Feature • Cost of internet shutdowns, a Brookings Institution paper:
"In sum, government officials in many countries around the world appear increasingly comfortable blocking access to online services and apps, despite the significant economic and social damage that internet service disruptions bring to their countries. Whether their ostensible motivations are public security or political self-preservation, government officials should understand the wide-ranging and destructive consequences of these moves. Shutting down access to popular services or to the whole internet – even for a short period of time – undermines economic growth, puts lives in jeopardy, separates people from friends and family, and erodes confidence in the governments that take such drastic and ill-advised steps."--Darrell M. West, infra, p.9 (emphasis added).Global economy loses billions from internet shutdowns | Brookings Institution | Brookings.edu by Darrell M. West: "In my new paper (pdf), I detail the economic costs to countries that intentionally disrupt citizens’ digital access. I found 81 short-term internet shutdowns that occurred in 19 countries between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016, and estimated that such obstruction cost the global economy at least US$2.4 billion." Excerpt--Table 3--below:
Internet shutdowns cost India $1B, more than any other country | HindustanTimes.com: "... To shut down the internet anywhere in the country, usually the police or state government file a request with the state’s Department of Telecommunications. The department then orders the internet service provider — Airtel, Tata, BSNL, and so on — to cut the data. Decisions to cut off the internet are often ill-conceived. In February, for example, the Gujarat State Subsidiary Selection Board was worried about cheating during the Revenue Accountant Recruitment Exam. Rather than simply banning applicants from bringing electronic devices into the examination room, the board shut down the internet across the state ..."
U.S. Government's Role in Shutdown of WikiLeaks Founder's Internet--U.S. Urged Ecuador to Act Against WikiLeaks Leader Assange | NBCnews.com: "Quiet pressure from the U.S. government played a role in Ecuador's decision to block WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from using the internet at Ecuador's London embassy, U.S. officials told NBC News." See also: On WikiLeaks, Journalism, and Privacy: Reporting on the Podesta Archive is an Easy Call | TheIntercept.com by Glenn Greenwald: "... Hillary Clinton’s supporters will try to find ways to delegitimize all reporting that reflects negatively on her, while justifying and glorifying all reporting that reflects negatively on Republicans. Much of the furious reaction to WikiLeaks is about little other than that ..."The Obama administration should not have attempted to misuse its instruments of state to stop criticism of its ruling party candidate.— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 21, 2016
See also: Did ICANN Just Break the Internet? No, But It Could Have, and May Yet: "... ICANN has for several years been so obsessed with its new gTLDs program, seeing itself as a 'marketing agency' for new generic top-level domains from .PORN to .SUCKS, to now "over 1000 new gTLDs," that it has been lax in its primary duty of ensuring the security and stability of the domain name system (DNS) ..."
Feature • New gTLD .WEB UPDATE:
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| Source: ICANN.org | Status of .WEB and .WEBS |
Also, Akram Atallah, President of ICANN's Global Domains Division, finally responded by letter (pdf) (published Oct 3 on ICANN.org), to Afilias' letters (dated 8 Aug and 9 Sep) demanding disqualification of the winning bid of Nu Dot Co LLC. Atallah told Afilias VP & General Counsel:
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| Excerpt from ICANN GDD President Atallah's Letter to Afilias VP & General Counsel dated Sep 30, 2016 |
- https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/irp-cep-status-22aug16-en.pdf
- https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/advisories/application-contention-set-14mar14-en
- Application Status: In Contracting
- Evaluation Result: Pass IE (IE Report)
- Contention Resolution Status: On Hold
- Contention Resolution Result: Prevailed Contention (Auction Report)
- Pending litigation (Ruby Glen LLC above);
- Pending CEP (pdf) filed by Donuts Inc. and Ruby Glen, LLC, on August 2, 2016
- Afilias requests to disallow winning bid of Nu Dot Co LLC.
Feature • New gTLD .AMAZON IRP UPDATE (pdf): "... Conduct of the IRP Hearing ... An in-person hearing will take place at the offices of Jones Day in Los Angeles, California ... Counsel are requested to confer and provide Panel with as many dates as they believe are suitable between the March 6-March 24, 2017 for the hearing ... " For more, see Amazon EU S.à.r.l. v. ICANN.
• New gTLD .AFRICA: DCA Trust vs ICANN & ZACR Case Remanded To California Court:
"Ironically, this could be a BIG win for the plaintiff DCA (DotConnectAfrica Trust). Unlike U.S. federal courts where unanimous jury verdicts are required, in a California civil case, it only takes 9 of the 12 jurors to agree on a verdict ... The U.S. District Court Judge had previously assigned this case to a (10-12 days) jury trial beginning February 28, 2017. See Scheduling Order ..."• A look at statistics on the Chinese domain market | Coreile.com: "Obviously, .CN takes the largest share of the domain market. However ... we know .COM commands the highest prices. So while .COM is not king in terms of volume, it is still king in terms of prestige and prices in China. There is no indication yet that such position will change any time soon."
