A repost of a response to a question I put to DaveKing about insider opinion that
the cybersquatting of Sunrise was planned by Afilias.
*
My money is more and
more on contrivence or "planned incompetence" rather than straight imcompetence.
I am shaking my head as I write this -imagining the best of ICANN approving the rollout
as described by the ICANN-NSI Afilias Registry Agreement - BUT Afilias's Registry
Agreement is at variance to the Afilias bid document, where in response to the proforma
questions about the likelihood of cybersquatting and the steps that the registry
would take to counter TM fraud if it won the bid - the Afilias response is that it
will monitor their approved registrars' adherence to the requirement in the Registry's
Registrar Agreement that they, the registrars, ensure complete and correct applicant
information at the time the applicant places an order, and that an applicant has
15 days in which to amend application details if requested to do so by the registrar.
The bid document contains the normal apple pie and motherhood statements about Afilias
being such an upholder trademark laws, they will enshrine all of them in their Registry
Registrar License Agreements and that they, Afilias, will cease processing
applications from registrars who repeatedly submit applications which contain errors.The
Afilias documents on these matters are hogwash, meaningless and one might argue,
in the light of the launch events, written with the intention to deceive.
The
question which keeps concerning me is WHO approved what is a variation to the ICANN
approved bid document on the critically important issue of fraud detection and the
protection of the rights and reasonable expectations of TM holders - the bona fide
Sunrise applicants, and the Landrushers who are sequentially affected when the most
obvious and simple security measures are not implemented.
The next question is
- if there was NO ICANN approval for the omission of critically important cybersquatting
secutity clauses, then WHY didn't ICANN take Afilias by the scruff of the neck when
it became apparent that the door had been left open for those willing to cheat, and
especially so after SpyProductions and UKReg(?)announced that most registrars and
the registry would be looking the other way (probably toward their growing bank balances)if
one wanted to falsify - or didn't even bother to falsify TM data - as was the case
with William
Lorensz.
Whether the Afilias rollout events are the result of an
ill-conceived model or a greedy and cynical business strategy - Afilias, its partner
and approved registrars are in receipt of funds equivalent to 25,000 Landrush or
realtime registrations (10,000 X 5yr/regs) - not a bad
windfall for the insiders.
They are also holding heaven knows how much in Landrush preregistrations for the
same names. However, a considerable cost has been transferred to their customers,
the bona fide Sunrisers and Landrushers.
If the Afilias executive and registrar
partners want to gain some credibility and start to build some customer trust, they
should waive the challenge fees of Sunrise applicants, and immediately announce their
undertaking to honour the preregistrations of Landrush applicants for those names
to be freed by a complete review of Sunrise applications. Without further delay,
Afilias should announce the securing of all Landrush preregistration data, in order
that
Landrush applicants can receive what they paid for - a crack at those generics
which proved irresistable to the Sunrise cybersquatters. A date should be fixed
for Landrush II so that Afilias can appropriately plan their resource expenditures
in order to meet their obligations to their Landrush customers.