Each day we get a better appreciation of the scale of the fraud overseen by Afilias
and ICANN - and the days tick away until the start of the September 12 Landrush with
the Afilias registry in tatters - a registry which is not much more than a record
of those prepared to break TM laws and the guidelines governing registrar participation
in the Sunrise phase.At the time of writing, Afilias has yet to confirm that it
has taken steps to protect the interests of the Landrush applicants.
In the absence
of more information from Afilias, and given their shameful performance to date, Landrush
applicants should expect Afilias to purge their applications for names which were
fraudulently taken by others in Sunrise, and that each and every registrar with whom
names were pre-registered will take administration fees from your refunds.
Without
Afilias advice that Landrush is to be postponed until the integrity of the .info
registry is re-established - or that a Landrush is to be conducted according to a
Dombase style proposal - we have to assume that Afilias and ICANN just want the honest
Landrushers to f*ck-off and die.
I think all we can do at this stage is to bring
pressure to bear on Afilias/ICANN to acknowledge their responsibilities to the Landrushers
and make an announcement soon that our investments in time, energy and money will
be rewarded with a the chance to win names that are currently registered to frauds
- without us paying admin fees on purged applications and without us having to pay
fees again for another Landrush or to do battle in a real time release of currently
fraudulently registered names.
Those in ICANN and Afilias responsible for this
fiasco (an extraordinarily lucrative fiasco for them) are not your average Jacks
and Jills - so I don't know how effective appealing to them to make amends for what
has happened to date will be.
A normal person would want to salvage something of
their professional standing from this mess and make sure that errors weren't compounded
- as will be the case if on September 12 the Landrush starts without participation
of Landrush applications for Sunrise registered names.
However, personal emails
to the major players requesting a public anouncement by Afilias indicating that the
Landrushers have not wasted their time and money and that their Landrush pre-regsitrations
will be effective in the running of Landrush may be about all can be done at this
stage.
Seeking Afilias confirmation that Landrush applications for fraudulently
registered names are being preserved and will have standing when the frauds are purged
must be the highest priority at this late stage.
Next must be the lodging of as
many complaints with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) at https://www.ifccfbi.gov/default.asp
Some
of the forms are tedious - but hell - not half as bad as some of the registrar's
forms you have completed.
To save some time when mailing the IFCC and the media,
make certain you have already cut and pasted into a single document the URLs of the
relevant web sites.
Maintain your rage!!