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 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 into 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.