IANA Transition: What the U.S. Government Is Really 'Giving Up'

UPDATE Oct 14, 2016: Plaintiffs State of Arizona et al filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal (pdf) ending the litigation referenced below.

UPDATE Sep 30, 2016: U.S. District Court Judge George C. Hanks Jr. has denied (pdf) the plaintiffs' application for "Declaratory and Injunctive Relief." The IANA stewardship transition will become effective October 1, 2016, EDT.

original post:
As of tomorrow, October 1, 2016, the IANA Stewardship Transition will be complete unless a federal judge in Texas intervenes today:

DomainMondo.com [News Review]: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, and Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt, have filed a lawsuit (pdf) in a last minute attempt to stop the IANA stewardship transition, in the U.S. District Court, Galveston, Texas, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, including a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction ... U.S. District Court Judge George Hanks Jr. (who was appointed by President Obama in 2015) has set a hearing for 1:30 pm CDT Friday in Galveston, Texas.

What the U.S. government is "giving up"--at least one legal scholar finds the Plaintiffs' (Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada) arguments unpersuasive: Why the Attempt to Enjoin the IANA Transfer is Baseless | Discourse.net--

The US is letting go of a contractual right to veto alterations to the data in a computer file (the root zone file) held on a privately owned machine.  There is no intellectual property right because the contents of the file are in the public domain, and US law would not recognize this as a compilation copyright.  What’s at issue in the IANA transfer is the loss of the US government’s right to veto authoritative changes to the file, not to own the contents.

However, just as important as "letting go" of the "right to veto alterations" in the root zone file, and completely overlooked by Professor Froomkin and others, the U.S. government is also "giving up" or abandoning its right to select the IANA functions operator, at least for the Top-Level Domains (TLDs). ICANN has no right to create or recognize any new TLDs, whether generic (gTLD) or country code (ccTLD), and delegate them into the internet root, except by virtue of being the IANA functions operator pursuant to the contract with NTIA. In 2012, NTIA, the U.S. government sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce which is the counter-party to ICANN in the IANA functions contract, almost pulled the contract away from ICANN:

Ethics Fight Over Domain Names Intensifies | NYTimes.com March 18, 2012: "The Commerce Department said this month that while it was temporarily extending a contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to manage the allocation of computers’ Internet protocol addresses — and the .com and .net names of Web sites associated with them — it warned the organization that it needed to tighten its rules against conflicts of interest or risk losing a central role. ICANN, as the company is known, has filled that role since 1998. The Commerce Department said it had received no suitable bids for the contract, and was temporarily extending ICANN’s services for six months." (emphasis added)

As of tomorrow, October 1, 2016, the U.S. government will have relinquished its right to select the IANA functions operator for the TLDs in the internet root zone as configured by the 13 authoritative name servers operated by 12 different managers (Verisign operates 2). Who will have that right as of tomorrow? Technically, the "names community" which is a fictional title given to those ICANN stakeholders (dominated by Registry operators and registrars, but also including other recognized special interest groups within the "ICANN community" who are not  representative of the "global internet community" a/k/a "global multistakeholder community"--e.g. most domain name registrants are excluded from effective representation within ICANN) but excluding the numbers and protocols communities which select their own "IANA functions operator" (currently ICANN). As of tomorrow, ICANN will contractually be the IANA functions operator for the numbers and protocols communities, and PTI (the old IANA department within ICANN but now a separate affiliated entity of ICANN) will be the IANA functions operator for the "names community."

Does the above constitute a "federal property right" or otherwise give credence to any other claim in the Plaintiffs' complaint and motion for TRO? We may find out today what a federal judge in Texas thinks.

Addendum:
State of Arizona; State of Texas; State of Oklahoma; and State of Nevada v. National Telecommunications and Information Administration; United States of America Department of Commerce; Penny Pritzker; and Lawrence E. Strickling

Court Order Denying Plaintiffs' Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction [PDF, 298 KB]
Motion of Internet Association, Internet Infrastructure Coalition, Internet Society, Computer & Communications Industry Association, NetChoice, Mozilla, Packet Clearing House, ACT|The App Association, American Registry for Internet Numbers, Information Technology Industry Council, Access Now, Andrew Sullivan, Ted Hardie, Jari Arkko, and Alissa Cooper for Leave to File Brief of Amici Curiae in Opposition to Application for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction [PDF, 33 KB] 30 September 2016

Exhibit A – Brief of Amici Curiae Internet Association, Internet Infrastructure Coalition, Internet Society, Computer & Communications Industry Association, NetChoice, Mozilla, Packet Clearing House, ACT|The App Association, American Registry for Internet Numbers, Information Technology Industry Council, Access Now, Andrew Sullivan, Ted Hardie, Jari Arkko, and Alissa Cooper Supporting Defendants and in Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Temporary Restraining Order [PDF, 95 KB] 30 September 2016

Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order or Preliminary Injunction [PDF, 177 KB] 30 September 2016

Declaration of John O. Jeffrey [PDF, 357 KB] 30 September 2016

Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief and Application for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction [PDF, 363 KB] 28 September 2016

Exhibits A to F [PDF, 4.1 MB] 28 September 2016


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Holding Wall Street Accountable, Investigating Wells Fargo Bank (video)

Wells Fargo CEO to Forfeit $41 Million:

U.S. House Committee on Financial Services Hearing: “Holding Wall Street Accountable: Investigating Wells Fargo’s Opening of Unauthorized Customer Accounts”

Thursday, September 29, 2016 (10:00 AM) - U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Financial Services Hearing: “Holding Wall Street Accountable: Investigating Wells Fargo’s Opening of Unauthorized Customer Accounts.” The hearing video above starts @18:12. Chair of the Committee is Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). The Committee's Ranking Member is Maxine Waters (D-CA). Other members of the committee are listed here.

Prepared Testimony (pdf) of the witness: John Stumpf, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Wells Fargo & Company

Note to ICANN stakeholders and ICANN directors: the above video is a good example of what real oversight of, and holding accountable a corporation and its management, actually looks like. Also note the references to "denial" in a dysfunctional organization culture, and using 'forced' arbitration clauses to make redress almost impossible, and other themes equally applicable to ICANN.

Wells Fargo & Company:

• Stock exchange: Symbol  |  NYSE: WFC
• Domain:  WellsFargo.com
• Area served: Worldwide
• Global Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States
• Slogan:  Together we'll go far
• Industry:  Banking, Financial services
• Number of employees: 265,200 (2015) [source]
• Founders: Henry Wells & William Fargo, March 18, 1852
• Predecessors include: Crocker National Bank; First Interstate Bancorp; Bank of North America; First Security Corporation; Norwest Corporation; Wachovia
• Divisions: Wells Fargo Rail (Domain: rail.wellsfargo.com) largest rail car and locomotive leasing company in North America with over 175,000 rail cars and 1,800 locomotives
• Largest shareholders:  Berkshire Hathaway 9.50%; Vanguard Group 5.71%; State Street 3.70%
• Additional info via Wikipedia:
  Revenue US$86.057 billion (2015)
  Operating income US$33.84 billion (2015)
  Profit US$22.894 billion (2015)
  Total assets US$1.849 trillion (2016)
  Total equity US$193.891 billion (2015)

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) 3-month chart

Financial Services Committee Memorandum (pdf): "... On September 8, 2016, Wells Fargo entered into consent orders with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the City of Los Angeles for alleged unsafe and unsound sales practices, unfair and abusive practices, and unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent sales and related business acts and practices. While neither admitting nor denying the allegations as part of the consent orders, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $190 million in collective fines and restitution. The consent orders asserted that Wells Fargo had fired 5,300 employees over a five year period for opening hundreds of thousands of deposit and credit card accounts without customers’ knowledge or consent. This was allegedly caused by the setting of aggressive sales quotas, pressure from managers to meet those quotas, and inadequate monitoring by Wells Fargo ..."


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End of the BlackBerry Phone and How Smartphone Batteries Catch on Fire

The end of the BlackBerry phone:

BlackBerry has finally pulled the plug on its handset division after struggling to stay relevant. Nic Fildes, FT.com telecoms correspondent, reflects on the company's hits and misses over the years. Video published Sep 28, 2016.

Domain: blackberry.com

Stock chart of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ: BBRY)

How Smartphone Batteries Catch on Fire:

The recall of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 after some devices caught fire has put the spotlight on phone batteries and the suppliers. This is how batteries can malfunction. Video above published Sep 28, 2016.


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Twitter $TWTR in Play: Is the Price Too High? (video)

The Companies That Might Buy Twitter:

Shares of Twitter surged by the most in more than two years following reports that the social media company may soon receive a takeover offer. Bloomberg Gadfly's Brooke Sutherland discusses the details on "Bloomberg ‹GO›" Sep 23, 2016. (Sutherland is a Bloomberg Gadfly columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

More Twitter Suitors Emerge Despite Premium | CNBC:

Neil Doshi, Mizuho Securities Internet Analyst, discusses the rise in Twitter stocks as rumors swirl around a potential sale of the social media company. Video above published Sep 27, 2016.

Chart below: Twitter Still Isn't Flying High | Statista:


Salesforce, Google, and Disney, among others, are now reportedly interested in Twitter, the social networking service.  In the short-term, this has been good for Twitter's share price, rising 19% Thursday to Friday last week, and over 28% since August 29th (see chart below). But Twitter is still not flying high. The current price is below the IPO closing day price ($44.90), November 7, 2013, and considerably below the high of $73.31 in December 2013. Since then, the company's market cap has been slashed by billions of dollars. With its current valuation, quarterly "numbers" consistently in the red, and user growth stalling, the potential buyers need to come with deep pockets and solid plans. See also on SeekingAlpha.com: Google Is Going To Buy Twitter and Why Twitter Is Unlikely To Accept A Buyout Offer (reportedly insiders may want as much as $30 billion, considerably higher than the current market capitalization of $20 billion).

Twitter Inc. (domain: twitter.com) NYSE: TWTR 30-day chart below:

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GoPro CEO on New Camera Drone, Company Performance (video)

GoPro chief aims high with new drone:

Nick Woodman, founder of GoPro, talks to FT reporter Tim Bradshaw about the launch of its Karma drone, its slumping share price and the beginning of a "new era" for the troubled action-camera maker. Published Sep 24, 2016.

GoPro CEO on New Camera Drone, Company Performance:

GoPro CEO Nick Woodman on the company's performance and new camera drone. He speaks with Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Markets." Video above published September 19, 2016.

Domain: gopro.com

GoPro Inc. shares: stock exchange: symbol | NASDAQ: GPRO

Tweets by GoPro


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Scott Galloway on Honest Company and Unilever (video)

Scott Galloway on Honest Company and Unilever:

CPG giants Unilever and Procter & Gamble are taking different approaches to fighting competition from innovative startups in the category. Procter & Gamble has invested in its own Gillette Shave Club to rival Harry’s and other razor subscription services, while Unilever is going the acquisition route. It purchased Dollar Shave Club in July and reports surfaced that it was in talks to buy The Honest Co. – which offers subscription diapers and organic personal care products - for $1 billion. Scott Galloway has some advice for all parties involved. Video above published September 20, 2016, by L2inc.com. Scott Galloway is a NYU Stern Marketing Professor and founder of L2inc.

Note: "CPG" is Consumer Packaged Goods.

Domains of the brands referenced above:

• unilever.com
• pg.com
• gillette.com
• harrys.com
• dollarshaveclub.com
• honest.com

Transcript viaYouTube.com:
0:00  So the celebrity deathmatch of this week Apple vs Samsung? No. There's a bigger
0:10  fight shaping up and that's between Unilever and Procter & Gamble what
0:14  brought this on the category has enormous margins and it's still growing
0:18  but not for the big players 90 of the 100 biggest cpg brands in the US lost share last
0:24  year and two-thirds decline in revenue why largely because of the death of the
0:29  industrial advertising complex these companies are great advertisers and
0:32  advertising has become the valarium steel that is losing its edge it's
0:37  getting dollar and dollar in addition the firms are largely dependent upon
0:40  distribution that is in structural decline specifically brick-and-mortar
0:44  grocery distribution and their investors have become addicted to their profits
0:49  similar to a heroin addict so they're likely to tell them to ya go innovate
0:53  but don't give out my profits bc is an entrepreneur smell blood in the water
0:57  these unbelievably rich margins and there's now dozens of startups armed
1:02  with cheap capital and no legacy reflex reaction toward broadcast media or
1:06  traditional channels so two very different reactions PNG is aggressively
1:11  invested in there too let's shave club
1:13  however unilever is taking a different tack and going for the chin and ass the
1:17  baby ass for some sort of analogy and I just can't figure it out with
1:21  acquisitions that directly take on the core of PNG's business specifically
1:25  diapers and razors so on friday was leaked the unilever was in talks with
1:30  the honest company to acquire them for a billion dollars fast on the heels of
1:34  their billion dollar acquisition of dollars shave club by the way it was
1:37  probably leaked by Unilever who wanted to see if the financial markets threw up
1:40  on it before they proceeded both startups are masters of the medium and
1:44  catalyze more traffic and searches in the Cincinnati and London _____ and
1:48  more depth with social platforms and more aggressive with online advertising
1:53  granted it's easier to be innovative when your investors are rooting for you
1:57  to grow and spend more money versus unilever and PNG investors who are
2:01  rooting on them to grow as long as they stay profitable so some unsolicited
2:05  advice to the various parties here first off disclosure we work with both procter
2:10  & gamble and Unilever like them
2:12  with a lot and our backers of the same backers of the honest company's you're
2:15  about to see me kiss everybody's ass every day that goes on the price is
2:20  going to get better
2:21  there is no other acquire the honest company threatened to go public that is
2:25  never going to happen the public markets have become more discerning in the
2:28  private markets let's flip back to the honest company another big piece of
2:31  advice to you sell you are being valued at three to four times revenue in an
2:36  infinite multiple on your even you are cpg company and you are never going to
2:42  get this price again in my view . advice for Procter & Gamble specifically the
2:46  folks at Gillette I think this warrants an adult conversation that if you don't
2:49  invest $MONEY to $MONEY billion dollars plus in your own subscription effort
2:53  specifically Gillette Shave Club you are going to lose share so how does this all
2:57  play out your diapers and your razors are about to become a lot less expensive
3:02  jessica alba and exact set both firms that get this stuff about to get a lot
3:07  richer and tens of thousands of people who manufacture and market razors and
3:12  diapers are going to make less money why the future involves higher stock prices
3:17  more billionaires but fewer middle-class households both firms will come under
3:22  pressure to reduce costs specifically people with technology however the
3:28  upside razors and diapers whenever and wherever you need them
3:33  yay
3:35  mmm


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News Review: BIG Winners of the Week ICANN and TRUMP

Domain Mondo's weekly review of the news, analysis, and look ahead [pdf]: 

Further updates at DomainMondo.com: IANA Transition: What the U.S. Government Is Really 'Giving Up'.

UPDATE Sep 29, 2016: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, and Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt, have filed a lawsuit (pdf) in a last minute attempt to stop the IANA stewardship transition, in the U.S. District Court, Galveston, Texas, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, including a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. According to Tucson.com, U.S. District Court Judge George Hanks Jr. (who was appointed by President Obama in 2015) has set a hearing for Friday in Galveston, Texas, 1:30 pm CDT.

UPDATE Sep 28, 2016: TheHill.com reports a short-term government funding bill passed in the Senate on Wednesday and did not include any measure to block the Obama administration from handing off oversight of the internet domain naming system [IANA stewardship transition] to ICANN. The bill is now headed to the U.S. House of Representatives--2nd UPDATE: The U.S.House of Representatives has, on Wednesday evening, Sep 28, 2016, concurred with the U.S. Senate and passed the government funding bill without any block of the IANA stewardship transition which will take effect October 1, 2016, upon expiration of the IANA functions contract between NTIA and ICANN on September 30, 2016:

previous update:
UPDATE 27 Sep 2016: Senate Blocks Republican Stopgap From Advancing | RollCall.com: "The Senate on Tuesday voted 45-55 not to cut off debate on a 10-week continuing resolution proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to keep government agencies and programs funded into December 2016." In addition, a coalition of 77 national and cybersecurity leaders sent a letter (pdf) September 26, 2016, to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford urging them to oppose the IANA transition. Senator John Thune (R-SD) told TheHill.com that next steps for supporters of a delay of the transition were unclear. "It was one of those deals where we thought the Dems were OK with it and at the last minute they started moving the goalposts ... And so I think at this point, it may be that the House tries to do something with that but I don't have a good answer in terms of the path forward at the moment."

original post Sep 25, 2016:

Feature • BIG Winners of the Week ICANN and TRUMP:

•  ICANN got what it wanted: Spending bill doesn't include Cruz internet fight | TheHill.com.

•  TRUMP got what he wanted: Ted Cruz backs his former bitter rival Donald Trump, saying Hillary Clinton must be defeated | LATimes.com.

For ICANN that means there are only 5 working days left before the IANA transition is complete, effective October 1, 2016. I predicted last week that stopping the IANA transition was unlikely, and unless Democrats re-open negotiations in these final days and trade it away, it looks like a done deal.

For TRUMP that means he got a major endorsement and campaign boost on the eve of the first Presidential debate scheduled for Monday, September 26, 9:00-10:30 PM EDT, at Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY. As reported elsewhere, the Trump-Clinton debate is expected to shatter records--the first debate between President Obama and Governor Romney saw TV viewership of 67 million, and the first 2008 debate between then-candidate Obama and Senator McCain pulled in 52.4 million viewers--Monday night's debate is expected to bring in 100 million viewers (Super Bowl 50 had 112 million TV viewers). The debate has the potential to shape not just political opinions but even investor psychology.

Most political observers agree that in this first debate, Hillary has the most to lose while upstart Trump has the most  to gain: Nervous Democrats Fret About Clinton’s Stumbles as Race Tightens | Bloomberg.com: "Hillary's been her own worst enemy ... People think she's dishonest."  The debate will be six time segments of about 15 minutes each on topics selected by the moderator Lester Holt: America's Direction; Achieving Prosperity; and Securing America. The moderator will open each segment with a question, after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond. Candidates will then have an opportunity to respond to each other. The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a deeper discussion of the topic.

This debate may also set a record for internet viewership. Watch free online via Twitter.com, Facebook.com, Bloomberg.com or abcnews.go.com/Live. See also Trump shatters GOP records with small donors| POLITICO.com: Inside the GOP, Trump is being called the Republican Obama. Trump has been actively soliciting cash for only a few months, but his campaign’s financials show he has already crushed the total haul from small-dollar donors to the past two Republican nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney, during the "entirety of their campaigns" and not only does 20 percent of the money go to the RNC but the RNC will end 2016 with access to a far larger email and donor file than ever before in its history.

And BTW: Be skeptical of the pollsters (remember how most Brexit polls were wrong)--We Gave Four Good Pollsters the Same Raw Data. They Had Four Different Results | NYTimes.com: "...in truth, the “margin of sampling error” – basically, the chance that polling different people would have produced a different result – doesn't even come close to capturing the potential for error in surveys. Polling results rely as much on the judgments [biases] of pollsters as on the science of survey methodology. Two good pollsters, both looking at the same underlying data, could come up with two very different results. How so? Because pollsters make a series of decisions when designing their survey, from determining likely voters to adjusting their respondents to match the demographics of the electorate. These decisions are hard. They usually take place behind the scenes, and they can make a huge difference ..."  Exactly, which is another reason these ICANN surveys are also a joke (and that's putting it nicely) as I wrote last week. For a good drill down on ICANN's latest survey and its questionable results, read this DomainIncite.com post.

