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The ICANN meeting in Nairobi starts officially next Monday. However, as is normally the case, by the time Monday rolls around people will already have been working since Saturday morning (if not earlier).

All ICANN meetings seem to be surrounded by some bit of controversy and excitement, but the Nairobi meeting is possibly more dramatic than many others. The last attempt to hold a meeting in Nairobi failed, with ICANN opting to hold the meeting near LA's airport, LAX, instead. This time round there was quite a bit of controversy and tension surrounding the meeting's location.

The end result of the tension, security worries and everything else is that quite a large number of people who would normally attend the meeting will be staying at home.

Others will be travelling to Reston, VA, where Neustar has organised a US offsite location. Though with the time difference between VA and Nairobi anyone in attendance will end up working through the night!

So what's on the agenda?

New TLDs - this time round the focus will be on "EOI" - the concept of "expressions of interest" that was mooted at the last meeting in Seoul.

DNS SEC will be on the agenda again, but getting excited about it is far from easy - sorry!

IPv4 depletion will probably get a look in, but it's still a "hard sell". Until ISPs "buy in" and start deploying v6 on their public networks it's going to be nigh on impossible to make any tangible or meaningful movement in this area.

IDN ccTLDs. You can expect updates from the various countries that have applied using the "fast track". There might be more applications from other countries, as the meeting will have attracted its usual media circus.

But the real "hot potato" for ICANN is going to be .xxx

Following on from the recent decision which found that ICANN had "dropped the ball", the ICANN board will be voting on the Friday of the public meeting.

In reality you can expect to see board members being canvassed / briefed / harassed by interested parties pretty much all week. How will they vote?

Will the US government try to intervene?

If ICANN do move ahead with .xxx, will that have any impact on new TLDs?

If ICANN's board doesn't move ahead with .xxx this time round there is little or no chance that Stuart Lawley and ICM Registry are going to throw in the towel.

To start with they've no reason to. They have just won a legal battle that shows that ICANN was in the wrong. Sure, it may not be "binding", but any decision that so much as casts a doubt on ICANN's processes and procedures is a "win" for ICM - and rightly so.

So how would ICANN fare if ICM were to pursue this through to the next level?

ICANN stakeholders probably don't want to see their money being poured down a legal drain .. I know I don't ..

Afilias, which runs .info and provides registry services to a lot of other domains, has acquired the .mobi registry operator - mTLD Ltd.

The acquisition was officially announced on February 11th 2010, with both Afilias and mTLD releasing press releases etc., as well as a message to pass on to any registrants who might be concerned by the acquisition.

Is this good news or bad news?

I'd suspect that it's good news. It's certainly not bad!

It will be interesting to see what, if any, changes Afilias will bring to the .mobi namespace.

You can read the official announcement here

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In an interesting move several members of the ICANN community formed an "informal" Working Group to discuss the concept of "expressions of interest" in new TLDs. This all happened very quickly, which is more or less the opposite to how most ICANN related activities progress.

Earlier this evening the group submitted its report / paper to ICANN

The report, which runs to about 11 pages, is concise and seems to have covered most of the areas of interest. What's also interesting to note is that the people involved came from a variety of areas and probably give a reasonably good cross-section of the ICANN community.

If you have a few minutes the document is definitely worth reading and is a nice example of how a group of people can get things done quickly and efficiently when needed.

Now if only the rest of the ICANN processes were this quick to reach consensus!

(Maybe pigs flying is more likely!)

Ah the joy of it all.

First we had the quite public squabbling over .eco that I mentioned recently, now it looks like we're going to have a full on "food fight".

If nothing else the new TLD process is going to be great fun for anyone who likes a bit of word play!

So what's happening this time?

Remember Wolfgang Puck joining forces with Minds and Machines to launch .food? Well it obviously wasn't exactly a marriage made in heaven and if the filings are anything to go by "too many cooks spoil the broth".

In the last few days lawyers representing the Pucks sent a nastygram to Minds and Machines, Top Level Domain Holdings and Fred Krueger. In the letter Puck claimed that M + M were in breach of contract, however this is strongly opposed by M + M.

Of course if it was just a simple matter of a contract dispute it wouldn't be that colourful, but with celebrity chefs and new TLDs in the mix there's a lot more to it.

The Minds and Machines' filing goes into great detail, not only refuting any and all claims being made by Puck, but also going on the offensive. According to Minds and Machines Puck's wife caused them no end of trouble, insulting clients, potential clients and business partners.

To quote a couple of choice slices:

"For example, Gelila publicly and personally insulted an agent for
professional football player Dhani Jones, with whom Minds+Machines was working in
connection with <.LOVE>.
55. Gelila also publicly insulted an associate of Shaquille O'Neal, with whom
Minds+Machines had been working in connection with <.BASKETBALL>. Gelila
publicly attacked Shaquille O'Neal by claiming that Mr. O'Neal is "not a brand. He may
be rich, but he's not a brand like Wolfgang Puck Worldwide."
56. During the ICANN meeting in Sydney, Australia, Gelila Puck shouted
within earshot of dozens of ICANN participants, that Minds+Machines should not
proceed with its application for <.ZULU>, which had already been approved by the King
of the Zulu nation with assistance of the daughter of the President of the Republic of
South Africa."

