From what we hear, Afilias staff think the responsibility for more than 10,000 instances
of cybersquatting during Sunrise rests with the frauds whose applications were processed
into orders by its registrars and then processed by their registry into registrations.
They just can't imagine why the Internet community and the Landrush applicants in
particular think they are either incompetent or criminally complicit in the flood
of cybersquatting. Let's be charitable and say that gauging by the way the .info
Sunrise has been managed to date, the Afilias executive is incompetent.
Why then
when Afilias is the only one who doesn't believe they have a problem with their registry
in tatters with more than 10,000 instances of fraud, should Afilias be left to check
their registrations and purge the cybersquatters.
As Afilias must take responsibility
for permitting, facilitating, aiding and abetting the largest incidence of cybersquatting
the Internet has ever seen, it would be very dangerous to leave it to Afilias to
untertake the checking of its registry for frauds.
While a cloud hangs over the
capability and the fitness of the Afilias executive to effectively manage the .info
registry, an independent auditor should be appointed by ICANN to restore the integrity
of the registry and to provide the relevant authorities with the details of each
case of fraud in order that each can be dealt with by the court system.
However,
ICANN's apparent lack of concern or lethargy over the shambolic events that have
marked the .info rollout to date make one think that there are influences within
ICANN which will preclude appropriate action at this stage by the DNS regulatory
authority to make Afilias start managing the remainder of the rollout in an ethical
and responsible manner.
First move should be the postponement of the Landrush phase
until and independent auditor has completed a check of all Sunrise applications,
then and only then, once the integrity of the registry has been re-established should
Landrush proceed.
As matters stand on the eve of Landrush, Afilias has 250,000
preregistrations for Landrush names, presumably having purged the preregistrations
for all names registered in Sunrise. It is possible that as many as that, another
250,000 preregistrations have been purged and effectively voided for the more than
10,000 fraudulently register names in Sunrise.
The Landrushers deserved better.
The Internet community deserved better.
Why should anyone expect there to be changes
for the better until there is an examination of the links between Afilias and ICANN
and the managment of both entities?
Heaven help the Landrushers - as they apparently
have no allies at Afilias or ICANN.