June 2009 Archives
Rod Beckstrom's was officially appointed as ICANN's new headman during the ICANN board meeting in Sydney, Australia.
His speech, which he gave without notes, is hopefully an indicator of the man's thinking and bodes well for the future of ICANN.
Here it is:
">>ROD BECKSTROM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Paul, thank you very much. And I thank all you members of the board who have been so incredibly
generous with your time in educating me and bringing me into this opportunity. I'm truly honored.
But I'm especially humbled and honored to be here in front of all of you. You, the community, of ICANN -- you, the community of the Internet -- and all the groups and partner organizations that have created something quite magnificent, quite amazing for the world to behold.
I was invited into this -- this is my first ICANN meeting. I've obviously been in the tech industry for almost 30 years, and involved
in many organizations, and this is a beautifully complex one.
And I've been -- and I received many warnings and many of you said to me, "Do you really know what you're getting in for? Are you sure
you're ready for this?"
But I say that where you see and hear cacophony, I see a symphony. Because it's the gnashing and the thrashing through all the technical
standards processes, through all of the policy processes, through the legal issues, the trademark issues, the address issues, the name issues
-- all the things that you handle and that you have done has given birth and given rise to the Internet, which is now touching 1.5 billion
people on this planet directly through their computers, and another billion -- and soon two -- through their phones and other devices. And
it's the noise and the complexity and the lack of any central control in this process that has made it so rich and so open for the entire
world.
And you have done that. And elders here such as Steve Crocker, who were involved in that first crazy little experiment in trying to design
a network that could withstand a nuclear attack. Now, how do you design something to survive a nuclear attack? There was only one way
that was found, and that was to create a completely decentralized network.
One in which there was no central point of control, and when they connected those first four huge devices like refrigerators that we'll
call "routers" for a second that could each connect into four computers at UCLA, USC, Stanford and Utah, in research centers, they were
creating this network.
But what held it together? What held it together was a very subtle little thing that Jon Postel held in his hands, part of what held it
together. There were the protocols, but there were also the names and the addresses, or the linkages so that those devices could communicate
with one another and send a message to the right computer with no central control.
And then obviously that evolved and grew and changed into TCP/IP, and again, instead of a cacophony the symphony I see has a parsimony of
protocols. There are very few protocols in the Internet that have come through that RFC process that was created. That are hanging together
and allowing this network to unfold with no centralized control.
And there's an elegance of elements, and there's a richness in the ecosystem. The ecosystem that you have created, that you lead, that
you are, that I now have the opportunity to come into and to serve. And that ecosystem has the components within it of ICANN, the groups
such as the Address Supporting Organization, the ASO, the generic name supporting organization, the GNSO, which alone has 30 different policy
processes running right now. Each of those very complex in legal issues, social issues, technology issues, risk management issues.
Many, many different layers.
The root support services advisory group, which is headed by one of our board members. The security and stability efforts that are
critical for the Internet. The ALAC, where the at-large community of the world can have involvement and now being discussed to join onto the
board. And of course the IETF, the granddaddy of it all. The Internet Engineering Task Force that created those protocols, that designed
those protocols.
What has happened is miraculous and you've done it and I'm humbled because I stand before you as someone who comes to help and to serve
this exciting effort.
So I really hear the music in what's going on. And of course the governments of the world, besides what you started here technically
which became the various components to get the job done, the governments have come and now on the At-Large Advisory Committee, 83
members -- 40 governments -- which were here this week representing their interests, exchanging with one another ideas on how to spread the
use of the Internet, how to handle the difficult intellectual property, trademark and other issues and giving advice to this board.
So this network has a life of its own and it's the most majestic creature that we, mankind, have created and we've done it with all the
messiness that we bring to the table as humans, that we bring into the rooms here, and that gnashing and the thrashing that I spoke of. But
that's what gives us the power. That's what gives the population of the world the power of what you've created. And for those that are not
so much on the technical side, that care about what this organization is doing, it doesn't do what it does alone.
It works on one part of the problem. It does create a forum for many of these other discussions, and for work with other partners like ISOC
and VeriSign and other critical parts of this ecosystem, but it has one basic function as well besides serving as a forum, and that is to run
the master telephone directory, as it were, of the entire global Internet.
Because when we go to a phone book, there's names and there's numbers. The difference is, when we go to a phone book, there can be many John Smiths in a city such as Sydney, but not on the Internet. To have one
global unified Internet there can only be one unique name or universal resource locater with a given name in the world.
