Seems to me to be several
levels of fraud and fraudsters now in the public eye. First is the poor,
silly individuals, who registered one or just a few names - most likely after seeing
the number of names being fraudulently taken in the .info Sunrise phase by organised
and well cashed-up squatters, or, at the urging of those registrars who sent us emails
proposing that a fraudulent Sunrise application was likely to be rewarded as it was
unlikely to be challenged.
Second - the registrars who acted as provocateurs and
encouraged the fraud of the first category.
Third - those registrars who, gauging
by the way in which they designed their web sites and and withheld information, never
gave the average person much of a chance. I am sure there are people, who having
encountered the webs and the practices of some of the worst cases in this category,
will never again attempt domain investment and be very wary of making future purchases
on the net.
Fourth - those registrars who, not satisfied just to take sometimes
monster pre- reg and registration fees, submitted applications on their own behalf.
Fifth
- those individuals and groups who set about the wholesale plundering of the generic
names in the English language and heavens knows how many others, through a fraud
which collectively may be the biggest the net has seen or will see for a long while
- if measured in terms of the names market values - assuming they had been acquired
legally.
Sixth - those influential people in Afilias who obviously misled ICANN
into believing they had the experience and ability to run a registry effectively.
Seventh
and finally - those people in ICANN who are not effective, who approved the detail
of the Afilias roll out, and like those in Six above - misled their political
masters into believing they had the experience, ability and integrity to oversee
and ethically regulate their industry in a manner to ensure its continuing viability
and vitality and to not bring it into disrepute.
I feel sorry, very sorry, for
the members of ICANN and Afilias who are honest and able people, and I am aware that
there are registrars who are exemplars of ethical practice and professionalism.
However,
that said, as a Landrush applicant with my "top ten" names stolen by fraudsters in
the Sunrise phase and looking like having to kiss my eight months of work and a great
deal of money good bye, not to mention the dreams of business advantage were I lucky
enough to win the lottery - I can't be sympathetic for very long.
I remain hopeful
that there will be an announcement very soon from Afilias or ICANN, that the integrity
of the .info registry will be re-established, through Afilias's purging of all fraudulent
Sunrise registrations, before the Landrush phase begins, or, that a system is implemented
whereby the original and reasonable expectations of the Landrush applicants are acknowledged
as in the proposal being called the Simple Solution.
Fraud should not be ignored,
and must not be rewarded.
As gauged by the events of the Afilias .info roll out,
neither ICANN nor Afilias as they are currently constituted and managed are up to
the task.
I hope that everyone with a grievance rising from this fiasco will notify
a journalist or news agency every day as I am doing, and continue to write to ICANN
and try to network as much pressure as possible upon ICANN and Afilias, so that there
will be a short term equitable solution for the Landrush and legitimate Sunrise applicants.
For
the longer term, the more media attention this fraud receives now, the greater the
chance there will be changes to management and management practices at both Afilias
and ICANN which will make them both responsible and reliable entities at a future
date.
It is pretty much up to you as to whether there is likely to be the necessary
changes, or we continue to have Afiliass* - the place the world goes to see incompetence
- and ISCAM - Internet's Centre for Amateur Management.
*Thanks to another poster.