News Review | Coming May 25, EU's GDPR, Are You Ready? ICANN Isn't

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-04-22) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) Coming May 25: the EU's GDPR, Are You Ready? ICANN Isn't, 2) a. More ICANN new gTLDs Dysfunction, b. U.S. gov NTIA's Strange Letter To ICANN, 3) Goodbye Neustar $$, 4) ICYMI: "ICANN People" and more, 5) Most Read.

New gTLD .WEB Update April 23: Afilias drops "bomb" on ICANN Board (full letter embed here)

1) Coming May 25, EU's GDPR, Are You Ready? ICANN Isn't:

Just 1½ years after the IANA transition, the dysfunction, incompetence, and conflicts of interest, are self-evident as systemic throughout the California corporation officially known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, otherwise known as ICANN, as well as in its self-selected "ICANN community" dominated by "special interests" (trademark lawyers, corporate lobbyists, and contracted parties, i.e., domain name registrars and registry operators). Now ICANN, despite its international "global" pretensions, finds itself, inexplicably, unprepared for the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which becomes enforceable May 25, 2018:

Data Protection/Privacy Issues Update 13 Apr 2018 | ICANN.org: "... On Thursday, we  received a letter [PDF, 400 KB] from the Article 29 Working Party where they provided recommendations on ICANN org's Interim Model for Compliance [PDF, 922 KB] with ICANN's agreements and the GDPR. In my reply [PDF, 313 KB] to Article 29 I again emphasize the need for additional time to further develop and implement the model, including a moratorium on enforcement until our model is in place ..."--Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO (emphasis added)

Although everyone was given two years to prepare, ICANN's overpaid and incompetent management team, completely bungled GDPR preparations, leaving the ICANN organization and "ICANN community" scrambling to find ways to comply with the EU GDPR by May 25, 2018, now less than five weeks away. In response to the increasing alarm and anxiety, the ICANN Board of Directors indicated to the GNSO Council leadership team and the RDS PDP WG (RDS) leadership team on April 11, 2018, that the ICANN Board of Directors is considering a temporary policy/specification as outlined in the RAA Consensus Policies and Temporary Policies Specification as one possible means of implementing an ICANN interim GDPR compliance model (for registry operators see "Temporary Policies" on page 43 (of 99) of the ICANN Registry Agreement (pdf) approved July 31, 2017). Here's the complete note circulated by GNSO Council leadership:

https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/gnso-gdpr-rds-briefing-13apr18-en.pdf

 source: Statista.com 13 Apr 2018, based on Hubspot.com Q3 2017 survey.

Related:

• "If you think Facebook has problems, they’re nothing compared to the fiasco at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers [ICANN]. Americans should be far more alarmed about what’s happening with the obscure, private California company that oversees the Internet’s backbone ..."--WashingtonExaminer.com  April 16, 2018.

• Move Over Facebook - You’ve Got Company | BestVPN.com: "... the apparent gross mismanagement at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) may be even more appalling than Facebook’s transgressions ..."

• Whois is dead as Europe hands DNS overlord ICANN its arse | TheRegister.co.uk

• EU Tells ICANN: You're Unprepared For GDPR Regulations  | mediapost.com

• Nominet drains mug of tea, leans back, calmly explains how to make Whois GDPR compliant | theregister.co.uk

• Letter from Patrick Kane of Verisign to ICANN's Akram Atallah 13 April 2018 (pdf) re: Verisign Thick Whois Consensus Policy.

• Privacy as an Afterthought: ICANN's Response to the GDPR | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org: ".... Although EFF would have preferred a model requiring a court order or warrant for access to such personal information, it seems inevitable that tiered access will be based on some kind of ICANN-administered accreditation system. Community discussions on what that accreditation program should look like continue on a new ICANN discussion list, using the Business and IP constituencies' proposal as a starting point. But this is work that should have been finished long ago. The commencement date of the GDPR [May 25, 2018] has been known since the rule was adopted on April 27, 2016. Although its edges will be difficult for ICANN to navigate, its basic outlines are not rocket science; it has been obvious for over two years that more would need to be done to secure the personal information of domain name registrants. Unfortunately, ICANN's version of a multi-stakeholder process has broken down over this contentious issue of registrant data privacy. It therefore falls to ICANN's board to make the interim changes necessary to ensure that the WHOIS system is brought into compliance with European Union law. While this interim model may be replaced by a community-based access model in the future, institutional inertia is likely to see to it that the Board's "interim" policy constrains the outlines of that future model. This makes it all the more important that the ICANN Board listens to all segments of its community and to the advice of the Article 29 Working Party, in order to ensure that the solutions developed strike an appropriate balance between stakeholders' competing interests, and that the human rights of users are put first." (emphasis added)

[Editor's note--re: trademark lawyers and corporate lobbyists--inept ICANN, in a blatant conflict of interest, joined trademark lobbyist organization INTA, as a full member, during the dysfunctional, conflicted administration of former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade].

2) Other ICANN news

a. ICANN new gTLDs subsequent procedures dysfunction: 

"The document also contains serious biases and preconceptions which are wrong and will not fly and we are running the serious risk of reproducing something so close to the Applicant Guidebook of 2012 that the world at large will be incredulous. The 2012 exercise produced results which are not acceptable internationally, certainly not to be repeated."--emphasis added, see full quote below.

