Dot-org price-cap scrap latest: Now ICANN accused of snubbing registrars with 'sham' public comment process Internet oversight body ICANN has been accused by one of its biggest backers of undermining its public benefit remit in a recent decision to lift price caps on all .org domains. The world's second largest registrar Namecheap has filed a formal "request for reconsideration" over the controversial decision and argues that ICANN …
No, the real solution is to fork and replace ICANN. That this is impossible, given the competing and generally self-serving major interests which would need to come together to do so, is what gives ICANN the boldness to raise the Jolly Roger in this and many other decisions.
Most features of the Internet [Protocol] can work their way around obstacles because it was designed to be de-centralised and dynamic. The problem is that the root node is necessarily a singularity in this design. It's like the feudal system, where the king owns everything and everyone else is just a tenant, albeit with intermediate landlords too. King ICANN can charge whatever rent it likes.
Having a new domain doesn't solve it. Companies and people who have built a reputation based in an established place in cyberspace can't move any more easily than when they have built factories and houses on land.
Maybe we need a Magna Carta for the Internet.
I reckon if some of the DNS servers started supporting a 2nd TLD system in conjunction with the current one then the porn sites could use it and the football TV piracy servers. The people interested in those subjects can solve any technical issue if their favourite sport is involved.
I think there was a best practice meeting
Emotional abusers and dictators seem to follow a code of practice too. CS Lewis had it right:
“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different the saints.”
The interesting part is how they don't actually seem to know one another...
It's ICANN as usual.
It doesn't have to follow any rules, it can do what it likes, and it ought to be scrapped and some decent and morally clean organisation devised to replace it with a guarantee that none of the current board members can ever be connected in any way with the new organisation.
That's what I've thought for a very long time.
That's great, but it won't work. The board members aren't diabolically evil people who conspired to get in; they got in then decided to be evil about things. If you get rid of them, you could easily replace them with a different set of people who have the exact same attitude. If we can get some method for external validation of decisions and external control to prevent abuses, we shouldn't have to bother wasting time preventing the current board from rejoining, because even if they did, they couldn't do this kind of thing again.
When it looked like ICANN was about to authorise this potential rip off I renewed my .org for 10 years at the old prices. With luck ICANN will have been replaced by a competent organisation with a public service ethos by 2029. If not, given my health I probably won't be around to care.
This is nothing more than a trade union dispute. One of the members, Namecheap, is peeved and now uses the public as a shield.
It's rather funny to see Namecheap use consumer interest as an excuse when they have historically sponsored most of the badness on the net. Most recently they were ousted again by SpamHaus. Other groups report similarly. I have daily spam in my mailbox with names sponsored by, you guessed it, Namecheap.
It's rather funny to see Namecheap and RIchard complain about policy when they have been the biggest ones to ignore policies.
Elliot Noss at Tucows had a similar rant, yet ignores policy violations on .org by them.
Of course that does not stop any efforts to rename ICANN to ICANNT, who just looks out for maximum profits.
As such I'n not taking this trade union dispute seriously.
Nobody's arguing the registrars are perfect. I'm sure we can all point out times they've been annoying. However, in this dispute between companies, we, the public, are coming off the worse for it. It is we who purchase domains, we who shouldn't have to pay more when the costs haven't changed, and we who will have to deal with the price increases. That there are large and imperfect entities on our side doesn't mean the argument is irrelevant.
Because name calling is literally all you have.
You're not even going to advance an argument to support ICANN, just put the whole thing in a box labelled "evil socialism" and it's job done.
Still, I guess it's reassuring to see that that bs doesn't work on every area of the internet.
Yet.
Name calling may be approriate, but not the case here. As an owner of many .org domain names this may affect my personal back pocket.
But to understand my comments is to understand why annual losses to domain abuse flourishes with Namecheap taking the lead for such losses, while ICANN does squat. Even a significant domain price increase will not cause all the losses just attribuatable to Namecheap.
So, if I'm to take ICANN policy seriously, both these role players need to first take it seriously. Short of that it's all about profits and who gets in the the trade union.
jira.domain.com, now offers something.jira.domain.com The Register 
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