I note with regret that Hal Lubsen (CEO of Afilias) has failed to respond to my specific
and detailed concerns, voiced on behalf of many members of the Internet community
who have got no answer from him on the ICANN and gTLD-Registries forums. He has also
failed to reply to a succession of messages sent to him directly. Our concern, clearly
expressed, was that consumers were defrauded by the Afilias roll-out, and that Hal
Lubsen's company DomainBank had profited from the submission of ineligible data in
the Sunrise, at the expense of honest customers. The evidence for this has been presented
in detail in the forums mentioned above, and is all in the public domain.
We
were also dismayed that over half of all fake Sunrise claims had been submitted,
for profit, by Afilias executives or directors. We shared the view of honest Afilias
director Robert Connelly that this Sunrise fraud and roll-out was "an abomination".Honest
Landrush customers were defrauded of (in the region of) $3million and workable solutions
were not put in place to protect their interests, in the wake of Afilias's defective
Sunrise processes.
Hal Lubsen is a member of these forums/fora but has failed
to respond to these very serious concerns. Of course, everyone knows that he is under
no obligation to answer any questions raised here, but bearing in mind that a major
purpose of the forums is to promote "openness and transparency", his failure to answer
serious issues directed specifically at him is hugely disappointing.
Is this
a rogue industry where the customer is simply ignored?
Or could Hal Lubsen
simply give open and transparent answers to questions put to him.
I find
his silence and evasion a dismal sign of the contempt in which honest customers appear
to be held. I am co-operating closely with Ram Mohan of Afilias over the Challenge
process, and it was my own website - TheInternetChallenge - which first brought the
scale of the Fraud to the attention of the public at a time when Roland laPlante
was hailing Sunrise as a success and denying the numbers we were quoting. I have
nothing to gain or lose in all this personally. However I do believe Mr Lubsen has
a duty to the Internet community to explain - in total honesty, openness and transparency
- why he thought it was alright for his company (and the company Speednames, represented
on the Afilias board) to receive a total in the region of $513,000 to support the
submission of thousands of names with "NONE" placed in all fields, or facially ineligible
details, with the result that Afilias's own system was abused and honest consumers
robbed of millions of dollars in the overall fraud (because they had paid for the
chance to 'win' these names at Landrush, and they were deprived of that paid-for-right
by the fraudulent applications submitted by Hal Lubsen's DomainBank and by Speednames
and certain other registrars.
I also believe we, as consumers, have a right to
honest and open answers as to why - when these fraudsters publicly admitted their
deception - their fake Sunrise names were not immediately returned to the pool in
time for Landrush. Why, for example, William Lorenz sent 23 (documented) e-mails
admitting 93 names submitted by DomainBank (who profited around $13000 for these
alone) were totally fake, and in an effort to put things right, requested that Mr
Lubsen delete all 93 names so honest customers could get them... and yet these repeated
requests were declined.
And again, why Board members of Afilias are STILL holding
Sunrise fakes themselves, five months after submitting fake data, and yet the Afilias
CEO has presided over that (check out Hawaii.info for example).
And why the commonsense
"Domebase" solution proposed by Professor Connor was dismissed, when it would have
safeguarded everyone.
And why in all these five months, Mr Lubsen has failed to
enter into dialogue or respond to these points.
Come on Hal, please do the
decent thing and answer.
Happy New Year to everyone
Richard Henderson
(www.theinternetchallenge.com)