ICANN Transcription New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Working Group call Monday, 16 April 2018 at 20:00 UTC (pdf) excerpt:

[Editor's note: it appears dysfunctional and inept, if not corrupt, ICANN, is on track to produce another severely flawed round of new gTLDs plagued with the same defects and mistakes as last time. The sole objective appears to be to generate more money via new gTLDs' consumer fraud and ICANN's .BRAND "extortion racket" (pdf).]

b. U.S. gov NTIA's Strange Letter To ICANN: 

NTIA Asks ICANN to Investigate GoDaddy Masking WHOIS Information, Review Accredited Registrar Issues | National Telecommunications and Information Administration | ntia.doc.gov April 16, 2018: "... request that ICANN look into two issues related to ICANN accredited registrars. First, the actions taken by GoDaddy last month to throttle Port 43 access and to mask the information in certain WHOIS fields ... Second, in the current configuration of the DNS marketplace, an ICANN accredited registrar is the single entry point for making modifications to domain name resource records ... NTIA sees merit in examining the roles other parties could play. One example is the feasibility and impact of allowing non-ICANN accredited registrars to offer services that manage specific DNS resource records, such as MX or NS records, directly with a registry ..."--David J. Redl, NTIA Administrator, full letter here (pdf).

[Editor's note: U.S. government interference in ICANN affairs? Run it through the GAC, David, and get your unanimous consensus, before telling ICANN what to do, otherwise you are setting a precedent for China or Russia or Iran, to write their own letters "requesting" ICANN do something which you may not like.]

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

Goodbye Neustar $$: Neustar (domain: home.neustar), a top-level domain (TLD) registry services provider and technology company, which once was publicly traded (NYSE: NSR) but now is privately held by Golden Gate Capital and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, has lost its lucrative, high-margin NPAC contracts which are now transitioning to the new provider iconectiv.com (part of Telcordia Technologies, Inc., U.S. subsidiary of Sweden's Ericsson)--"The Southeast Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) Region, the largest of the seven U.S.regions, was transitioned on April 8, 2018. This was the first regional cutover of NPAC data and services and it followed the successful transition of Ancillary Services on March 4, 2018.  The Southeast Region includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The remaining regions are scheduled to cutover on May 6, 2018 (for the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Northeast Regions) and May 20, 2018 (for the Southwest, West, and West Coast Regions)"--via FCC.gov April 12, 2018.

Just how much $$ will Neustar lose? 
"Once the [NPAC] contracts terminate, our annual revenue will decrease by approximately $500 million ... At the time of termination, our revenue and profitability will be dependent upon the success of our remaining business. If we are not able to replace this lost revenue and adjust our operating plans to support our remaining business, our total revenue and profitability may be materially adversely affected."--Neustar 10-Q, Oct 29, 2015 (emphasis added).

One analyst at that time wrote: "... there's good reason to believe the said contract represents NSR's [Neustar's] entire EBITDA profitability ... NSR isn't yet fully ready to recognize just how much profitability it stands to lose (hint: all of it)... NSR was charging nearly $500 million per year for something which is now being awarded ... for 7 years (at $142.9 million per year) … a reflection of the massive margins NSR is realizing on this contract ..."

Editor's note: the "new Neustar" is about to become a mere shadow of its former self. Neustar, which does business as Neustar Inc. and ARI Registry Services, is the largest new gTLDs backend registry services provider according to ntldstats.com/backend, but has been losing backend registry service contracts--Australia's ccTLD .au to Afilias beginning July 1, 2018, as well as some of the many terminated .BRAND new gTLDs.

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

a. ICANN people think they are rock stars spending millions on meetings around the world! | OnlineDomain.com

b. Internet Tax: South Dakota e-commerce sale tax fight reaches U.S. Supreme Court | Reuters.com

c. DNS: What Is Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS and How to Set It Up | tomsguide.com

d. Dark web more dangerous, more accessible than realized | La Vida | dailytoreador.com

e. Surveillance firm Terrogence, a US government vendor, has been building a massive facial recognition database from photos on Facebook, YouTube, and other sites--Forbes.com

f. Russian State-Sponsored Cyber Actors Targeting Network Infrastructure Devices | US-CERT.gov

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

1. News Review | ICANN vs EU? ICANN "Studying" Legal Action in Europe

2.  International VC Index Ventures Expanding Its Fintech Portfolio (video)

3. Tech Review | European Union 'Going Gangster' On Big Tech? (video)

4. The Riveter Co-Working Spaces for Women Entrepreneurs (video)

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER

News Review: After Cruz Attack, What Now For ICANN & IANA Transition?

Domain Mondo's weekly review of the news, analysis, and look ahead [pdf]: 

UPDATE Sep 22, 2016:  IANA Transition: Dead or Alive? High drama in D.C. TheHill.com reports that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has "dopped a provision championed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and backed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to block the Obama administration from ceding oversight of internet domain names to an international body." POLITICO.com confirms that: "Gone is the so-called ICANN provision, an internet-domain issue that had become a top priority for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other GOP senators and just got the seal of endorsement from GOP nominee Donald Trump." However, NYTimes.com reports the short-term spending bill that Congress is set to pass next week "will most likely include a provision championed by Senator Ted Cruz ... While many Democrats oppose the [Cruz] provision, it is not clear how many care enough to make it stop" (emphasis added). POLITICO.com does concede Cruz is urging allies in the U.S. House of Representatives to fight on and stop the IANA transition. We may not know for sure until next week.

