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Username: richard_henderson
Date/Time: Mon, December 17, 2001 at 6:15 AM GMT
Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer V5.0 using Windows 98
Subject: Proof-of-Concept and ICANN should act

Message:
 

 
Since ICANN claims to be working through a proof-of-concept with these new TLD agreements, and since the .INFO round robin has already resulted in proven corruption and abuse of the system at the expense of the internet public, I hope that ICANN will now act (in the light of the concept tested by .info) to BAN charges by registrars for pre-registrations. This can be done contractually. Since Neulevel inevitably have to revise their paperwork for this new release of names, ICANN can insist that Neulevel implement a contractual ban on charges for pre-registrations.

What possible justification can there be for ripping the Internet public off yet again? What exactly is the money for? And since Neulevel have completely messed up with their first attempt at releasing these names, ICANN has ample justification for intervention.

What's the point of "proof-of-concept" if you don't take the lessons that have been learned (in this case, learned through the .INFO experience) and make sure the same mistakes are not made twice.

ICANN advised registrars last time NOT to charge for pre-registrations for a round-robin, and most registrars didn't take a blind bit of notice. This time ICANN must INSIST.

That way, no-one can claim that this is yet another kind of lottery.

If pre-registrations ARE charged for, not only is it a complete rip-off, but you could still say that people were paying (in a convoluted way) for a lottery ticket.

Do I hope or expect ICANN will act? No of course not. Because they have already shown themselves in my judgement to be corrupt and in complicity.

I have been silent for several weeks because you can just go on and on about the same issues. But I am appalled by the way Afilias has tried to sweep under the carpet these undeniable facts:

1. More than 50% of all fake Sunrise claims were submitted by the companies of Afilias's own Board and Executive. That is a disgrace.

2. Those companies charged over $500,000 to knowingly abuse their own Afilias system. That verges on corruption.

3. Individual Board Members were caught out THREE times gaining a Sunrise name through the submission of FAKE Trademarks.

4. Those names have now been held illegitimately for almost FOUR MONTHS, and the Internet community has been deprived of them.

5. ALL the Sunrise names could have been offered in the Landrush phase using the Domebase solution, which allowed priority claim to genuine TM holders, but released all the other names. That would have saved the need for a "third" sale of these names at the so-called secind Landrush.

6. Afilias Board Director, Robert Connelly, decided he wanted to resign all his involvements because he saw that Afilias's processes were (in his own words) "an abomination".

7. Vint Cerf has been repeatedly challenged to post on this, his own, board to have a dialogue on these and other fair points, but he has gone to ground. His silence speaks volumes.

Afilias has made recent remarks about the Sunrise fraud problem, but it was Afilias themselves that created the problem; that presided over it; that ignored simple solutions; that submitted more than half the fakes.

It's laughable.

On another note:

I'm sick of keeping www.theinternetchallenge offline, just because some vested interests threaten legal action (big deal). So I hope to have the site back up and running in the next few days, as a resource for the general public, so that we can check that most of the listed names are indeed being challenged by Afilias.

Though, of course, the outcome will be the same : more money for registrars who have already benefitted twice.

Congress is now my focus. I have a simple plan. Every single aspect of this disgrace will be brought to the attention of all the most influential politicians who share responsibility for this fiasco. Only it doesn't stop there....

Wait and see
(I'll be e-mailing a few of you in the coming week about what's happening.)    
     

 


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