It also appears as if Mrs Puck likes to have certain creature comforts, but doesn't seem to want to pay for them:

Gelila Puck also spent Minds+Machines' money without permission,
costing it a substantial amount of money. For example, Gelila Puck flew two of Wolfgang Puck's sous chefs to Sydney to prepare food for the <.FOOD> launch party.
Also for the <.FOOD> launch party, Gelila Puck booked the most expensive hotel suite
in Sydney when Minds+Machines had already arranged for more reasonable, but still
luxurious, venue.

The document also talks of how Mrs Puck also interfered in the day to day business of Minds and Machines!

So what now?

The new TLDs haven't even launched, yet we've already had two public spats, while others are continuing in other circles (some of the exchanges surrounding the registrar - registry split are beginning to move into areas that are bordering on legal actions).

We can be pretty sure that the .food fight is just one of many to come. Maybe someone could launch a reality TV show? It might be better entertainment than Big Brother!

More coverage over here (who got the story from here) and it's now taking the celebrity angle over here.

Update: Here's the actual filing from Minds and Machines:
puck.pdf

The new TLD process is occupying a lot of people in the domain name industry at present.

While some people are obviously very much against the entire concept of new TLDs, there are plenty of people and organisations who support the project.

But what happens when you have more than one organisation vying for the same namespace?

While the ICANN new TLD application process itself has its own way of dealing with competing bids there's nothing to stop the interested parties in "duking it out" in public.

Seemingly the competition between two rival bids for .eco (doteco) has been getting more than a little dirty in the past few weeks.

Earlier this evening Dot Eco LLC, which is backed by Al Gore, the Sierra Club, the Alliance for Climate Protection and Surfrider Foundation, issued what they called an "open examination" of the competing bids. Anyone reading it would be excused for seeing it as a gauntlet being thrown by Dot Eco LLC in the face of Big Room's competing bid - and its partner Afilias.

The document, which runs to 17 pages, makes for interesting reading and examines the credentials of both bids, while also questioning the viability and chances of success of the rival bid.

For example, the economic analysis draws on the financials of PIR, which runs .org. PIR uses Afilias to run their backend, so it would not be unreasonable to assume that any arrangements Afilias has made with that registry would be emulated with others.

Of course this is a theory - not fact, but it is one that has been logically argued and demonstrated using data based on existing TLDs.

Having said that, Dot Eco LLC have been very open about the costs they will face from their chosen backend provider - Minds and Machines.

Minds and Machines have, in turn, also made a public commitment to "going green" and will also be incentivising their registrar partners to adopt "green" policies.

Have Afilias done anything similar?

While the public catfight between the two competing bids may be interesting to watch as it plays out it does, from an observer's perspective, raise a couple of interesting issues.

Presuming that other strings are going to be as attractive as .eco is for the two rivals mentioned (and without even mentioning the potential bid for .green),  can expect to see a certain degree of this sort of mudslinging between future rival bids?

If some of the new TLD bids are going to have "agendas" attached to them, will they be viable or will we end up with a bunch of tiny namespaces that nobody uses or really cares about?

While it is clear that not all TLD projects are motivated purely by economics a lot of them will have taken on outside investors. If the investors do not get some form of return, will they walk away?

In many respects this kind of public catfight could act as just the first sign of worse to come.

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ICANN has announced that three more registrars have lost their accreditation due to non-compliance with the RAA.

The three registrars have been informed that their agreements with ICANN will not be renewed.

South American Domains (NameFrog), Simply Named and Tahoe Domains have been sent letters by ICANN outlining the decision and the reasons for it.

So what now?

On the plus side, as ICANN's compliance team is becoming more active in pursuing non-compliant registrars the processes for handling the domains held by de-accredited registrars is becoming more finely tuned.

Expect to see an announcement very shortly asking for other registrars to takeover the various portfolios, though this time round they are incredibly small.

According to the latest figures I was able to access the breakdown would be as follows:

• Namefrog appears to have less than 300 gTLD domains
• Simply Named about the same number
• Tahoe less than 250

So why did they lose their accreditations?

• Namefrog did not have a whois server
• Simply Named wasn't escrowing registrant data and hadn't paid their ICANN fees
• Tahoe no data escrow and owed fees to ICANN
  

In related news, Lead Networks are now seeking arbitration!

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Minds and Machines had several videos about some of the new TLD projects they're working on at the ICANN meeting in Sydney.

They're now available on YouTube

Unfortunately they don't seem to have one up there yet for dotFood (Wolfgang Puck)

Here's the one about DotRadio:

Today marks the last day for public comments on the IRT (trademark protection) final report.

The report, which I've mentioned a few times in the past, was drafted from the perspective of trademark holders in an effort to allay their fears and concerns associated with the launch of the new TLD program.

You can see the comments submitted to date here and read the report here.

I've already made several submissions on the topic, but to summarise:

• Whois and privacy is a matter of concern
• The concept of a "global" trademark list is dangerous
• The rapid suspension model is dangerous and open to abuse

Whether you agree with my views or not is not important, but if you have an opinion on the report you should speak your mind today.

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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

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.