDAP is an eventual replacement for WHOIS protocol).

d. KSK Rollover: Preparing for the KSK Rollover | verisign.com: the KSK rollover is currently scheduled for 11 Oct 2018, subject to final approval by the ICANN Board of Directors.

e. ICANN Board Genval Workshop: September 14-16, the ICANN Board will be convening in Genval, Belgium, a town just south of Brussels, to hold its fifth workshop of calendar 2018. More here. Also, the ICANN Board will be holding a public Board meeting in Genval, Belgium: 16 Sep 2018, 08:00 – 09:00 UTC / 4am-5am EDT (US), in English only, via listen-only Adobe Connect: https://participate.icann.org/opencommunity/
Participant Code: 5542211258; Additional access numbers here.

f. ICANN Global Domains Division (GDD) General Operations Handbook for Registrars in Chinese 面还提供其他语种：2018年8月21日registrar-handbook-21aug18-zh.pdf [pdf, 409 KB]

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Donuts, Domains, Fadi Chehade, Abry Partners & The Greater Fool Theory

FLASHBACK--US Senator Ted Cruz: ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade Is Misleading the United States Senate--"Chehade Should Recuse Himself From All ICANN Decisions That Could Impact The Chinese Government"--February 23, 2016.

Definition of "Donut" (American English) In informal speech the phrase is used to highlight stupidity, e.g., "You Donut"

1. An individual who is extremely stupid. Lacks intelligence and common sense.
2. An idiot. A mild insult often used in the work places of southern England.
3. Somebody who does something incredibly stupid. An idiot.

Editor's Analysis and Opinion: Fadi Strikes (Out) Again! The largest new gTLDs registry operator (more than 200 new gTLDs), Donuts Inc., announced Sep 5, 2018, that it had entered into an agreement "to be acquired by Abry Partners," a private equity firm in which former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade is now a partner. Terms and timing of the agreement were not disclosed, but Abry's investment is reportedly only for a majority stake in privately held Donuts, and does not provide any additional cash for the company, instead, it provides a way for original investors in Donuts to exit.

While still ICANN CEO, Chehade announced in May, 2015, he would leave ICANN in March 2016, long before his contract ended on June 30, 2017, and did not disclose his reasons for serving as ICANN CEO for only 3½ years, instead of his full term. In August, 2015, he announced that after leaving ICANN he would be a "Senior Advisor on Digital Strategy" at Boston-based Abry Partners, adding, "I expect to add other roles to my portfolio and will update you all as appropriate." Later in December 2015, Chehade announced from Wuzhen, China, that he would serve, after he left ICANN, as Co-Chair of an advisory committee to the government of China's World Internet Conference (WIC), described by Professor Milton Mueller as "[l]ike almost everything in China, the WIC is unabashedly state-driven ... a vehicle for the Chinese [Communist] Party-state’s policy agenda ..." 

As ICANN CEO, Chehade's pet project was the NetMundial Initiative, which "crashed and burned" when ICANN and the World Economic Forum stopped funding it in 2016. In February, 2015, at a DNA meeting during ICANN52, Chehade stated, "I need to understand it [the domain name industry] more and spend more time in it, no question."  While at ICANN, Chehade was known for hiring and promoting his cronies to management positions within ICANN. Chehade promoted, in June, 2013, his childhood friend and former co-worker, Akram Atallah, to the then second-highest paid position at ICANN, President of the Global Domains Division (GDD), which is now the highest paid position at ICANN at  $745,615.00 per the most recently available IRS 990 (pdf), p.56 of 81.

Perhaps it was for some or all of these reasons, that Abry Partners decided to venture into an industry where it has no experience--the domain name industry--despite what Abry says on its website, abry.com: "Abry invests in private equity, preferred stock and debt securities within our sectors of expertise."

The Abry-Donuts deal may be both getting out while the getting's good (for the original investors in Donuts) and an example of the greater fool theory. If so, it may be just another version of what is described in the article at the next link below, only at the TLD (top-level domain) level.

b. Domaining: The “Dumb Domainer” Industry and How it Operates | ricksblog.com.

c. Trademarks & Domain Names: Participate Now in the Sunrise and Trademark Claims Survey | ICANN.org. [Editor's note: I've already completed the survey, and I encourage all registrants to complete the survey which takes less than 15 minutes.]

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

a. Why the Whole World Should Be Up in Arms About the EU's Looming Internet Catastrophe--eff.org:

"The link tax means that only the largest, best-funded companies will be able to offer a public space where the news can be discussed and debated. The censorship machines are a gift to every petty censor and troll (just claim copyright in an embarrassing recording and watch as it disappears from the Internet!), and will add hundreds of millions to the cost of operating an online platform, guaranteeing that Big Tech's biggest winners will never face serious competition and will rule the Internet forever."

b. California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 becomes effective on January 1, 2020. It includes some aspects of the EU’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), such as the right to be forgotten, "but it raises the ante"--jdsupra.com.

c. New GDPR-Inspired Data Laws In Brazil And India--jdsupra.com.

d. Cyber Norms: A Farewell to Norms |  internetgovernance.org: "Exhibit A: Russian 'meddling'--The current hysteria about Russian influence operations in the U.S. is deserving of a Sherlock Holmesian title: “Russian Influence Operations and the Curious Case of the Inverted Norm."

e. Facebook: How Duterte Used Facebook To Fuel the Philippine Drug War | buzzfeednews.com: due to "heavy subsidies that keep Facebook free to use on mobile phones, Facebook has completely saturated the country. And because using other data... is precious and expensive, for most Filipinos the only way online is through Facebook ..."

5) Most Read this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review: 1) ICANN EPDP Struggles; 2) New gTLD .WEB Updates

2. Tech Review | Tesla $TSLA And Elon Musk's Wild August Ride (video)

3. Tech Review: 1) Apple $AAPL 9/12 Event; 2) Facebook $FB HQ Expansion

DomainMondo.com's readers by geolocation--top 3 countries--results the same for week and month:

1. United States of America (US)
2. People's Republic of China (CN)
3. Federal Republic of Germany (DE)

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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DISCLAIMER

Dear Domainers, 3 Year Market Forecasts On New gTLDs Are Worthless

Want to be taken for an easy mark? Trot out your "strategy" as a domain name "investor" based on some analyst's 3-year market forecast, like the one referenced in yesterday's post--by the way there are hundreds, if not thousands, of analysts just like him out there--and their 3 year market forecasts? All worthless. Stocks, bonds, new gTLDs, whatever. Note that I am talking about "market forecasts," not a report on a specific company based on hard performance data, management disclosures and projections, and other relevant data like this.

Why are market forecasts worthless? As pointed out yesterday, there are too many variables and biases to make an accurate overall market forecast one year out, much less three years out. Second, forecasters, as a group, suffer from optimism bias (as almost everyone does to some degree)--but in the case of analysts, they have an even stronger incentive to go wrong on the upside:

"If you're a bear and you're right, you're respected. If you're a bear and you're wrong, you're fired." (source: Wall Street Journal)

In other words, analysts produce rosy, upside-biased market forecasts as a matter of career survival, whether they are even conscious of it, or acknowledge it. For example, as a group, forecasters have never forecast a drop in stocks since year 2000 (source: Wall Street Journal, supra).

What's even more amazing is that people put any credence in these forecasts--some are even gullible enough to pay for this kind of misinformation.

Am I surprised that increasingly desperate new gTLD registry operators are trotting out worthless "market forecasts" and getting domainer bloggers to publish this stuff as "authoritative?" No, they are in the business of separating you from your money by selling you their mostly worthless domain names, and as most new gTLDs have pathetic domain name sales numbers (some even having near zero growth), I expect to see more of the same in the future. You should too.

Caveat Emptor!

For further reading:

Economic/Market Predictions: Still Terrible | The Big Picture

William Sherden, author of “The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and Selling Predictions.” Sherden decided to test the accuracy of leading forecasters over a multidecade period. His conclusion: Forecasters stink.

Dow 17,000? Main Street lambs led to the slaughter - MarketWatch


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Words of Wisdom for Domainers from Warren Buffett

Words of wisdom for domainers from Warren Buffett:

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.

Honesty is a very expensive gift. Don't expect it from cheap people.

If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.

No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.

The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.

The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say 'no' to almost everything. 

  – Warren Buffett


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Warren Buffett, Investment Advice

Words of wisdom from the Oracle of Omaha (equally applicable to domain name investments and domainers):

• Ignore the chatter, keep your costs minimal, and invest . . . . as you would in a farm.
• Hold assets for the long term rather than a constant flux of buying and selling.
• Treat daily price changes as background noise, to be ignored in pursuit of a greater objective.
• Own a cross section of businesses that in aggregate are bound to do well.
• Forming macro opinions or listening to the macro or market predictions of others is a waste of time. 
• Investors should instead focus on the future productivity of assets, rather than speculating on price movements.
• Games are won by players who focus on the playing field - not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard.

(note: see disclaimer below)

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