UPDATE Sep 21, 2016: It appears the pro-transition lobbyists have either dropped the ball or didn't come to the game ready to play:

1. Trump enters the arena on ICANN | TheHill.com; Press release of September 21, 2016: Trump Opposes President Obama's Plan to Surrender American Internet Control to Foreign Powers | Donald J Trump for President | DonaldJTrump.com by Stephen Miller, National Policy Director for the Trump Campaign; TheHill.com also reports FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly now also want to delay the IANA transition;
2. Senate leaders say they are close to deal to prevent government shutdown: "The latest GOP offer also included a provision sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would delay plans for the U.S. government to give up control over a global nonprofit that oversees the internet domain system. Cruz told reporters that he is “cautiously optimistic” that it will be included in the final package."--WashingtonPost.com [Domain Mondo Editor's Note: read the WaPo article and one is left with the impression that Democrats are now willing to "trade away" their stance on the IANA transition for something else.]

UPDATE Sep 20, 2016: U.S. Senate lays groundwork for spending deal--"It's not [time for] a big debate for talking about how we change the internet forever ... It's not a time to try to satisfy Cruz because he doesn't get along with the caucus and they're trying to shut him up."--U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Minority Leader in TheHill.com.

________

Original post of Sep 18, 2016:
Feature •  After Cruz Attack, What Now For ICANN & IANA Transition? For more than a week U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has been dominating the news related to the IANA stewardship transition scheduled to be completed October 1, 2016 (after expiration of the IANA functions contract on September 30). From September 9th's US Senator Cruz Attacks ICANN, Fadi Chehadé, IANA Transition (video) through yesterday's Sen. Cruz Questions NTIA's Strickling, ICANN's Marby & Witnesses (videos), Domain Mondo's coverage has included a daily posting on this topic almost every day.

But now with less than two weeks left before September 30, the chance that Republicans in the House and Senate will actually derail the IANA transition is unlikely, for the following reasons:

1. The fact that this is an election year works in favor of the IANA transition--Republicans are looking to leave Washington soon to return to the campaign trail, reports TheHill.com.
2. The IANA transition is not a hot-button issue in this campaign season. Most Americans don't even know who or what ICANN is, much less the IANA transition, and don't care. The headline in the Washington Post sums it all up: Ted Cruz has made an obscure Internet agency his first post-presidential crusade. In Election 2016, it's about the economy, stupid:



Election 2016 top issues in search by state, past week | Google Trends 

3. Ted Cruz is a pariah even in his own party. Cruz was invited and spoke at the Republican Convention in July but refused to endorse the Republican Party's Presidential nominee. Subsequently he was deemed persona non grata at the GOP gathering and even barred from entering GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson's suite at the Convention hall.
4. Cruz's grandstanding this past week may have been the "kiss of death" to the effort to delay the IANA transition. Although four key House and Senate Chairmen have indicated a preference  to extend the IANA functions contract for one year, how much political capital will they be willing to expend when it comes down to the wire?
5. Washington runs on lobbying money. I noted Friday that "preventing a 'competing' internet root may be the most compelling reason to not delay the IANA transition despite misgivings about ICANN or the IANA transition plan." None of the tech giants in the world, including those in China, want a competing root and everyone is looking to the U.S. tech giants (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) who are hardwired into K Street to "get the job done" (i.e., get the IANA transition completed).
6. Trump has no love for Cruz and now Trump is leading in the Presidential Race according to several polls: Trump cracks the Electoral College lock | POLITICO.com Sept. 15, 2016: "A new round of state polls shows Donald Trump suddenly has a path to 270 electoral votes [to win the Presidency] ... state polling averages, which can be lagging indicators, are beginning to show Trump in the lead."  Trump has never stated his position on the IANA stewardship transition and there is no reason for him to now. As I have previously noted, the Trump campaign's lawyer is Jones Day Partner Don McGahn (Jones Day is also legal counsel for ICANN). Perhaps even more important, Trump's go-to guy on tech matters is Peter Thiel who certainly doesn't want a competing internet root. If asked, Thiel would probably say ICANN, after 18 years, must have reached minimal viable product stage, so don't delay the IANA transition--see Can Monopolies Save The Internet? | BigThink.com at Harvard's Berkman Center: Peter Thiel vs. Jonathan Zittrain on globalization, monopolies, internet, Facebook, etc. (April 13, 2009). See also: Bilderberg People: Elite Power and Consensus in World Affairs | books.google.com. Under this reasoning, if ICANN falters post-transition, the U.S. government has an implied right to step back in as "historic steward of the internet" and do whatever is necessary to "right the ship." A key to this may have been the testimony of NTIA's Larry Strickling at the Cruz hearing that the U.S. did not want a registry agreement with ICANN for either .MIL or .GOV because the U.S. government did not want to concede or give up its "sovereignty" in those TLDs (top-level domains).
7. The most powerful person in the Republican Party right now may be Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC). The Trump campaign's national finance chairman (and likely future Secretary of the Treasury should Trump win) is Steven Mnuchin who has a lean staff but is using the RNC and all of its resources to raise money, not only for Trump, but for the Republican Party and all its candidates in all 50 states. While Hillary Clinton's campaign is running a separate huge fundraising operation out of the campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, Trump's fundraising flows through the RNC in Washington, D.C. They know all of this on Capitol Hill, and as Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” For that reason, you may continue to hear "noise" about the IANA transition but the real question is: "To whom should we make the checks payable?" See U.S. technology companies lobby for ICANN transition | SeekingAlpha.com.

Other ICANN, Internet Governance, and Domain Name News:

•  The Catalyst For The IANA Stewardship Transition: New Film Tells the Story of Edward Snowden; Here Are the Surveillance Programs He Helped Expose | TheIntercept.com.

•  DNS Forum | InternetPolicyForum.com: On September 14-15, Public Interest Registry, CENTR, LACTLD, i2Coalition, and ISOC-DC brought together a diverse group of experts to discuss the impacts of policy on DNS (domain name system) technical operators.  Panelists and audience members discussed the implications of privacy, security, and content policies for these technical operators and how the technical community can best engage in the evolving multistakeholder model of Internet governance. For complete agenda, video replay, and more information, go to the link above.

•  Verisign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) reported this week that at the close of Q2 2016 (June 30, 2016):

• The total number of registered domain names rose to 334.6 million worldwide across all top-level domains, of which new gTLDs (ngTLDs) domain names comprised only 22 million or 6.6% of all TLDs' domain names, and the top 10 ngTLDs represented 61.5 percent of all ngTLD domain name registrations.
• 7.9 million domain names were added to the Internet in Q2 2016: • This increase globally equates to a growth rate of 2.4% over Q1 2016 • Domain name registrations have grown by 38.2 million, or 12.9 percent, year over year.
• The .com and .net TLDs reached a combined total of approximately 143.2 million domain names in the domain name base in Q2’16 • The base of registered names in .com equaled 127.5 million names, while .net equaled 15.8 million names • Verisign processed 8.6 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net, as compared to 8.7 million domain names for the same period in 2015.
• Verisign’s average Domain Name System query load was 130 billion across all TLDs operated by Verisign, with a peak of 179 billion.
• Total ccTLD domain name registrations were approximately 149.9 million in the first quarter of 2016, with an increase of 1.4 million domain name registrations, or a 1.0 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2016. ccTLDs increased by approximately 11.7 million domain name registrations, or 8.5 percent, year over year. Without including .tk, ccTLD domain name registration growth quarter-over-quarter was 1.2 percent and growth year-over-year was 10.7 percent. 
• The top 10 ccTLDs, as of June 30, 2016, were .tk (Tokelau), .cn (China), .de (Germany), .uk (United Kingdom), .ru (Russian Federation), .nl (Netherlands), .br (Brazil), .eu (European Union), .au (Australia) and .fr (France).
• As of June 30, 2016, there were 292 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root, including Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), with the top 10 ccTLDs composing 67.3 percent of all ccTLD domain name registrations. 

Verisign had previously reported that at the close of Q1 2016 (March 31, 2016), the base of registered names in .com equaled 126.6 million names, while .net equaled 15.9 million names. Accordingly, .net registrations decreased by about 100,000 (net) in Q2 2016, while .com registrations increased by about 900,000 domain names (net) in Q2 2016. For more information, copies of the Q2 2016 DNIB, or to view past reports, go to VerisignInc.com/DNIB.

•  ICANN's new consolidated page for community feedback on various issues: Operational Consultations | ICANN.org.

•  ICANN published its Global Registrant Survey Final Phase Results (pdf). More information here. Results may be questionable based upon methodology alone:

ICANN Global Registrant Surveywave 2 | AUGUST 2016, p. 5

Apparently ICANN commissions these kinds of studies to generate a mostly useless report in an attempt to justify ICANN's mistakes or reinforce existing policies. Vendors, like Nielsen, usually understand this. Manipulation ("adjustment") of methodology and data are well known techniques. In this case, the report did confirm a few things we already knew:

• Reported registration of new gTLDs is highest in the Asia Pacific region.
• ".COM continues to be the most favored legacy domain name among registrants. Declines are seen for several of the less common gTLDs but these already have very low reported registrations." (p.22 of 182)
• Many would-be registrants choose alternative identities (e.g., social media handles) over domain names.
• About 17 percent of the respondents said they did not renew a domain in favor of using an alternative method for managing an online identity.

•   TheDomains.com reports Frank Schilling's North Sound Names is dropping 230,000 new gTLD domain names from its portfolio, which probably accounts for the decreases we are seeing in Uniregistry's new gTLDs' registration numbers like .FLOWERS and .PROPERTY.

•  No Comments close this coming week at ICANN.

Tech News:

1. Fans cheer, but iPhone 7 gets a subdued welcome--Reuters.com. See also Apple Japan unit ordered to pay $118 million tax for underreporting income: media | Reuters.com.
2. Coaltion for Better Ads (IAB, Google and others), formed as a direct response to ad blocking, the coalition will act as a "kind of regulator for internet ads"--BusinessInsider.com.
3. The Internet’s Own Instigator | BackChannel.com: "Malamud can’t abide 112's waffling on the copyright issue, saying that “to the extent the material is subject to copyright protection, the agency must get authorization…for public access to that material.” To Malamud, if the standard is part of the law, there can be no copyright. Period."
4. Project Sand Hill: Google’s Unknown Campaign to Track the World’s Hottest Startups | WIRED.com. See also: Thoughts on Alphabet, one year in | BusinessInsider.com: So far it's been a BIG Loser but see The Wall Street Veteran Who's Helping Google Get Disciplined | Fortune.com.
5. The blockchain industry is either hugely under-resourced or hugely over-optimistic. Probably both--Blockchain's Numbers Don't Add Up | Bloomberg.com.
6. GM Bolt vs Tesla Model 3? Metrics Make The Difference | SeekingAlpha.com.
7. Deal of the Month: HP Enterprise [US] strikes $8.8 billion deal with Micro Focus [UK] for [HPE's] software assets | Reuters.com.
8. Yahoo Inc. ("RemainCo") after the Verizon sale? Cash + marketable securities + shares in Alibaba, Yahoo Japan, other minority equity investments + IP assets held in Excalibur, AND it will be a company with a new ticker.--SeekingAlpha.com 