Other ICANN, Internet Governance, and Domain Name News:

•  If You Build A Censorship Machine, They Will Come | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org: "Power, once again, creates temptation. This year, MPAA made agreements with two domain name registries, Donuts and Radix, which control new top-level internet domains such as .movie, .online, and .site. Both registries agreed to receive accusations from MPAA that particular websites are engaged in copyright infringement, and to consider taking away those websites’ domain names. MPAA, along with other representatives of major entertainment companies, has also been pushing ICANN, the group that oversees the domain name system, to mandate this new copyright enforcement regime worldwide. There are many problems with this initiative, which we’ll be exploring in the coming weeks. But one lesson that MPAA should have learned this year is that once one special interest obtains power to block the channels of communication, others will come knocking."  Note: EFF is referring to the same arrangement which incompetent ICANN leadership, including its inept former President & CEO Fadi Chehadé, have encouraged--see this tweet dated February 9, 2016, which is actually from Chehadé, not current CEO Marby. Maybe Ted Cruz is right after all. 

•  Cops are raiding the homes of innocent people based only on IP addresses | Fusion.net: "IP addresses can be incredibly useful for a police investigation, but they can also lead cops astray. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wants police officers and judges to be more careful in how they use IP addresses, thinking of them as helpful clues rather than a smoking gun. “Police too often take IP address information to mean that a person associated with an address is the party who committed a crime,” write EFF lawyer Aaron Mackey, technologist Seth Schoen, and Executive Director Cindy Cohn in a white paper aimed at courts and cops." Read the EFF article and white paper to find out how sloppy law enforcement combined with judicial and prosecutorial ignorance can lead to disastrous results.

•  Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) .COM Registry Agreement extended by ICANN to November 30, 2024. See UPDATE at Comment to ICANN on Proposed Amendment to .COM Registry Agreement.

•  .WEB UPDATE: 9 September 2016 Letter from Scott Hemphill (Afilias) to Akram Atallah (ICANN) (pdf), which was not published by ICANN until 20 September 2016, reads like a preparatory "notice to sue" letter from .WEB applicant Afilias VP & General Counsel, Scott Hemphill, to ICANN's Global Domains Division (GDD) President, Akram Atallah. BIG difference from the first Afilias letter of August 8, is the additional cc: to Arif Hyder Ali, Dechert LLP, indicating Afilias has now retained outside counsel. As I noted in Domain Mondo's News Review [21Aug]: 

"Of the 18 Independent Review Process (IRP) proceedings brought to date to hold ICANN accountable for its actions, only three claimants have succeeded: ICM Registry (.XXX), DCA Trust (.AFRICA), and Dot Registry (.LLC, .INC and .LLP). All three were represented by Dechert LLP (dechert.com) lawyers." 

It would not surprise me if this latest Afilias letter was in fact prepared by Dechert LLP. However, what is completely lacking in the allegations of Afilias, as well as the claims of Ruby Glen LLC (see below), is that the "the specific terms of the agreement between Verisign and NDC [Nu Dot Co LLC] have not been disclosed" which Afilias concedes in its latest letter. The agreement between Verisign and NDC is proprietary information which, without a subpoena or Court order, may never be voluntarily disclosed but may be a completely proper arrangement as I discussed here. ICANN GDD President Akram Atallah, a crony of former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé, has not answered nor responded to either the Afilias letter of August 8, nor the letter of September 9, so any conclusions thus far are purely speculative. For example, the fact that .WEB winning bidder Nu Dot Co LLC has not yet written (as far as we know) a demand letter to ICANN, while Afilias has now written a second letter after its first letter went unanswered, could indicate Afilias senses it has lost or is about to lose "the battle" for .WEB within ICANN, or it may merely reflect Dechert LLP's desire to revise and expand the earlier letter from Afilias. For more see Afilias Challenges New gTLD WEB Auction Results in Letter to ICANN.

• ICANN Litigation UPDATE: 1) ICANN response to Ruby Glen LLC's Amended Complaint now due by Wednesday, October 26. Ruby Glen LLC, an affiliate of Donuts, is another losing bidder for .WEB (see Afilias above); 2) Appellants' Petition for Rehearing En Banc and Appellants’ Petition for Panel Rehearing DENIED by Court of Appeals in Weinstein vs Iran. For more: ICANN Litigation, Cooperative Engagement, and IRP Status Update.

•  Dot Registry UPDATE (new gTLDs .INC, .LLC, .LLP): Approved Board Resolution | September 15, 2016, Meeting of the ICANN Board: "Resolved (2016.09.15.15), the Board directs the Board Governance Committee to re-evaluate Dot Registry's Reconsideration Requests 14-30, 14-32 and 14-33 in light of the Panel majority's Final Declaration in the Dot Registry IRP and the issues it identified with respect to the BGC's actions in evaluating these Reconsideration Requests."

•  Internet Sovereignty? South Korea has no formalized stance amid the changing internet world order says BusinessKorea.co.kr: "China and India support the idea of a private multilateral organization managing the Internet, while they insist that the Internet order needs the government-led management at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) level."

•  Why the silencing of KrebsOnSecurity.com opens a troubling chapter for the ‘Net | ArsTechnica.com: "“Free speech in the age of the Internet is not really free,” journalist warns ... The growing supply of IoT malware is creating a tipping point in the denial-of-service domain that's giving relatively unsophisticated actors capabilities that were once reserved only for the most elite of attackers ... that, in turn, represents a threat to the Internet as we know it. "The biggest threats as far as I'm concerned in terms of censorship come from these ginormous weapons these guys are building," Krebs said. "The idea that tools that used to be exclusively in the hands of nation states are now in the hands of individual actors ...""

•  Welcome to the Dark Net, a Wilderness Where Invisible World Wars Are Fought and Hackers Roam Free| VanityFair.com: Master hacker turned security expert, William Langewiesche chronicles the rise of the Dark Net—where weapons, drugs, and information are bought, sold, and hacked—and learns how high the stakes have really become.

•  Who's Trying to Take Down the Internet? "Over the past year or two, someone has been probing the defenses of the companies that run critical pieces of the Internet ... precisely calibrated attacks designed to determine exactly how well these companies can defend themselves, and what would be required to take them down. We don't know who is doing this, but it feels like a large a large nation state. China or Russia would be my first guesses ..."--Bruce Schneier, Schneier.com

• No comments close this coming week at ICANN.

