You say what a many of us have said for a long time now.Clearly ICANN and IOD
do not get on.
There was a good example of that in one of the ICANN web casts where
Mr Ambler asked Ken Stubbs why he had over ridden the DNSO decision after it took
them five years to make it. He wouldn't answer and abruptly ended the meeting, packing
away his stuff while Mr Ambler shouted disparaging remarks at him. I'm not sure if
that was before or after they went to court?? In any case IOD sued KEn Stubbs and
CORE for tradmark infringement of ".web". While the court went to summary jugement
because old trademark law could not be applied to new the gTLDs - there was little
doubt that Ken Stubbs had stolen the idea and CORE was trying to use it for itself.
Now
it is clear that these parties are not the best of friends.
It is still the case
that IOD has been at the frontier of trying to badger IANA and then ICANN into implementing
its .web registry.
Unlike many of the other pioneers (and there were several) they
haven't gone away. Their persistence has lead to this situation.
Whether you support
IOD or not it still took five years for the DNSO group to form a consensus on a single
point - in the meantime they travelled around the world quite happily for their meetings
(as one does).
Regarding Christopher Ambler - of course they find him annoying.
That is highlighted by the number of personal insults (such as someone registering
as Christophe Rambler and GoodriddenceIOD and so on).
It would be very nice for
these people to see him fail. His idea is now up for public auction and many other
parties want to make money from it.
Personally I know Mr Ambler by email only.
He has helped me on many occasions and has (irritatingly) always given a balanced
and unbiased opinion on the proceedings. I have several emails from him telling me
to have faith that the process will be fair and open after I have emailed him moaning
that it is anything but.
Now it is the case that there really is no reason why
IOD cannot have their .web online.
There are three applications:
Neulevel (JVTeam)
lost a half of their company in the part of their application that was for .web,
their application was consistently wrong throughout and they have much stronger applications
for all of their other choices. I couldn't get my browser to load the bad points
of the Neustar application. I got "Document: Done" right after the good points loaded!
Afilias provides a strong application and so it should. Afilias
is the internet of the year 2000. The question is really whether or not Afilias should
be allowed for grow in size. Monopolies like this can hinder the market. Nevertheless
their application is equally strong fro .web, .info and .site. Their financial predictions
are the same for all three and so the praise from ICANN applies equally to all three.
By ICANNS own summary it would make no difference at all to the internet if they
gave Afilias .web or .info.
IOD provides a strong application and so it should.
It has devoted its time and energy to planning for this for five years. There can
be no better application than this one. Over twenty thousand people have decided
that it would not be posible to put together a better application and paid up front.
Thats pretty good testimony.
Much of the criticism here is aimed at Marc Brittain
- a man who has irritatingly bagged a lot of good names that any of us can think
of!
Actually he registered about 400 I think. I must have found about fifty to
a hundred just thinking of good names off the top of my head.
The point is though
that no "ordinary" person would usually get at these names anyway. The annonymous
individuals here that attack him must be quite high up at Afilias or it wouldn't
be an issue with them either.
If someone else wins the lottery and you didn't
buy a ticket for the lottery you shouldn't moan and say another company shoud RUN
the lottery (not unless you're a bit odd anyway).
I liked uk.web Marc Brittain
registered it first (drat!) just as someone else has registered uk.com, uk.net, uk.co.uk
and so on. Its most likely that uk.info will be taken by the time the public can
get at it just as uk.de, .tv ,.md etc etc et care all taken. I know I'll get over
it and think of something else! It doesn't help to wish bad things on IOD or Mr Britain
does it?
You can bet anything though that after Afilias's sunrise period that UK.web
would be unavailable anyway. Its not a trademark - just a nice site.
The people
here that support IOD do so for many reasons. Some have spent money others see that
it is whats right and just, others see that its whats best for the net while others
have the same point of view but because of the Afilias Monopoly rather thatn IOD's
merrits.
The Afilias supporters tend to attack IOD (often with names like saynotoIOD
and noIOdear). They are here to bad mouth IOD (but strangelky not JVTeam). Perhaps
its more personal between these individuals and IOD.
Afilias clearly sees IOD as
their biggest threat for .web, interestingly this is reflected in both appraisals
from ICANN.