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

1. News Review [11Sep]: IANA Transition Drama in D.C. and ICANN & Zika
2. IANA Transition Hearing: Implications of Ending US Oversight of the Internet
3. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz vs ICANN and IANA Transition: Veni, Vidi, Vici ?
4. US Senator Cruz Attacks ICANN, Fadi Chehadé, IANA Transition (video)

Macro view:

1. Deutsche Bank will most likely be bailed out by the German government or the ECB. It will not be allowed to topple and shatter the global financial system but its shares and CoCos will be “bailed in” before taxpayers get hit.--Deutsche Bank’s CoCo Bonds Speak of Fear of the Worst | WolfStreet.com
2. Federal Reserve policy affecting elections is hardly a novel concept. At the recent central banker’s summit in Jackson Hole, former Democrat Congressman Barney Frank, told the Fed, “Don’t raise rates before the election.”--Why The Fed Destroyed The Market Economy | ZeroHedge.com
3. Tax Avoidance Is Part of the Recipe for National & Global Income Inequality: 1) The less affluent must pay their payroll taxes and income taxes in full; 2) The more affluent utilize tax avoidance schemes conveniently provided by governments, that also allow corporations to utilize offshore companies to "hide" or "transfer" profits to low-tax and no-tax jurisdictions; 3) Total effect of the taxation system is regressive, even without adding the inherently regressive effects of sales and value-added taxes. "The phenomenon of rising inequality in affluent societies may not need much additional explaining – and it hardly matters if those were tax-avoidance or tax-evasion trillions."--Hidden assets from the Panama Papers | the-tls.co.uk.
4. Central Bankers, Savers & Investors: Martin Lück, strategist at Blackrock: the ECB's actions are having the opposite effect of the spending spree intended. Falling interest rates cause people to save more rather than less in order to secure their pensions, while investors, including insurers and pension funds, have to enter ever higher risks to secure ROI.--Deutsche Bank CEO Warns Of "Fatal Consequences"...| ZeroHedge.com

4 Other Reading Recommendations:

1. Peter Thiel in the WashingtonPost.com: "The establishment doesn’t want to admit it, but Trump’s heretical denial of Republican dogma about government incapacity is exactly what we need to move the party — and the country — in a new direction. For the Republican Party to be a credible alternative to the Democrats’ enabling, it must stand for effective government, not for giving up on government."
2. "Two basic principles of management, and regulation, and life, are: 1. You get what you measure. 2. The thing that you measure will get gamed ... "--Wells Fargo Opened a Couple Million Fake Accounts | Bloomberg.com.
3. Why One Hedge Fund Is Once Again Preparing For The End Of The Euro | ZeroHedge.com
4. What successful and happy people focus on: "They don’t let anyone limit their joy. When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from comparing yourself to others, you are no longer the master of your own happiness."--weforum.org

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER

Hillary Clinton Endorses Obama's IANA Stewardship Transition, Reaction

Hillary Clinton endorses the multistakeholder model & the #IANA transition in her Technology & Innovation Initiative:https://t.co/ziyHwbHpFX

— KonstantinosKomaitis (@kkomaitis) June 28, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s Initiative on Technology & Innovation includes explicit support for IANA transition https://t.co/Sb88mZHHOj #icann #igf

— byron holland (@cira001) June 28, 2016

Hillary Clinton's Initiative on Technology & Innovation  https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2016/06/27/hillary-clintons-initiative-on-technology-innovation/ [Note that Clinton does not mention explicitly "ICANN" nor "IANA" but her reference to "transition" is clearly a reference to the IANA transition]:

"Promote Multi-Stakeholder Internet Governance: Hillary believes that internet governance – the coordination of the technical systems that allow the internet to function seamlessly across the globe – should be left to the global community of engineers, companies, civil society groups, and internet users, and not to governments. That is why as Secretary of State she championed the “multistakeholder approach” to internet governance and vigorously fought back against efforts by national governments to control the internet through government-led multilateral organizations, such as the International Telecommunications Union. She supports the Department of Commerce’s plans to formally transition its oversight role in the management of the Domain Name System to the global community of stakeholders*, viewing the transition as a critical step towards safeguarding the internet’s openness for future generations. She will continue to fight to defend the internet from government takeover and to empower those internet governance organizations that advance internet openness, freedom, and technical innovation." (emphasis added)

*The term "global community of stakeholders" a/k/a "global multistakeholder community" a/k/a "global internet community" as used here just means ICANN, a California corporation controlled by the domain name industry and other special interests (lobbyists and lawyers), which is neither reflective of, nor representative of, the values and interests of the real global multistakeholder community. For example, the vast majority of domain name registrants (who fund most of ICANN's budget via fees charged for each domain name registration and renewal) have no stakeholder group representation within ICANN's main policy-making body known as the Generic Names Supporting Organization or GNSO. ICANN stakeholders have acknowledged the GNSO is "broken" and there is a "massive power imbalance" within ICANN. That was one of the main reasons the ICANN Board of Directors rejected all proposals for a membership model for ICANN in the course of the IANA transition and ICANN accountability (WS1) planning process: see Why the ICANN Board Does NOT Support the Single Member Model | DomainMondo.com (2 Oct 2015): "... A recommendation requiring a substantial governance restructuring will suggest that ICANN is currently broken -- a politically risky message going into the transition ..." 

Akram Atallah, the current President of the money-making arm of ICANN, known as the "Global Domains Division," has even said new gTLD registry operators are the "customers" of ICANN, and his crony, former ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade, said ICANN is a "partner" of the for-profit new gTLDs domain name industry and its lobbyist organization. 

The IANA Transition has now become a fully "politicized" issue in U.S. politics, with the Obama administration and the Democratic presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, pushing the IANA transition, while Republicans in Congress are questioning whether the transition, as proposed, is premature, unconstitutional, or illegal. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's position, as the Republican presumptive nominee, is unknown, although he may be in an awkward position since his campaign's legal counsel is Jones Day, the same law firm that also represents ICANN, see Jones Day: Helping Donald Trump To Make America Great Again | AboveTheLaw.com.

Reference:
For more on use of the term "Global Multistakeholder Community" as a misnomer and false narrative by ICANN, NTIA, and the Obama administration to "package & sell" the IANA transition, see: News Review [24Apr2016]: ICANN Bylaws, Comments, ICANN Chairman's Op-ed Flops | DomainMondo.com.

One reaction to Hillary Clinton's endorsement of the IANA transition:

Hope this is not the kiss of death ;-) https://t.co/xkFnOhp91k

— Milton Mueller (@miltonmueller) June 28, 2016

Where this may all lead:

At #ICANN56 @ICANNAtLarge and Trademark constituency say ICANN is mature enough to be proactive in content regulation. Mission creep?

— Milton Mueller (@miltonmueller) June 28, 2016

Caveat Emptor.

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DISCLAIMER

ICANN and the Global Public Interest, A Contradiction in Terms

ICANN--the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers--and the Global Public Interest, a Contradiction in Terms?

Efforts by some within ICANN to "define" (and thereby "restrict") the term "public interest" is a misguided, ill-advised, attempt to supplant the proper role of governments, and will most likely result in a definition favorable to the clients and employers of the lawyers-lobbyists-stakeholders who infest, and have largely captured, ICANN structures and processes, principally representing domain name industry and other special interests, all to the actual detriment of the global internet community and the global public interest.

Multistakeholderism, insofar as it applies to ICANN, is just another term for regulatory capture (Wikipedia):

"Regulatory capture is a form of political corruption that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating." (emphasis added)

A prime example of ICANN regulatory capture is ICANN's new gTLDs program, which was designed and implemented primarily for purposes of making money for ICANN (for exorbitant salaries, exploding budget, staff levels, etc.), and the domain name industry, principally, new gTLD registry operators, registry service providers, and registrars. The dramatic increase in costs to members of the global internet community to defend against what ICANN enabled by adding over a 1000 new gTLDs to the global DNS, from cybercrimes to trademark infringement a/k/a cybersquatting, matters little to ICANN. By the time legal processes have caught up with the offenders, ICANN, together with the registry operators and registrars, have all collected their respective fees from the abusive domain name registrations and do not have to pay one cent to the victims in the global internet community. ICANN and the new gTLD domain name industry, in effect, constitute a public nuisance, making money by enabling and providing the platforms by which global bad actors, from terrorists to cybercriminals to cybersquatters, profit by exploiting the global economy and the global internet community. It's all win-win, wink-wink, for ICANN and ICANN's partners (@5:35 and 33:06) a/k/a ICANN's customers, or at least, was supposed to be. Read more at ICANN's Boondoggle | MIT Technology Review, August 21, 2012 and ICANN Damaged a Competitive Domain Name Market With Its New gTLDs | DomainMondo.com. ICANN and its domain name industry 'partners' are engaging in rentier capitalism at its worst--"as the economy becomes more and more about information, the crucial ends of capital holders is to take things that could [and should] belong to the commons and instead appropriate them as property rights and sell them off..." 

"ICANN is an organization rooted in the private sector (including civil society) with governments in an advisory capacity. In the Affirmation of Commitments of 2009, ICANN committed itself to act in the global public interest. ICANN is a bottom-up organisation which has its origins in one country and is driven by a community that is dominated by the domain industry and other special interests ... a discussion has started in ICANN about how to better understand the notion of global public interest and how to improve its accountability mechanisms so that the global public interest is better reflected in its decisions ..."  -- Thomas Schneider, Swiss cyber-diplomat and the Chairman of ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC); Geneva Digital Watch: Issue 5, November 2015 (pdf),(links and emphasis added).

Contrast ICANN Board Chairman Steve Crocker's letter below with ICANN's current denial in a U.S. District Court of any public interest in new gTLD applications and processes, i.e., the new gTLD guidebook, which resulted from ICANN policy-making! See News Review: dotAFRICA, Public Interest, Judge Holds ICANN Accountable | DomainMondo.com.

ICANN Board Chairman Steve Crocker's letter to GNSO Council Chair James Bladel, 12 April 2016 (emphasis added):

"... historically at ICANN, there has been no explicit definition of the term “global public interest,” the Board has understood the term within the context of Paragraph 3 of the [ICANN] Articles of Incorporation:

“In furtherance of the foregoing purposes, and in recognition of the fact that the Internet is an international network of networks, owned by no single nation, individual or organization, the Corporation [ICANN] shall, except as limited by Article 5 hereof, pursue the charitable and public purposes of lessening the burdens of government and promoting the global public interest in the operational stability of the Internet by (i) coordinating the assignment of Internet technical parameters as needed to maintain universal connectivity on the Internet; (ii) performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the Internet Protocol("IP") address space; (iii) performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the Internet domain name system ("DNS"), including the development of policies for determining the circumstances under which new top-level domains are added to the DNS root system; (iv) overseeing operation of the authoritative Internet DNS root server system; and (v) engaging in any other related lawful activity in furtherance of items (i) through (iv).” (emphasis added)

"... Future conversation and work on exploring the public interest within ICANN’s remit will require
global, multistakeholder, bottom-up discussion and I am glad to see the GNSO Council, along with other groups, is already taking a keen interest in these next steps."--Letter embedded below (yellow highlighting added):

Resources:

• Exploring the Public Interest within ICANN's Remit Home - Exploring the Public Interest within ICANN's Remit - WIKI Page (information, resources, links)
• The Public Interest Mailing List Archives

See also on Domain Mondo:

• News Review: dotAFRICA, Public Interest, Judge Holds ICANN Accountable 17 Apr 2016
• ICANN Accountability, What Is The Global Public Interest (GPI)? 23 Dec 2015
• ICANN, Domain Industry, Special Interests, and the Global Public Interest 4 Nov 2015
• ICANN, Public Interest, New gTLDs Registry Operator Code of Conduct 12 Aug 2015
• ICANN, Dysfunction, the Public Interest, and the IANA Transition 7 Apr 2015
• ICANN, the Internet, and Acting in the Global Public Interest 16 Mar 2015
• ALAC Call for Freeze on New gTLDs, Safeguards, Public Interest, All Disregarded by ICANN 15 Dec 2014
• Tim Berners-Lee on ICANN, new gTLDs, public interest 18 May 2014

Below is the slide Presentation from ICANN 55, Marrakech, March 7, 2016, Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit:



Session Overview: Discussions on the topic of the "public interest within ICANN's remit" and potential definitions of this term have been ongoing for years. In 2013-2014, the Strategy Panel on Public Responsibility Framework, led by Nii Quaynor, explored this topic. Based on community input at sessions and webinars, the Panel defined the global public interest in relation to the Internet as: "ensuring that the Internet becomes, and continues to be, stable, inclusive, and accessible across the globe so that all may enjoy the benefits of a single and open Internet. In addressing its public responsibility, ICANN must build trust in the Internet and its governance ecosystem." While some recommended the report, at individual and ICANN meetings, and at ICANN 52 in particular, it is evident there is a need and a desire to revisit this topic. Given limits on bandwidth for additional projects, and given the intense focus on other ongoing dialogues, a wikispace was established as a resource space for all to populate with background documents that will be useful in guiding this conversation forward. As set out in the ICANN Operating and Strategic Plans, ICANN will be facilitating a conversation in Financial Year 16 to explore the "public interest" within ICANN's mission and mandate, and this High Interest Session will form an important part of this work.

Archival Media of March 7, 2016, ICANN55 "Public Interest" Session: 
Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit | Adobe Connect: Full [EN] Virtual Meeting Room Stream Archive English
Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit | Livestream: Full [EN] Virtual Meeting Room Stream Archive English
Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit | Audio: Full [AR] Audio Stream Archive العربية
Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit | Audio: Full [EN] Audio Stream Archive English
Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit | Audio: Full [ES] Audio Stream Archive Español
Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit | Audio: Full [FR] Audio Stream Archive Français
Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit | Audio: Full [PT] Audio Stream Archive Português
Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit | Audio: Full [RU] Audio Stream Archive Русский
Exploring the "Public Interest" Within ICANN's Remit | Audio: Full [ZH] Audio Stream Archive 简体中文


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News Review: France Blasts IANA Proposal, Berkman to Assess ICANN

Domain Mondo's review of the past week and look ahead--[pdf of this post here]--with major markets closed on Good Friday throughout much of the world (including the U.S.), the news cycle was shortened, and many were enjoying their three-day holiday weekend and spring weather in the northern hemisphere. Nevertheless, things continued to churn and turn in domain world:

This past week, the government of France did the world (and Congress) a favor and exposed the false narrative ICANN has been pushing since ICANN55 that 'all Chartering organizations approved the IANA Transition proposal'--#FALSE, GAC did not 'approve'--by blasting the IANA transition & ICANN accountability proposal. The office of French Secretary of State for Digital, Axelle Lemaire, issued a press release (pdf)--Google's English translation here--and the French press widely reported the French government's dissatisfaction with the proposal now being assessed by the US government (NTIA). The following excerpts are from French media (translated from the original French):

• Le Figaro: Negotiations for a new Internet governance result in "unsatisfactory" solution, according to the [French] Ministry of Foreign Affairs ... Secretary of State for Digital, Axelle Lemaire, said Thursday the proposal "marginalized" the role of governments in ICANN, strengthening , ultimately, the U.S. stranglehold on the internet;
• Le Monde: France denounces IANA Transition Plan as a "privatization" of global Internet governance in favor of special interest lobbyists [full text English translation here];
• Silicon.fr: "France calls on the US government, which must now examine this reform project, to give greater attention to the concerns expressed by many nations. It will also be particularly attentive to the continuing work to improve the accountability of ICANN as part of the "Work Stream 2", particularly on strengthening the geographical diversity and the fight against conflicts of interest." 
• LesEchos.fr: For France, Internet governance is in the hands of GAFA* "... the Foreign Ministry is very disappointed with the turn of events. According to France, it is like giving control of the Internet to private actors ... Paris denounces the roles taken by lobbyists in the process in recent months and regrets that the role of governments is still reduced within ICANN ... the GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee) will have to vote unanimously. A complicated imperative to keep ... "The Americans gave with one hand, and took back with the other" concludes one in Paris ... Other problematic issues, starting with the diversity of ICANN as too Anglo-Saxon [that's a pejorative in France for American-British or English-speaking], its lack of transparency and difficult litigation procedures, lengthy, costly and favoring U.S. companies - ICANN is a California corporation and will remain so..."