•  ICANN Quarterly Stakeholder Report | ICANN.org:  ICANN has announced its FY17 Q1 Stakeholder Call will take place on 18 October at 0300 UTC / 17 October 2000 PST. The call will focus on how ICANN has implemented community policy for the Quarter ending 30 September 2016 as well as provide an APAC update. To register for the call and to receive joining instructions, go the link above.

Tech News:

1. New Rules For Raising Venture Capital | Forbes.com.
2. Twitter (NYSE: TWTR | twitter.com) in play?--CNBC.com
3. Amazon Says It Puts Customers First. But Its Pricing Algorithm Doesn’t. | ProPublica.org: Amazon's "algorithm is hiding the best deal from many customers."
4. T-Mobile.com is not only the fastest 4G LTE network in the U.S. according to OpenSignal, Ookla and the FCC, the Uncarrier is getting 5G speeds of 12 gigabits per second or more than three times as fast as the Verizon 5G trials last February.
5. October 4th, 9 am PDT: Google hardware event showcasing new Pixel smartphone streamed LIVE via YouTube. Meanwhile its holding company Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), is sucking away Google's profits--see SeekingAlpha.com: "what they are spending money on isn’t successful"--and ABC.xyz may have Indonesia tax problems--Reuters.com.
6. Comcast mobile phone service (MVNO via Verizon) to launch in 2017, with a Wi-Fi hotspots service similar to Google Fi (fi.google.com)--WSJ.com.
7. Rents too expensive for your tech start-up? The solution, whether in London, New York, San Francisco, or elsewhere, may be "co-working spaces" says CNBC.com.
8. Most popular color on the internet? Blue--WIRED.com

Macro view:

1. The Fed punked out yet again: Divided Fed Holds Fire, Signals 2016 Rate Increase Still Likely | Bloomberg.com. Maybe AFTER the election, but it may be too late anyway, the Fed once again mismanaged monetary policy and interest rates, keeping rates too low for far too long (8 years of ZIRP), and now apparently is trapped.
2. Lower Your Expectations: The John Bogle Expected Return Formula: "Future Market Returns = Dividend Yield + Earnings Growth +/- Change in P/E Ratio"--this formula currently gives him an estimate of stock market returns in the 4-6% range, well below the long-term average that falls in the 8-10% range.--aWealthOfCommonSense.com
3. China Containerized Freight Index remains near record low--Why Hanjin’s Zombie Collapse Won’t Be the Last One | WolfStreet.com.
4. U.S. Services Industries Expand at Weakest Pace in Six Years: "The figure is lower than the most pessimistic projection in a Bloomberg survey" --the U.S. Might Not Dodge a Recession says Deutsche Bank:  "... there's a 30 percent probability that the U.S. will succumb to a recession over the next 12 months. That compares pessimistically with the 20 percent that is the average expectations of analysts surveyed"--Bloomberg.com.

Four most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this week on DomainMondo.com:

1. News Review [18 Sep]: After Cruz Attack, What Now For ICANN & IANA Transition?
2. Women Techmakers Mountain View Summit 2016 (video)
3. Smartphone Industry Disrupted by BLU: Life One X2 First Look (video)
4. Smartphone Apps Are Now 50% of All US Digital Media Time Spent

4 Other Reading Recommendations:

1. 3 Lessons From Warren Buffett's Bet Against Hedge Funds that, for the ensuing decade, the S&P 500 would outdo a pool of five hedge fund of funds: 1) costs matter; 2) time periods matter; and 3) taxes matter.--Morningstar.com
2.  How the EU's Leaders Should Think About Brexit | Bloomberg.com Editorial: "... In the long term, crippling London's ability to provide services to the EU in order to encourage the growth of new financial centers in Europe would be a gamble; in the short term, like any other kind of import barrier, it would harm the European businesses and consumers that buy those services. EU leaders should ask themselves: If barriers like that make sense, what was the point of the single market in the first place?"
3. Giant problem: The entrenchment of a group of superstar companies at the heart of the global economy ... they have two big faults. They are squashing competition, and they are using the darker arts of management to stay ahead. Neither is easy to solve. But failing to do so risks a backlash which will be bad for everyone."--Economist.com
4. "Happiness may not be about how much overall wealth you have, but how much cash you have on hand."--The More Cash People Have, the Happier They Are | WSJ.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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Every Single Part Inside an Apple iPhone (infographic)

Below: parts inside an Apple iPhone 6s

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

Highlighted are 34 individual components in an iPhone 6s which come from eight countries: U.S., China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, UK.

Key pieces in the iPhone come from Apple’s biggest competitor Samsung--the South Korean company produces some of Apple's A9 chips, display screens, mobile DRAM, and flash memory--Apple is the biggest external customer of Samsung components in the world.

Manufacturing of physical pieces of bigger hardware (battery, screen, camera, etc.) tends to be dominated by Asian suppliers, while technologies integrated with the printed circuit board come mostly from U.S. and European suppliers. For example, technology for the iPhone 6s lithium-ion battery comes from three companies in Asia--2 in China (Desay Battery Tech, Sunwoda Electronics), and 1 in Taiwan (Simple Technology). Technologies from Texas Instruments (in the U.S.), integrate right into the printed circuit board: battery charger, power management, and the LED backlight Retina display driver. Bosch Sensortec out of Germany provides two parts built into the circuit board: a barometer and an accelerometer.

Domains of companies referenced above:
apple.com
samsung.com
desaybattery.com
sunwoda.com
simpletechnology.com
ti.com
bosch-sensortec.com

See also on Domain Mondo:  Smartphone Industry Disrupted by BLU: Life One X2 First Look (video)

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Smartphone Industry Disrupted by BLU: Life One X2 First Look (video)

Life One X2 First Look:

Move over Apple, Samsung, and Google Pixel--here comes BLU (domain: bluproducts.com).

Video above published by BLU on Sep 22, 2016. You can pre-order now to get a 10% discount--only for 48 hours--September 22nd & September 23rd--get the Life One X2 starting at $134.99 for 16GB+2GB, and $179.99 for 64GB+4GB at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZHFSBC

Domain Mondo watches technology trends and Miami-based BLU is getting a lot of attention in the smartphone industry. The New BLU Life One X2 has added significant improvements in technology from the original Life One X, such as Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 430 processor, Qualcomm® Quick Charge™ 3.0, and 5.2-inch 1080p Full HD with a gorgeous curved Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

More info:

• http://bluproducts.com/devices/life-one-x2/
• PDF: http://s536785483.onlinehome.us/salesguides/images/salesguides/life-one-x2-sg.pdf
• Blu reveals latest smartphone in the $150 Life One X2 | AndroidGuys.com

The New BLU #LifeOneX2 has great features such as Qualcomm® Quick Charge™ 3.0,1080p Full HD and more! Pre-order now @amazon for 48HR sale! pic.twitter.com/ffqQNxk19U

— BLU Products (@BLU_Products) September 22, 2016

For a good wireless carrier deal, check out T-Mobile offerings (some available only online) including these money-saving plans:

If you have access to Wi-Fi, why do you need an expensive wireless carrier plan?


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Women Techmakers Mountain View Summit 2016 (video)

Women Techmakers Mountain View Summit 2016:

Experience the highlights of the 3rd annual Women Techmakers Summit in Mountain View. Women Techmakers provides visibility, community, and resources for women in technology across all phases of their careers, and empowers a global community, year round. Video above published September 20, 2016. Playlist of all Women Techmakers Summit videos here.

You can learn more about Women Techmakers at WomenTechmakers.com and on twitter:
Tweets by WomenTechmakers

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The Not So World Wide Web: the Internet Digital Divide

source: Statista

The chart above shows how many people use the internet in all the different world regions.

25 years ago, on August 23, 1991, a British computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, who was then working at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research), made the World Wide Web available to the public. However, even 25 years after what some call its inception, the World Wide Web is not nearly as universally available as its name suggests. According to the latest estimates by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency specializing in information and communication technologies, only 47 in 100 people in the world use the internet today. While internet access in regions such as North America and Europe has become a utility like electricity and running water, people in less developed regions often still lack affordable access to what has arguably become the world's most important source of information.

See also on Domain Mondo: More Than Half The World’s Population Still Not Using The Internet

ICT Facts and Figures 2016 (pdf) embedded below (note: LDC - Least Developed Countries):


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Smartphone Apps Are Now 50% of All US Digital Media Time Spent

New post: Smartphone Apps Are Now 50% of All U.S. Digital Media Time Spent https://t.co/LZO9RdifEV pic.twitter.com/DXZCNn7F95

— comScore, Inc. (@comScore) September 1, 2016

Smartphone apps now account for more than half of all Americans’ time spent online, according to comScore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform and comScore Mobile Metrix®. The smartphone app has been the most important access vehicle to the internet for some time, is now growing its share to a point where it now eclipses all other digital media platforms combined.--Smartphone Apps Are Now 50% of All U.S. Digital Media Time Spent | comScore.com

But Consumers Spend Most Of Their Time In Just A Few Apps according to Forrester.com. While US consumers spend most of their time on smartphones using apps, just five apps account for nearly 90% of the time they spend using apps. Although US smartphone owners use about 24 unique apps in a given month, the remaining 19 command just a small slice of users’ time. For this reason, Forrester has advised businesses to design their apps for their best and most loyal or frequent customers because those are the only one who will bother to download and use the app regularly. Most retailers report their mobile web sales outweigh their app sales, and outside of the larger players like Google and Facebook, customers will use mobile websites instead of a business’ native app.

90% Of All iOS Apps Are Zombies:

Source: Statista

Apple has announced that it will remove apps that “no longer function as intended, don’t follow current review guidelines, or are outdated.” The chart  above shows why Apple feels that step is necessary--90 percent of all apps in the App Store are invisible or "zombies"--these apps can only be found by directly searching for them, according to analytics firm Adjust.


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EU Outlaws Network Ad Blocking, Death of the Advertising Complex?

EU's ad blocking ban explained:

New EU telecom rules mean that network-wide blocks on advertising by wireless carriers, and other "internet access service" providers, will be outlawed. In the video above, FT.com telecoms correspondent Nic Fildes explains what this means for mobile companies, consumers and other industries. Video published 1 September 2016. See also: Blow to telecoms companies as EU outlaws network-wide ad blocking | FT.com: "... companies “should not block, slow down, alter, restrict, interfere with, degrade or discriminate advertising when providing an IAS (internet access service)”." 

Professor Scott Galloway on Death of the Industrial Advertising Complex:

Video above: In this talk at L2’s Digital Leadership Academy, NYU Stern Marketing Professor Scott Galloway argues that advertising is becoming less essential to brand building as consumers are discovering products with tools like Google, Amazon, and TripAdvisor. The brand is no longer on the tip of the tongue, it’s what Google says it is. Furthermore, wealthy shoppers are paying to avoid advertising altogether. Winners in this new age are not always the biggest spenders on ads, but innovators in product, supply chain, and influencers. 

Transcript via YouTube:




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News Review: After Cruz Attack, What Now For ICANN & IANA Transition?

Domain Mondo's weekly review of the news, analysis, and look ahead [pdf]: 

UPDATE Sep 22, 2016:  IANA Transition: Dead or Alive? High drama in D.C. TheHill.com reports that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has "dopped a provision championed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and backed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to block the Obama administration from ceding oversight of internet domain names to an international body." POLITICO.com confirms that: "Gone is the so-called ICANN provision, an internet-domain issue that had become a top priority for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other GOP senators and just got the seal of endorsement from GOP nominee Donald Trump." However, NYTimes.com reports the short-term spending bill that Congress is set to pass next week "will most likely include a provision championed by Senator Ted Cruz ... While many Democrats oppose the [Cruz] provision, it is not clear how many care enough to make it stop" (emphasis added). POLITICO.com does concede Cruz is urging allies in the U.S. House of Representatives to fight on and stop the IANA transition. We may not know for sure until next week.

UPDATE Sep 21, 2016: It appears the pro-transition lobbyists have either dropped the ball or didn't come to the game ready to play:

1. Trump enters the arena on ICANN | TheHill.com; Press release of September 21, 2016: Trump Opposes President Obama's Plan to Surrender American Internet Control to Foreign Powers | Donald J Trump for President | DonaldJTrump.com by Stephen Miller, National Policy Director for the Trump Campaign; TheHill.com also reports FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly now also want to delay the IANA transition;
2. Senate leaders say they are close to deal to prevent government shutdown: "The latest GOP offer also included a provision sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would delay plans for the U.S. government to give up control over a global nonprofit that oversees the internet domain system. Cruz told reporters that he is “cautiously optimistic” that it will be included in the final package."--WashingtonPost.com [Domain Mondo Editor's Note: read the WaPo article and one is left with the impression that Democrats are now willing to "trade away" their stance on the IANA transition for something else.]

UPDATE Sep 20, 2016: U.S. Senate lays groundwork for spending deal--"It's not [time for] a big debate for talking about how we change the internet forever ... It's not a time to try to satisfy Cruz because he doesn't get along with the caucus and they're trying to shut him up."--U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Minority Leader in TheHill.com.

________

Original post of Sep 18, 2016:
Feature •  After Cruz Attack, What Now For ICANN & IANA Transition? For more than a week U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has been dominating the news related to the IANA stewardship transition scheduled to be completed October 1, 2016 (after expiration of the IANA functions contract on September 30). From September 9th's US Senator Cruz Attacks ICANN, Fadi Chehadé, IANA Transition (video) through yesterday's Sen. Cruz Questions NTIA's Strickling, ICANN's Marby & Witnesses (videos), Domain Mondo's coverage has included a daily posting on this topic almost every day.

But now with less than two weeks left before September 30, the chance that Republicans in the House and Senate will actually derail the IANA transition is unlikely, for the following reasons:

1. The fact that this is an election year works in favor of the IANA transition--Republicans are looking to leave Washington soon to return to the campaign trail, reports TheHill.com.
2. The IANA transition is not a hot-button issue in this campaign season. Most Americans don't even know who or what ICANN is, much less the IANA transition, and don't care. The headline in the Washington Post sums it all up: Ted Cruz has made an obscure Internet agency his first post-presidential crusade. In Election 2016, it's about the economy, stupid:



Election 2016 top issues in search by state, past week | Google Trends 

3. Ted Cruz is a pariah even in his own party. Cruz was invited and spoke at the Republican Convention in July but refused to endorse the Republican Party's Presidential nominee. Subsequently he was deemed persona non grata at the GOP gathering and even barred from entering GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson's suite at the Convention hall.
4. Cruz's grandstanding this past week may have been the "kiss of death" to the effort to delay the IANA transition. Although four key House and Senate Chairmen have indicated a preference  to extend the IANA functions contract for one year, how much political capital will they be willing to expend when it comes down to the wire?
5. Washington runs on lobbying money. I noted Friday that "preventing a 'competing' internet root may be the most compelling reason to not delay the IANA transition despite misgivings about ICANN or the IANA transition plan." None of the tech giants in the world, including those in China, want a competing root and everyone is looking to the U.S. tech giants (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) who are hardwired into K Street to "get the job done" (i.e., get the IANA transition completed).
6. Trump has no love for Cruz and now Trump is leading in the Presidential Race according to several polls: Trump cracks the Electoral College lock | POLITICO.com Sept. 15, 2016: "A new round of state polls shows Donald Trump suddenly has a path to 270 electoral votes [to win the Presidency] ... state polling averages, which can be lagging indicators, are beginning to show Trump in the lead."  Trump has never stated his position on the IANA stewardship transition and there is no reason for him to now. As I have previously noted, the Trump campaign's lawyer is Jones Day Partner Don McGahn (Jones Day is also legal counsel for ICANN). Perhaps even more important, Trump's go-to guy on tech matters is Peter Thiel who certainly doesn't want a competing internet root. If asked, Thiel would probably say ICANN, after 18 years, must have reached minimal viable product stage, so don't delay the IANA transition--see Can Monopolies Save The Internet? | BigThink.com at Harvard's Berkman Center: Peter Thiel vs. Jonathan Zittrain on globalization, monopolies, internet, Facebook, etc. (April 13, 2009). See also: Bilderberg People: Elite Power and Consensus in World Affairs | books.google.com. Under this reasoning, if ICANN falters post-transition, the U.S. government has an implied right to step back in as "historic steward of the internet" and do whatever is necessary to "right the ship." A key to this may have been the testimony of NTIA's Larry Strickling at the Cruz hearing that the U.S. did not want a registry agreement with ICANN for either .MIL or .GOV because the U.S. government did not want to concede or give up its "sovereignty" in those TLDs (top-level domains).
7. The most powerful person in the Republican Party right now may be Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC). The Trump campaign's national finance chairman (and likely future Secretary of the Treasury should Trump win) is Steven Mnuchin who has a lean staff but is using the RNC and all of its resources to raise money, not only for Trump, but for the Republican Party and all its candidates in all 50 states. While Hillary Clinton's campaign is running a separate huge fundraising operation out of the campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, Trump's fundraising flows through the RNC in Washington, D.C. They know all of this on Capitol Hill, and as Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” For that reason, you may continue to hear "noise" about the IANA transition but the real question is: "To whom should we make the checks payable?" See U.S. technology companies lobby for ICANN transition | SeekingAlpha.com.

Other ICANN, Internet Governance, and Domain Name News:

•  The Catalyst For The IANA Stewardship Transition: New Film Tells the Story of Edward Snowden; Here Are the Surveillance Programs He Helped Expose | TheIntercept.com.

•  DNS Forum | InternetPolicyForum.com: On September 14-15, Public Interest Registry, CENTR, LACTLD, i2Coalition, and ISOC-DC brought together a diverse group of experts to discuss the impacts of policy on DNS (domain name system) technical operators.  Panelists and audience members discussed the implications of privacy, security, and content policies for these technical operators and how the technical community can best engage in the evolving multistakeholder model of Internet governance. For complete agenda, video replay, and more information, go to the link above.

•  Verisign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) reported this week that at the close of Q2 2016 (June 30, 2016):

• The total number of registered domain names rose to 334.6 million worldwide across all top-level domains, of which new gTLDs (ngTLDs) domain names comprised only 22 million or 6.6% of all TLDs' domain names, and the top 10 ngTLDs represented 61.5 percent of all ngTLD domain name registrations.
• 7.9 million domain names were added to the Internet in Q2 2016: • This increase globally equates to a growth rate of 2.4% over Q1 2016 • Domain name registrations have grown by 38.2 million, or 12.9 percent, year over year.
• The .com and .net TLDs reached a combined total of approximately 143.2 million domain names in the domain name base in Q2’16 • The base of registered names in .com equaled 127.5 million names, while .net equaled 15.8 million names • Verisign processed 8.6 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net, as compared to 8.7 million domain names for the same period in 2015.
• Verisign’s average Domain Name System query load was 130 billion across all TLDs operated by Verisign, with a peak of 179 billion.
• Total ccTLD domain name registrations were approximately 149.9 million in the first quarter of 2016, with an increase of 1.4 million domain name registrations, or a 1.0 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2016. ccTLDs increased by approximately 11.7 million domain name registrations, or 8.5 percent, year over year. Without including .tk, ccTLD domain name registration growth quarter-over-quarter was 1.2 percent and growth year-over-year was 10.7 percent. 
• The top 10 ccTLDs, as of June 30, 2016, were .tk (Tokelau), .cn (China), .de (Germany), .uk (United Kingdom), .ru (Russian Federation), .nl (Netherlands), .br (Brazil), .eu (European Union), .au (Australia) and .fr (France).
• As of June 30, 2016, there were 292 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root, including Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), with the top 10 ccTLDs composing 67.3 percent of all ccTLD domain name registrations. 

Verisign had previously reported that at the close of Q1 2016 (March 31, 2016), the base of registered names in .com equaled 126.6 million names, while .net equaled 15.9 million names. Accordingly, .net registrations decreased by about 100,000 (net) in Q2 2016, while .com registrations increased by about 900,000 domain names (net) in Q2 2016. For more information, copies of the Q2 2016 DNIB, or to view past reports, go to VerisignInc.com/DNIB.

•  ICANN's new consolidated page for community feedback on various issues: Operational Consultations | ICANN.org.

•  ICANN published its Global Registrant Survey Final Phase Results (pdf). More information here. Results may be questionable based upon methodology alone:

ICANN Global Registrant Surveywave 2 | AUGUST 2016, p. 5

Apparently ICANN commissions these kinds of studies to generate a mostly useless report in an attempt to justify ICANN's mistakes or reinforce existing policies. Vendors, like Nielsen, usually understand this. Manipulation ("adjustment") of methodology and data are well known techniques. In this case, the report did confirm a few things we already knew:

• Reported registration of new gTLDs is highest in the Asia Pacific region.
• ".COM continues to be the most favored legacy domain name among registrants. Declines are seen for several of the less common gTLDs but these already have very low reported registrations." (p.22 of 182)
• Many would-be registrants choose alternative identities (e.g., social media handles) over domain names.
• About 17 percent of the respondents said they did not renew a domain in favor of using an alternative method for managing an online identity.

•   TheDomains.com reports Frank Schilling's North Sound Names is dropping 230,000 new gTLD domain names from its portfolio, which probably accounts for the decreases we are seeing in Uniregistry's new gTLDs' registration numbers like .FLOWERS and .PROPERTY.

•  No Comments close this coming week at ICANN.

Tech News:

1. Fans cheer, but iPhone 7 gets a subdued welcome--Reuters.com. See also Apple Japan unit ordered to pay $118 million tax for underreporting income: media | Reuters.com.
2. Coaltion for Better Ads (IAB, Google and others), formed as a direct response to ad blocking, the coalition will act as a "kind of regulator for internet ads"--BusinessInsider.com.
3. The Internet’s Own Instigator | BackChannel.com: "Malamud can’t abide 112's waffling on the copyright issue, saying that “to the extent the material is subject to copyright protection, the agency must get authorization…for public access to that material.” To Malamud, if the standard is part of the law, there can be no copyright. Period."
4. Project Sand Hill: Google’s Unknown Campaign to Track the World’s Hottest Startups | WIRED.com. See also: Thoughts on Alphabet, one year in | BusinessInsider.com: So far it's been a BIG Loser but see The Wall Street Veteran Who's Helping Google Get Disciplined | Fortune.com.
5. The blockchain industry is either hugely under-resourced or hugely over-optimistic. Probably both--Blockchain's Numbers Don't Add Up | Bloomberg.com.
6. GM Bolt vs Tesla Model 3? Metrics Make The Difference | SeekingAlpha.com.
7. Deal of the Month: HP Enterprise [US] strikes $8.8 billion deal with Micro Focus [UK] for [HPE's] software assets | Reuters.com.
8. Yahoo Inc. ("RemainCo") after the Verizon sale? Cash + marketable securities + shares in Alibaba, Yahoo Japan, other minority equity investments + IP assets held in Excalibur, AND it will be a company with a new ticker.--SeekingAlpha.com 

Four most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this week on DomainMondo.com:

1. News Review [11Sep]: IANA Transition Drama in D.C. and ICANN & Zika
2. IANA Transition Hearing: Implications of Ending US Oversight of the Internet
3. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz vs ICANN and IANA Transition: Veni, Vidi, Vici ?
4. US Senator Cruz Attacks ICANN, Fadi Chehadé, IANA Transition (video)

Macro view:

1. Deutsche Bank will most likely be bailed out by the German government or the ECB. It will not be allowed to topple and shatter the global financial system but its shares and CoCos will be “bailed in” before taxpayers get hit.--Deutsche Bank’s CoCo Bonds Speak of Fear of the Worst | WolfStreet.com
2. Federal Reserve policy affecting elections is hardly a novel concept. At the recent central banker’s summit in Jackson Hole, former Democrat Congressman Barney Frank, told the Fed, “Don’t raise rates before the election.”--Why The Fed Destroyed The Market Economy | ZeroHedge.com
3. Tax Avoidance Is Part of the Recipe for National & Global Income Inequality: 1) The less affluent must pay their payroll taxes and income taxes in full; 2) The more affluent utilize tax avoidance schemes conveniently provided by governments, that also allow corporations to utilize offshore companies to "hide" or "transfer" profits to low-tax and no-tax jurisdictions; 3) Total effect of the taxation system is regressive, even without adding the inherently regressive effects of sales and value-added taxes. "The phenomenon of rising inequality in affluent societies may not need much additional explaining – and it hardly matters if those were tax-avoidance or tax-evasion trillions."--Hidden assets from the Panama Papers | the-tls.co.uk.
4. Central Bankers, Savers & Investors: Martin Lück, strategist at Blackrock: the ECB's actions are having the opposite effect of the spending spree intended. Falling interest rates cause people to save more rather than less in order to secure their pensions, while investors, including insurers and pension funds, have to enter ever higher risks to secure ROI.--Deutsche Bank CEO Warns Of "Fatal Consequences"...| ZeroHedge.com

4 Other Reading Recommendations:

1. Peter Thiel in the WashingtonPost.com: "The establishment doesn’t want to admit it, but Trump’s heretical denial of Republican dogma about government incapacity is exactly what we need to move the party — and the country — in a new direction. For the Republican Party to be a credible alternative to the Democrats’ enabling, it must stand for effective government, not for giving up on government."
2. "Two basic principles of management, and regulation, and life, are: 1. You get what you measure. 2. The thing that you measure will get gamed ... "--Wells Fargo Opened a Couple Million Fake Accounts | Bloomberg.com.
3. Why One Hedge Fund Is Once Again Preparing For The End Of The Euro | ZeroHedge.com
4. What successful and happy people focus on: "They don’t let anyone limit their joy. When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from comparing yourself to others, you are no longer the master of your own happiness."--weforum.org

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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