And there can be addresses and the addresses are numbers and they're different. They're a lot like the telephone numbers and they're very
important because they're what, in part, the routers and the switches and different things use to get the messages around. And so that
little service of running the directory and partnering with you, the registries of the world and the registrars of the world, and
communicating with every single router and device in the world, is what gives us the first global linkage of mankind.
And ICANN's role is simply to help protect that. That was Jon Postel's list of four devices with four computers each, which has grown
and grown and grown. It now has over 180 million names today. Unique names, Internet names. Which have been limited to Latin characters
that soon, through your good work, will be opened up so everyone in the world can have it in their language, which will of course lead to
billions of names. And we're about to move from somewhat of over a billion addresses in the allocation system to trillions and trillions
with IPv6. That's what you've created. So I'm humbled to be here with you. I am thrilled by the opportunity. I believe in the process of
what you're doing.
I know that it takes incredible time and energy and effort for everything that you do, but I believe in collaboration. And I believe in a world where every human being has the ability to communicate with other human beings openly and freely, and what -- what more poignant event do we need than what we've seen in the last few weeks, when people have sought to share their sides of a story -- both sides of a story, without taking a position -- in what's going on in Iran around a
democratic election, as people have tweeted, Facebooked, YouTubed and shared their content to organize and participate in what they seek and
the government has organized and participated and taken steps in its nature. It shows how critically vital this platform is, that you have
created.
That many people will literally fight and die for.
So in my case, I'm simply humbled to be here with you. I'm going to need your help and support. I'm very fortunate to have my beautiful
wife, Patrice's help and support. Please raise your hand.
[Applause]
>>ROD BECKSTROM: Because I know that the demands are so incredibly real.
So I ask you for one thing, and that is, I ask you for your support and for your blessings. I am new to this community. I am not an
expert on your processes. I am not an expert on the 30 and 40 years of history and all the protocols and all of the intellectual property
treatments and all the details of what you're doing. I'm new and I'm here to serve, to serve as a catalyst. So thank you for this opportunity.
[Applause]
[Standing Ovation]
"
Source: ICANN
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b78dbf30-0827-4963-8139-d7732dd7b2ee)
His speech, which he gave without notes, is hopefully an indicator of the man's thinking and bodes well for the future of ICANN.
Here it is:
">>ROD BECKSTROM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Paul, thank you very much. And I thank all you members of the board who have been so incredibly
generous with your time in educating me and bringing me into this opportunity. I'm truly honored.
But I'm especially humbled and honored to be here in front of all of you. You, the community, of ICANN -- you, the community of the Internet -- and all the groups and partner organizations that have created something quite magnificent, quite amazing for the world to behold.
I was invited into this -- this is my first ICANN meeting. I've obviously been in the tech industry for almost 30 years, and involved
in many organizations, and this is a beautifully complex one.
And I've been -- and I received many warnings and many of you said to me, "Do you really know what you're getting in for? Are you sure
you're ready for this?"
But I say that where you see and hear cacophony, I see a symphony. Because it's the gnashing and the thrashing through all the technical
standards processes, through all of the policy processes, through the legal issues, the trademark issues, the address issues, the name issues
-- all the things that you handle and that you have done has given birth and given rise to the Internet, which is now touching 1.5 billion
people on this planet directly through their computers, and another billion -- and soon two -- through their phones and other devices. And
it's the noise and the complexity and the lack of any central control in this process that has made it so rich and so open for the entire
world.
And you have done that. And elders here such as Steve Crocker, who were involved in that first crazy little experiment in trying to design
a network that could withstand a nuclear attack. Now, how do you design something to survive a nuclear attack? There was only one way
that was found, and that was to create a completely decentralized network.
One in which there was no central point of control, and when they connected those first four huge devices like refrigerators that we'll
call "routers" for a second that could each connect into four computers at UCLA, USC, Stanford and Utah, in research centers, they were
creating this network.
But what held it together? What held it together was a very subtle little thing that Jon Postel held in his hands, part of what held it
together. There were the protocols, but there were also the names and the addresses, or the linkages so that those devices could communicate
with one another and send a message to the right computer with no central control.
And then obviously that evolved and grew and changed into TCP/IP, and again, instead of a cacophony the symphony I see has a parsimony of
protocols. There are very few protocols in the Internet that have come through that RFC process that was created. That are hanging together
and allowing this network to unfold with no centralized control.
And there's an elegance of elements, and there's a richness in the ecosystem. The ecosystem that you have created, that you lead, that
you are, that I now have the opportunity to come into and to serve. And that ecosystem has the components within it of ICANN, the groups
such as the Address Supporting Organization, the ASO, the generic name supporting organization, the GNSO, which alone has 30 different policy
processes running right now. Each of those very complex in legal issues, social issues, technology issues, risk management issues.
Many, many different layers.
The root support services advisory group, which is headed by one of our board members. The security and stability efforts that are
critical for the Internet. The ALAC, where the at-large community of the world can have involvement and now being discussed to join onto the
board. And of course the IETF, the granddaddy of it all. The Internet Engineering Task Force that created those protocols, that designed
those protocols.
What has happened is miraculous and you've done it and I'm humbled because I stand before you as someone who comes to help and to serve
this exciting effort.
So I really hear the music in what's going on. And of course the governments of the world, besides what you started here technically
which became the various components to get the job done, the governments have come and now on the At-Large Advisory Committee, 83
members -- 40 governments -- which were here this week representing their interests, exchanging with one another ideas on how to spread the
use of the Internet, how to handle the difficult intellectual property, trademark and other issues and giving advice to this board.
So this network has a life of its own and it's the most majestic creature that we, mankind, have created and we've done it with all the
messiness that we bring to the table as humans, that we bring into the rooms here, and that gnashing and the thrashing that I spoke of. But
that's what gives us the power. That's what gives the population of the world the power of what you've created. And for those that are not
so much on the technical side, that care about what this organization is doing, it doesn't do what it does alone.
It works on one part of the problem. It does create a forum for many of these other discussions, and for work with other partners like ISOC
and VeriSign and other critical parts of this ecosystem, but it has one basic function as well besides serving as a forum, and that is to run
the master telephone directory, as it were, of the entire global Internet.
Because when we go to a phone book, there's names and there's numbers. The difference is, when we go to a phone book, there can be many John Smiths in a city such as Sydney, but not on the Internet. To have one
global unified Internet there can only be one unique name or universal resource locater with a given name in the world.
And there can be addresses and the addresses are numbers and they're different. They're a lot like the telephone numbers and they're very
important because they're what, in part, the routers and the switches and different things use to get the messages around. And so that
little service of running the directory and partnering with you, the registries of the world and the registrars of the world, and
communicating with every single router and device in the world, is what gives us the first global linkage of mankind.
And ICANN's role is simply to help protect that. That was Jon Postel's list of four devices with four computers each, which has grown
and grown and grown. It now has over 180 million names today. Unique names, Internet names. Which have been limited to Latin characters
that soon, through your good work, will be opened up so everyone in the world can have it in their language, which will of course lead to
billions of names. And we're about to move from somewhat of over a billion addresses in the allocation system to trillions and trillions
with IPv6. That's what you've created. So I'm humbled to be here with you. I am thrilled by the opportunity. I believe in the process of
what you're doing.
I know that it takes incredible time and energy and effort for everything that you do, but I believe in collaboration. And I believe in a world where every human being has the ability to communicate with other human beings openly and freely, and what -- what more poignant event do we need than what we've seen in the last few weeks, when people have sought to share their sides of a story -- both sides of a story, without taking a position -- in what's going on in Iran around a
democratic election, as people have tweeted, Facebooked, YouTubed and shared their content to organize and participate in what they seek and
the government has organized and participated and taken steps in its nature. It shows how critically vital this platform is, that you have
created.
That many people will literally fight and die for.
So in my case, I'm simply humbled to be here with you. I'm going to need your help and support. I'm very fortunate to have my beautiful
wife, Patrice's help and support. Please raise your hand.
[Applause]
>>ROD BECKSTROM: Because I know that the demands are so incredibly real.
So I ask you for one thing, and that is, I ask you for your support and for your blessings. I am new to this community. I am not an
expert on your processes. I am not an expert on the 30 and 40 years of history and all the protocols and all of the intellectual property
treatments and all the details of what you're doing. I'm new and I'm here to serve, to serve as a catalyst. So thank you for this opportunity.
[Applause]
[Standing Ovation]
"
Source: ICANN
Stephane obviously has "eagle eyes" and mentions that Minds and Machines are pushing for a ".basketball"
Dotbasketball is being supported by Shaquille O'Neal
More details when they become available
Dotbasketball is being supported by Shaquille O'Neal
More details when they become available
I'm currently at the ICANN meeting in Sydney, but am running from one meeting to another all day, so I haven't been in any of the sessions. However, Stephane has and reports that ICANN are pushing for a February 2010 first application round.
Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck will be catering the .food launch event in Sydney on Tuesday night.
A VIP event to celebrate the launch of .food (dotfood), which Puck is involved with will take place at a well known venue in downtown Sydney. The new TLD application will be presented in association with Minds and Machines.
The ICANN meeting being held this week in Sydney will see the announcements of several new TLD applications, so it should be an interesting and exciting week.
A VIP event to celebrate the launch of .food (dotfood), which Puck is involved with will take place at a well known venue in downtown Sydney. The new TLD application will be presented in association with Minds and Machines.
The ICANN meeting being held this week in Sydney will see the announcements of several new TLD applications, so it should be an interesting and exciting week.
The DotPro (.pro) registry has asked ICANN to reduce the annual fees that they pay ICANN. In common with the other registry operators, .pro registry pays an annual fee to ICANN regardless of the number of domains that they manage. The full details of what each registry operator pays and how those fees are structured exactly (ie. if it's a flat fee or fee plus per domain or any variation on this) are published as part of the ICANN budget.
The DotPro registry currently pays ICANN $121900 per year, even though they have a very small namespace. The registry operator is, therefore, asking ICANN to reduce their fees in order to release funds for expansion.
George Kirikos has already posted a scalding critique of the registry operator's request and cites the registry's original projections based on their perceived demand for .pro.
While the points raised by Kirikos are valid, the alternatives are not that palatable.
If a registry operator is struggling under a financial burden, then it would appear only reasonable that it would, like any other business, try to renegotiate the contract. If a reduction in the fees were to allow .pro to promote and expand their market share the amount that ICANN would receive per annum would obviously increase.
It will be interesting to see how the ICANN community respond to the call for comment.
A few weeks ago the EU Commissioner Viviane Reding published a video where she talked about the EU's views towards ICANN and internet governance. The video received quite a bit of attention at the time, but it wasn't an official position of the EU at that juncture ie. it was Ms Reding's.
Earlier today that changed when the EU issued an official release on the subject calling for "a more open, independent and accountable governance of the Internet".
The release comes at a time when the JPA, which in, simple terms, is the contract that ICANN has with the US government, is due to expire. While it will more than likely be renewed, the question is for how long, as many feel that ICANN needs to be less American. Of course that transition cannot happen overnight, so several parties have expressed their concerns about ICANN's readiness for any form of decoupling.
The full text of the EU's position can be found on their policy site
GTLD Revolution, which is a new company founded by Dean Shannon (Deep Blue Sea / Fabulous), has today announced their plans to launch 3 new TLDs.
The new venture, which has chosen AusRegistry as their backend provider, is planning on applying for at least three new TLDs when the application process opens up early next year.
The new TLDs they've announced so far are:
(full release here)
The new venture, which has chosen AusRegistry as their backend provider, is planning on applying for at least three new TLDs when the application process opens up early next year.
The new TLDs they've announced so far are:
- .web
- .money
- .phone
(full release here)
AusRegistry CEO, Adrian Kinderis, is set to open the session on new TLDs to be held during the ICANN meeting in Sydney next week.The session, which is being held on Monday afternoon from 1600 to 1800, in the Sydney Hilton, will cover many practical aspects of managing a domain registry and experts from a wide range variety of backgrounds will be there to share their insights.
More information on the conference site
The ICANN mobile site for the Sydney meeting (due to open officially next Monday) should be a useful resource for anyone attending the meeting in Sydney.However the site has been expanded and now includes both photos (via Flickr) and tweets (from Twitter)
If you're interested in following what's going on or want to share your content, then use the tags "icann" or "icann sydney" in Flickr or simply "icann" in Twitter.
On a related note, there's also an ICANN "Twibe". More details here
Since ICANN announced that they would need a new CEO there has been quite a bit of speculation as to who would fill the role.CircleID has suggested that the new CEO could be Rod Beckstrom
According to a vaguely worded announcement published by ICANN today, the board is hoping to have the potential CEO attend the meeting in Sydney, though it's not clear either who the potential candidate is or if they will indeed be attending (see here)
Image via CrunchBase
If you have a Facebook account you can do to: http://www.facebook.com/username/ and pick your username. If you have a fan page with more than 1000 fans you can also set a custom URL for it ..
Expect to see lots of whingy blog posts over the next few days as people with "common" names discover that "their" name has already been taken.
For a funnier take on the whole thing I'd recommend reading Anil Dash's simply excellent post on the topic. It puts it all into perspective!
Tralliance, the registry operator for .travel, is seeking permission to offer both 1 and 2 character domain names and a public comment period has just opened.The .travel domain extension has had a bumpy ride over the last couple of years, but like other gTLD operators its latest pitch for the shorter names comes with some added twists. Tralliance will make available the cctld equivalents to the corresponding registry operators at normal registration cost. Whether or not the cctld operators will want to take advantage of the offer, however, is another matter.
Lead Networks, an Indian based registrar, has been sent a "notice of breach" by ICANN.
The letter goes into details of how the registrar has failed to meet its requirements under the RAA and also its obligations under the UDRP.
Seemingly Lead Networks' registrants have attracted no less than 61 separate UDRP proceedings and their lack of cooperation with WIPO led to a letter from WIPO being sent to ICANN. WIPO's letter goes into some detail about how Lead Networks may have been involved in what has been described as "contributory cybersquatting" ie. helping registrants to act in bad faith towards trademark holders.
According to DotandCo Lead would appear to be the registrar of record for about 130 thousand domains and judging by the IP blocks they're using is probably relying on someone else to handle some of their backend processes.
ICANN's letter does not leave much room for misinterpretation - they're clearly not impressed, but they are granting Lead a 30 day "stay of execution". Whether Lead Networks will be able to show ICANN's compliance team that they are going to "behave" or not at this juncture remains to be seen, but based on the body of evidence cited in both ICANN and WIPO's letters it's doubtful.
On a positive note the wider community should welcome the fact that ICANN is taking action against registrars who do not "play by the rules". Of course not all of the rules may be perfect, but they're the only ones we have at the moment.
The letter goes into details of how the registrar has failed to meet its requirements under the RAA and also its obligations under the UDRP.
Seemingly Lead Networks' registrants have attracted no less than 61 separate UDRP proceedings and their lack of cooperation with WIPO led to a letter from WIPO being sent to ICANN. WIPO's letter goes into some detail about how Lead Networks may have been involved in what has been described as "contributory cybersquatting" ie. helping registrants to act in bad faith towards trademark holders.
According to DotandCo Lead would appear to be the registrar of record for about 130 thousand domains and judging by the IP blocks they're using is probably relying on someone else to handle some of their backend processes.
ICANN's letter does not leave much room for misinterpretation - they're clearly not impressed, but they are granting Lead a 30 day "stay of execution". Whether Lead Networks will be able to show ICANN's compliance team that they are going to "behave" or not at this juncture remains to be seen, but based on the body of evidence cited in both ICANN and WIPO's letters it's doubtful.
On a positive note the wider community should welcome the fact that ICANN is taking action against registrars who do not "play by the rules". Of course not all of the rules may be perfect, but they're the only ones we have at the moment.
The IEDR, the body that is responsible for .ie domains (Ireland), is currently consulting with its resellers about introducing a greater level of transparency.
At the moment there is very little transparency with respect to the sales rank of the various companies that offer .ie domain registration services. The IEDR's own newsletter refers to the companies by letter!
If the new system is implemented then we would finally be able to confirm who actually is handling the volumes and who is just "spinning" ...
While it's impossible to say what the outcome of the consultation will be there have already been some negative comments mentioning "commercial sensitivity"!
Considering that most other registries provide the information either directly or indirectly you'd have to wonder what people were so worried about.
Disclosure: I run one of the largest IE resellers and am in favour of publishing the names.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=349e2111-63e6-4643-bb23-adacee0c889b)
At the moment there is very little transparency with respect to the sales rank of the various companies that offer .ie domain registration services. The IEDR's own newsletter refers to the companies by letter!
If the new system is implemented then we would finally be able to confirm who actually is handling the volumes and who is just "spinning" ...
While it's impossible to say what the outcome of the consultation will be there have already been some negative comments mentioning "commercial sensitivity"!
Considering that most other registries provide the information either directly or indirectly you'd have to wonder what people were so worried about.
Disclosure: I run one of the largest IE resellers and am in favour of publishing the names.
Nominet's AGM has been announced.
It will take place on Wednesday July 8th in the Hilton London Kensington
Two non-executive director seats are up for grabs...
More information on the AGM is available on the Nominet site
It will take place on Wednesday July 8th in the Hilton London Kensington
Two non-executive director seats are up for grabs...
More information on the AGM is available on the Nominet site
Recent Comments
John McCormac on DNS.be Release Figures Of Domain Usage: It looks l
Michele Neylon on OVH Abuse AFNIC Member Database: Maigre Ou
Maigre on OVH Abuse AFNIC Member Database: OVH is not
Niall on IEDR Annual Report 2008 - More Fluff: Comreg are
Gary Smith on Nominet Board Elections Results 2009: The commen
ArianaZige on Dotmobi Release Wordpress Mobile Pack: I love it!
Michele Neylon on New TLDs Need Sanity: Francesco
Francesco on New TLDs Need Sanity: TBH .taxi
Patrick on ICANN IRT Report Open For Comment With Short Timeframe: There's a