*Note: The term "GAFA" (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) is also used loosely for what some call American cultural imperialism, particularly in the context of the U.S. government advancing the interests of Silicon Valley, i.e., U.S. technology companies--see, e.g., They Made Him a Moron | The Baffler, about Alec Ross, innovation adviser to (then) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton--"... This book by the State Department’s former innovation adviser merely attests to the intellectual bankruptcy of the term “innovation,” which in the hands of people like Ross has ceased to have any substantive meaning ... I soon became a critic of the U.S. government’s “Internet freedom agenda,” while Ross and his colleague and friend Jared Cohen (then on the policy planning staff of the State Department and now the head of Google Ideas) embarked on adventures so reckless and ridiculous, so obsequious to the interests of Silicon Valley and offensive to anyone well-versed in the diplomatic trade, that some career staffers at the State Department began to ridicule, anonymously, of course, their cluelessness on social media ..."

On Wednesday, March 23, the U.S. government published its award of a contract between the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society | Harvard University to provide an independent review and assessment of  ICANN "a non-profit corporate governance structure designed for a multistakeholder setting" in support of NTIA's broader evaluation and assessment of the proposal to enhance ICANN's accountability related to the IANA Stewardship Transition .... "This contract requires the contractor to have detailed knowledge and a thorough understanding of ICANN, a California-based, non-profit corporation that currently performs the IANA functions and manages these technical functions through a governance model in which a multistakeholder community--interested parties from all over the world and from multiple sectors and industries, including technical, government, business, and public-interest organizations--develop policies that support how the Internet DNS is operated ..." According to the notice, Congress mandated this review, which is to be completed by June 30, 2016, although the award is 'anticipated' to last for five months.

Berkman Center for Internet & Society | Harvard University also conducted the 2010 Independent Review of ICANN Accountability and Transparency, finding many problems within ICANN, and made recommendations, some of which were never implemented by ICANN.

Meanwhile, implementation work required by the IANA Transition & ICANN Accountability (WS1) Proposal proceeds at ICANN and within its "ICANN community." ICANN also posted on Friday, March 25, a Call for Volunteers: Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) Implementation and Work Stream 2 (WS2).

Below is the tentative timeline for the IANA transition and ICANN Accountability Work Stream 1 (WS1) work, going forward:

IANA Transition Tentative Timeline (source: Congressional Testimony)

Also this past week the GNSO's PDP (policy development process) to review all rights protection mechanisms (e.g., URS and UDRPs) in gTLDs began to organize--with the work divided into 2 phases:

"Phase One will focus on a review of all the RPMs that were developed for the New gTLD Program (i.e. the Trademark Clearinghouse and associated notification and sunrise mechanisms, the Uniform Rapid Suspension procedure, and the Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedures), and Phase Two will focus on a review of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)." (source: ICANN, link added)

For more information see Call for Volunteers: New GNSO Policy Development Process Working Group to Review All Rights Protection Mechanisms in All gTLDs - ICANN (March 21, 2016), the Charter (pdf), the List of Members & Observers - Review of RPMs in all gTLDs PDP Working Group, and Review of all Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all gTLDs PDP Working Group webpage.

This past Thursday auDA, Australia's policy authority and industry self-regulatory body for the .au top-level domain, published a brief note on its website, announcing longtime CEO, and prominent member of ICANN's Board of Directors, Chris Disspain, had been replaced by Jo Lim (current Chief Operations and Policy Officer) as interim CEO, while the Board undertakes an executive search for a new CEO:

"The Board of auDA (.au Domain Administration Ltd) announced today that it was ending the contract of CEO, Chris Disspain. Mr Disspain’s contract was due for renewal later this year, but the Board agreed new leadership was required to take the organisation forward. The Board acknowledged and thanked Mr. Disspain, as founding CEO of auDA, for the hard work and visionary leadership he has demonstrated throughout his tenure, helping to cement the organisation’s standing as a one of the world’s best practice ccTLD managers..." (source: auDA)

* * * * * * *

Five most popular posts/pages at DomainMondo.com this past week (# of pageviews Sun-Sat):

1. News Review [March 20]: ICANN, IANA, NTIA, Congress, the American People (this post attracted, by far, the largest U.S. and global readership for most of the week); 
2. Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology, Congressional Hearing Video
3. Election2016 (our 'backpage' coverage of 2016 US Presidential politics in this year of the IANA Transition--edited by analyst @UnderMyPalm--opinions are his own);
4. Fintech Startup Stash: Investment App for Millennials
5. (tie) New gTLD AFRICA: DotConnectAfrica Trust vs ICANN, End of the Line? (to be updated after the April 4th hearing in LA); and Mobile Connectivity Explosion, Internet of Things, Cybersecurity, IoT (video).

Have a great week!

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo


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