• .COM Registrations Continue to Rise, Unphased by New gTLDs, ICANN Study Reveals--circleid.com
• Latest ICANN report reveals China’s drive to become a dominant player in new gTLDs | Blog | WorldTrademarkReview.com: "... many trademark counsel will see the growing involvement of Chinese entities in the domain marketplace as a portent of an even greater China-related enforcement workload in the future."
• Now anyone can be a TLD registry operator (including the backend registry services!). Google releases new open source top-level domain name registry platform: Nomulus, a cloud-based registry platform that also powers Google’s top level domains (TLDs). Google applied to operate a number of new gTLDs (new generic Top-Level Domains), and built Nomulus to help run them. New gTLD registry operator Donuts also contributed code to the project according to opensource.googleblog.com. For more info see Nomulus on GitHub.
• $NAME | Is Rightside's Strategy Showing Results? | whizzbangsblog.com: "... Donuts, offered $70m for the suite of Rightside domain extensions [new gTLDs] back in June. In my opinion it’s a gutsy move to say no to such an offer in light of the slow growth numbers ..." (emphasis added)
• ICANN's newgTLDs: 3 takeaways from Mark Monitor's New gTLD Quarterly Report Q4 2016 and accompanying infographic (pdf):
- 25% – 67%: New gTLDs cybersquatting percentages based on the domain ownership information of the top 100 web property names across .xyz, .top, .wang, .win, and .club.
- Trying to [defensively] register every variation, typosquat, and misspelling in this new environment promises to be cost prohibitive. Corporations must take a new approach--monitor domain registrations and improper trademark use--take action where it makes sense, blocking domains where available.
- The top 3 new gTLDs in which the world's largest brands are registering domain names: 1) .sucks; 2) .porn; 3) .adult. [Who says extortionate business models aren't profitable--just wait until the next round of new gTLDs!]
• Root Zone Maintainer Service Agreement and .COM RA Amendment Now Effective: "... the cooperative agreement between NTIA and Verisign was amended to release Verisign from its root zone maintainer obligations. Verisign will now perform the root zone maintainer services forICANN under the [new] Root Zone Maintainer Service Agreement (RZMA). ICANN and Verisign are in the process of switching to the root zone management systems that do not include NTIA’s authorization role. The changes to the cooperative agreement between NTIA and Verisign can be found here. For more information, visit Verisign’s Q&A here. Additionally, as previously approved by ICANN’s Board resolution on 15 September (following a 43-day public comment process), ICANN has signed the .COM Registry Agreement amendment. The .COM Registry Agreement amendment is now effective through 30 November 2024 to coincide with the term of the RZMA ..."--ICANN.org, Oct 20, 2016
• More .GAY Correspondence | ICANN.org: 17 October 2016 Letter (pdf) from Arif H. Ali, Attorney, Dechert LLP, with Expert Opinion from Professor Badgett to ICANN Board [Published 18 October 2016] In Support of Dotgay's Community Application for new gTLD .GAY.
• Community Participation in Public Comment for FY18 Planning | ICANN.org: "... After the PTI Board has adopted its FY18 Operating Plan and Budget, and recommended it to ICANN’s Board, the ICANN’s draft FY18 Operating Plan and Budget will be published for public comment ..."
• How to combat the risks of impersonation emails, imitative domains?--see post by Thompson Coburn LLP | JDSupra.com.
• ICANN Q1 FY17 Stakeholder Call:
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| Slide 5 from ICANN FY17Q1 Stakeholder Call (Goran Marby, ICANN CEO, pictured) |
• President & CEO Overview: Göran Marby, President & CEO (10 min)
• Board Update: Bruce Tonkin, Vice Chair, ICANN Board of Directors (5 min)
• Policy Update: David Olive, Sr. VP Policy Development Support & Adiel Akplogan, VP Tech. Engagement (10 min)
• Management Update: Theresa Swinehart, Sr. VP Multistakeholder Strategy and Strategic Initiatives
• Asia Pacific Update: Jia-Rong Low, VP and Managing Director, Asia Pacific hub
• Asia Pacific Update: Jia-Rong Low, VP and Managing Director, Asia Pacific hub
• Financial Update: Xavier Calvez, Chief Financial Officer (10 min)
• Q&A (10 mins)
• Q3 2016 financial results coverage this coming week on Domain Mondo:
- Apple AAPL Oct 25 5:00pm EDT
- Neustar NSR Oct 27 4:30pm EDT
- Alphabet GOOG Oct 27 4:30pm EDT
- Verisign VRSN Oct 27 4:30pm EDT
- Twitter TWTR Oct 27
5:00pm8:00 AM EDT (time changed by Twitter) - Amazon AMZN Oct 27 5:30pm EDT
- News Review [16Oct]| ICANN57, Hyderabad, India, Meeting Preview
- TechReview [15Oct]| Digital Disruption: Next 10 Years, 40% of Businesses Vanish
- MacroView [17Oct]: Gradually and Then Suddenly, How Markets & Companies Fail
- TechReview [22Oct]| FTC FinTech Series | FCC Robocall Strike Force Meeting
- Did ICANN Just Break the Internet? No, But It Could Have, and May Yet [22Oct]
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo