Most of the events taking place today were predicted as
evidenced by the comments from this past ICANN forum. http://forum.icann.org/tldapps/39DFA1CE00000019.html
Without
a doubt the level of incompetence and corruption is actually worse than I imagined.
In
regard to Afilias and ICANN overall we are witnessing sheer incompetence at the very
least and total corruption at the worst however it's more likely a combination of
both with corruption gaining in prominence with every passing day. There is no other
explanation.
The formation of Afilias along with ICANN's consideration of it as
a choice in itself flies smack in the face of spirit of real competition let alone
ICANN's subsequent approval of Afilias, which undermines one of the very reasons
for holding the process to begin with.
We are led to believe that the people of
ICANN are highly educated and yet they ignored the fact that Afilias constitutes
the makings of a wider and more dangerous monopoly makes them suspect. The chances
of Afilias engaging in anti-competitive behavior such as collusion and price fixing
is highly probable and yet this cartel is what they represent to the world as their
view of competition
Being that these are “highly educated individuals” makes it
improbable to accept these events as merely incompetence. Keep in mind the plan is
for them to "explain" it away under the guise of a "proof of concept"
Incompetence
is one thing but let's call it what it is, Corruption.
What would you call
it, incompetence or corruption when ICANN has done nothing to insure that Afilias
lives up to the claims it made in it’s application such as domain registration fees
under $6?
In fact other applicants were scorned by ICANN for honestly proposing
higher yet reasonable and realistic registration fees.
Why has ICANN not taken
action to insure that such representations would be honored?
Considering
ICANN doesn't keep their own promises this hardly comes as no surprise.
I believe
that some who have followed these events have held hope that ICANN would step in
and protect the "public trust" as ICANN like’s to call it these days, but if we all
agree that the saying "actions speak louder than words" is a good way to judge then
hope gets tossed out the window because when reviewing these events from the time
we first became aware of the abuse of the sunrise process, that prompted widespread
media coverage. What action did the public observe from ICANN and Afilias?
No action, just hollow words that are in essence a "down the road" pitch, nothing
more nothing less.
I speculate what we witnessed was the "blinking" of ICANN as
it became apparent to them that ignoring the situation, a familiar trait practiced
by ICANN in the past was no longer a viable option and so they did the next best
thing, addressing the situation by not really addressing it as in "buying time" with
the hopes that things would just blow over.
You might ask but why would I come
to such a conclusion?
To begin with from the day of ICANN's press release up until
the present the situation has only worsened and still without any action from ICANN
and Afilias
The recent ICANN meeting in Montevideo can be viewed as an ominous
indicator of the true lack of concern, matter of fact Afilias had the audacity to
give a glowing presentation claiming basically an overall success but worst of all
and far more damming is that now all the domain names registered fraudulently are
resolvable instead of being frozen!
Those who cheated the system have been rewarded
by being given the opportunity to profit from their cheating no matter whether it
big or small and no matter if it one day or a few months. If I didn't know ICANN
any better I would find this unbelievable.
This fact alone should be proof enough
of the false intentions of ICANN and Afilias regarding their talk of making things
right.
Even assuming for a moment that ICANN is guilty of being innocently incompetent
for choosing Afilias, there is no conceivable way now that such claims can be made
by ICANN or anyone for that matter. I reject fully any claims ICANN will undoubtedly
make attributing these events as a product of their "proof of concept" in an effort
to evade accountability, it is unwarranted and contemptuous of fairness and honesty
ICANN's
inaction at this moment without question proves how worthless and ineffective they
are and calling ICANN negligent towards the public trust due to some incompetence
is in itself bad enough and worthy of their dismantling but finding them to be reckless
in allowing the systematic abuse to continue is far more serious.
So which is it
Incompetence or Corruption?
For me I doubt there is any explanation other than
incompetence or corruption and being that we all know there is an overall problem
the question now is what is the solution, a solution that can and will be implemented?
A
recent post of mine:
http://forum.icann.org/cgi-bin/rpgmessage.cgi?offtopic;3B9215CD00000768
icanncant@hotmail.com