1) Ruby Glen, LLC [Donuts affiliate] v. ICANN [re: new gTLD .WEB]
"Ruby Glen submits that despite the district court’s prior denial of its motion for limited discovery ... it has discovered additional facts to bolster the claims asserted in the FAC [first amended complaint]. Ruby Glen also has grounds to assert a direct claim for fraudulent inducement by alleging facts demonstrating that ICANN falsely indicating that it would abide by its Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation, as well as the provisions contained in the Guidebook and New gTLD Program Auction Rules in administering the .WEB auction in an effort to fraudulently induce Ruby Glen to submit its application. A similar claim survived summary judgment in the DCA [new gTLD .AFRICA] matter ... See DotConnect Africa Trust v. Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers ... Ruby Glen deserves the same opportunity .... For the foregoing reasons and those contained in its Opening Brief, Ruby Glen respectfully requests that this Court reverse the district court’s order dismissing Ruby Glen’s First Amended Complaint ... and allow this matter to proceed on the merits."Editor's note: briefing is now complete, the next step is oral argument before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which should occur later this year.
More info:
- Plaintiff's Opening Appellate Brief [PDF, 370 KB] 30 August 2017
- Ruby Glen, LLC v. ICANN | ICANN.org (current appeal of the District Court Order dismissing Ruby Glen's lawsuit, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit)
- Ruby Glen, LLC v. ICANN | ICANN.org (lawsuit filed in United States District Court for the Central District of California and dismissed by the District Court)
- DotConnectAfrica Trust v. ICANN | ICANN.org (dismissed appeal in United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit)
- DotConnectAfrica Trust v. ICANN | ICANN.org (lawsuit now pending in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles, Central District)
- News Review Aug 20: Last Round of ICANN New gTLD .AFRICA Litigation? | DomainMondo.com
Reply Brief embedded in full below:
2) ICANN news
- Issue: ICANN Compliance for WHOIS and GDPR. Excerpt mack-to-marby-08dec17-en.pdf (emphasis added): "... During the ICANN60 meetings you read a statement that ICANN Contractual Compliance would be deferring action against any registry or registrar for noncompliance with contractual obligations related to the handling of registration data. ICANN Org subsequently posted the Statement from Contractual Compliance (the “Statement”) We are concerned that this unilateral action makes no reference to ICANN’s published Revised ICANN Procedure For Handling WHOIS Conflicts with Privacy Law (the “Procedure”) that implements the applicable consensus policy (Policy) in this situation. While some overtones of the Procedure are present in the Statement, the lack of transparency, community involvement, and process for comment and discussion, among many other procedural safeguards of the Procedure, are missing. Missing too are the basic principles of transparency applicable to ICANN operations ..."
We want your feedback on the layered access data protection/privacy approach described in Part 3 of the Hamilton legal analysis. Read my #ICANN blog for more info: https://t.co/wvwyFKfwTg Visit the data protection/privacy page available here: https://t.co/Kelc3D6uUV— ICANN President (@icann_president) January 3, 2018
The latest GDPR legal analysis for ICANN gets the purpose issue fundamentally wrong: the purpose of Whois cannot be equated with a grab-bag of functions that people currently use it for. https://t.co/WeuCPW9woC— IGP Alert (@IGPAlert) January 4, 2018
#whois #GDPR
b) ICANN Gravy Train: if you're not getting your "travel expenses" paid (hotel, airfare, etc., including even a per diem) to go to ICANN meetings (and parties), you're a chump--ICANN tries to bury and hide who is being "paid off" but the travel $$$ reports (except for ICANN Directors, officers and staff) are here: Travel Report - Constituency Travel (though you will have to download and then open each report--good luck if you only have mobile phone web access). For commentary and a ranking of the ten biggest "moochers" go to @EyeOnICANN:
ICANN spends untold $$ millions for each of its meetings (3 per year). For an example of ICANN's wasteful spending: ICANN a Steward? LOL! This Is How ICANN Wastes Registrants' Money | DomainMondo.com.In 1st place with $27,396 in 2017 #ICANN travel spending is elite Mideast airline flyer and superfan of the foot foto, Cheryl Langdon-Orr. An increase of over $10,000 year over year. https://t.co/nZW8mUgqho— Eye On ICANN (@EyeOnICANN) January 3, 2018
c) Overstaffed & Overpaid: ICANN Management Organization Chart 01 Jan 2018 (pdf) [131 KB]
d) CCT Review Team (CCT-RT): Public Comment Period Extended until Monday 15 January 23:59 UTC – New Sections to Draft Report of Recommendations | ICANN.org: "... The new sections seek to reflect results from the "Statistical Analysis of DNS Abuse in gTLDs" Report (see here for more information), and address costs of the New gTLD Program for trademark holders, based on the results from a survey conducted by the International Trademark Association (INTA) (see here [PDF, 1.4 MB] for more information). In addition, the CCT Review Team requests feedback on updates made to its parking and consumer choice related sections ..."
3) Names, Domains & Trademarks
- The Emergence of Consensus in the UDRP | IPLegalCorner.com: "some panelists continue to act as though there were no consensus which has a negative effect on “the overall credibility of the UDRP system.”"
- The UDRP and Judicial Review | circleid.com: "The unwillingness of U.K. courts to review UDRP decisions is a serious problem for domain name registrants."
4) ICYMI Internet Domain News
- Censorship by Google, Twitter, Facebook, et al: US regulator says Silicon Valley is threat to internet | yahoo.com: "These providers routinely block or discriminate against content they don't like."
- 2018 prediction: The endangered hyperlink | ZDNet.com: "criminal organizations and secret foreign government agencies step up attacks on Domain Name System (DNS) servers to hijack traffic, inject spyware into corporate networks and dupe consumers into exposing private financial data."
- UK may use taxes to get tech giants to do more to fight extremism, minister says | Reuters.com: "tech giants like Google and Facebook"
5) Most read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com:
1. News Review | 12 Questions for 2018: Domains, ISOC, Internet, ICANN
2. Starbucks $SBUX Makes A Super-Sized Bet On China (video)
3. Blackstone's Byron Wien's 10 Surprises for 2018 (video)
4. Sam Zell: The Importance of Lowering the Corporate Tax Rate (video)
5. Tech Review | The Big Issues Affecting Tech and Global Economy 2018
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo