UPDATE Puerto Crypto now named Blockchain Unbound.
1) San Juan, Puerto Rico: ICANN61 Mar 10-15 & Puerto Crypto Mar 14-16
Going to ICANN61 | San Juan 10-15 March 2018? You could also go to Puerto Crypto, 14-16 March 2018, being held at San Juan's finest hotel, the Condado Vanderbilt.
See Making a Crypto Utopia in Puerto Rico | NYTimes.com Feb 2, 2018: "... Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars ... After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico’s infrastructure in September and the price of cryptocurrencies began to soar, they saw an opportunity and felt a sense of urgency ... “What’s happened here is a perfect storm,” said Halsey Minor, the founder of the news site CNET, who is moving his new blockchain company — called Videocoin [videocoin.io] — from the Cayman Islands to Puerto Rico this winter ..." [link added]
More info at PuertoCrypto.com. Note that Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello is scheduled to speak at Puerto Crypto on March 15, 4:00 pm, on "How Puerto Rico Will Embrace Blockchain & Crypto."
More info at PuertoCrypto.com. Note that Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello is scheduled to speak at Puerto Crypto on March 15, 4:00 pm, on "How Puerto Rico Will Embrace Blockchain & Crypto."
"Puerto Crypto is a conference focused on connecting Puerto Rico with visionary entrepreneurs and investors in the blockchain, crypto currency and ICO vertical. Puerto Crypto is a non-profit event and 100% of profits will be donated to Puerto Rico's hurricane recovery efforts."--PuertoCrypto.com website.
Editor's note: sounds like Puerto Rico is aiming to become a "Silicon Valley" for cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. I wish them much success, but first a reality check: among Puerto Rico's foremost priorities are rebuilding its electric power capacity, hopefully to 100% clean energy, and "hardening the infrastructure" to be hurricane-resistant, which may require further federal assistance as well as liquidation of the bankrupt power authority (it was already bankrupt before Hurricane Maria), and replaced with a Puerto Rico Authority (PRA) modeled after the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). As a U.S. territory, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and free to move to any of the 50 U.S. States, and many have done so, but to encourage economic development on the island, Section 933 of the U.S. Tax Code provides a special exemption from federal income tax for qualified Puerto Rico sourced income. Together with tax breaks granted by the government of Puerto Rico, the island has a reputation as a unique (no need to renounce U.S. citizenship) tax haven for high net worth U.S. citizens who relocate there. At some point, the need for government revenue will have to be addressed, and the crypto buccaneers better have some answers.
See also: Is Puerto Rico а Crypto Tax Paradise? - Expert Take | News | Cointelegraph.com
Update: Puerto Rico Utility Files Urgent Request for $300 Million Loan | WSJ.com Feb 16, 2018: "Power provider says ‘operations are in jeopardy’ and warns of brownouts."
See also: Is Puerto Rico а Crypto Tax Paradise? - Expert Take | News | Cointelegraph.com
Update: Puerto Rico Utility Files Urgent Request for $300 Million Loan | WSJ.com Feb 16, 2018: "Power provider says ‘operations are in jeopardy’ and warns of brownouts."
The Condado Vanderbilt is just a short taxi or Uber ride from the Convention Center where ICANN61 is being held:
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| ICANN61 (Convention Center) & Puerto Crypto (Condado Vanderbilt), San Juan, PR |
2) ICANN news
b. New gTLD .GAY: Second Expert Opinion of Professor William N. Eskridge, Jr., in Response to FTI Consulting, Inc.’s Independent Review of the Community Priority Evaluation Process (pdf).
c. New gTLD strings .CORP, .HOME, and .MAIL identified as high-risk, delegation deferred indefinitely, applicants to receive full refund of their application fees ($185,000 each)--Approved Board Resolutions | Regular Meeting of the ICANN Board | ICANN.org. [Editor's note: too bad no one paid any attention to SAC045 (pdf) issued by the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) on November 15, 2010.]
c. New gTLD strings .CORP, .HOME, and .MAIL identified as high-risk, delegation deferred indefinitely, applicants to receive full refund of their application fees ($185,000 each)--Approved Board Resolutions | Regular Meeting of the ICANN Board | ICANN.org. [Editor's note: too bad no one paid any attention to SAC045 (pdf) issued by the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) on November 15, 2010.]
d. SSAC Advice Document SAC074 Scorecard--ICANN.org: 04 Feb 2018 resolutions-implementation-recs-ssac-advice-scorecard-04feb18-en.pdf [49 KB]. [Editor's Note: Role of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee: 12.2 (b) of the ICANN Bylaws found here.]
e. GAC Advice Scorecard - Abu Dhabi Communiqué: Actions and Updates 04 Feb 2018:
resolutions-abudhabi60-gac-advice-scorecard-04feb18-en.pdf [98.4 KB]
f. GDPR Models/Analyses | Comments | European Commission, European Union | ICANN-Proposed Compliance Models 07 Feb 2018 gdpr-comments-european-commission-union-icann-proposed-compliance-models-07feb18-en.pdf (pdf 59.9 KB)
g. ICANN.org Pre-ICANN61 Policy Open House Thursday, 1 March 2018, 10:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC: The webinar will run in English and will be conducted in Adobe Connect along with a dial-in conference bridge for audio. Recordings of the sessions will be made available here. Register via this form by 26 February 2018. More info here.
h. New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP - newsletter (pdf). See also:
e. GAC Advice Scorecard - Abu Dhabi Communiqué: Actions and Updates 04 Feb 2018:
resolutions-abudhabi60-gac-advice-scorecard-04feb18-en.pdf [98.4 KB]
f. GDPR Models/Analyses | Comments | European Commission, European Union | ICANN-Proposed Compliance Models 07 Feb 2018 gdpr-comments-european-commission-union-icann-proposed-compliance-models-07feb18-en.pdf (pdf 59.9 KB)
g. ICANN.org Pre-ICANN61 Policy Open House Thursday, 1 March 2018, 10:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC: The webinar will run in English and will be conducted in Adobe Connect along with a dial-in conference bridge for audio. Recordings of the sessions will be made available here. Register via this form by 26 February 2018. More info here.
h. New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP - newsletter (pdf). See also:
3) Names, Domains & Trademarks
a. Verisign Q4 2017 results: revenue of $296 million for the fourth quarter of 2017, up 3.2 percent from the same quarter in 2016. Verisign reported net income of $103 million and diluted earnings per share (diluted “EPS”) of $0.83 for Q4, .NET registrations continued declining in Q4, but were more than offset by gains made in .COM registrations--more info here.
b. Tucows Inc. (NASDAQ: TCX) (Hover, OpenSRS, eNom) Q4 2017 earnings webcast: Feb 14, 2018, 8:00 am ET.
4) ICYMI Internet Domain News
• How New EU Data Privacy Rules May Apply to Your U.S. Business | Taylor English Duma LLP - JDSupra.com: "... The GDPR provides for penalties up to €20 million or 4 percent of global revenue (whichever is higher) for non-compliant handling of EU personal data ..." See also EU data protection law may end up protecting scammers, experts warn | TheGuardian.com.
• Internet Censorship Skyrockets in Russia in 2017, Study Says | TheMoscowTimes.com: "Under the "Yarovaya Law," Russian telecom and internet providers will be forced to store all user communication data for 3 years." See also Report Shows 'Creeping Criminalization' of Russia's Internet | VOAnews.com.
• Cuba protests US internet task force on increasing internet access on the island | abcnews.go.com: The Cuban Foreign Ministry "rejected the goal of manipulating the internet to bring about illegal programs with subversive political ends."
• Who Should Police the Internet? Neo-Nazi Ban Was ‘Really, Really Dangerous,’ Says Cloudflare CEO | Newsweek.com
• Internet giants back Senate effort to reinstate net neutrality rules | TheHill.com
• How to Travel to (and Around) China, From VPNs to T.P. | NYTimes.com
• US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: TheHill.com reports on the proposed plan to combine the State Department's Office of the Cybersecurity Coordinator and Bureau of Economic Affairs’ Office of International Communications and Information Policy, into a new Bureau for Cyberspace and the Digital Economy.
• Global Internet And Jurisdiction Conference 2018 | conference.internetjurisdiction.net: Feb 26-28, 2018, Ottawa, Canada.
5) Four Most Read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com:
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo
b. Tucows Inc. (NASDAQ: TCX) (Hover, OpenSRS, eNom) Q4 2017 earnings webcast: Feb 14, 2018, 8:00 am ET.
• Internet Censorship Skyrockets in Russia in 2017, Study Says | TheMoscowTimes.com: "Under the "Yarovaya Law," Russian telecom and internet providers will be forced to store all user communication data for 3 years." See also Report Shows 'Creeping Criminalization' of Russia's Internet | VOAnews.com.
• Cuba protests US internet task force on increasing internet access on the island | abcnews.go.com: The Cuban Foreign Ministry "rejected the goal of manipulating the internet to bring about illegal programs with subversive political ends."
• Who Should Police the Internet? Neo-Nazi Ban Was ‘Really, Really Dangerous,’ Says Cloudflare CEO | Newsweek.com
• Internet giants back Senate effort to reinstate net neutrality rules | TheHill.com
• How to Travel to (and Around) China, From VPNs to T.P. | NYTimes.com
• US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: TheHill.com reports on the proposed plan to combine the State Department's Office of the Cybersecurity Coordinator and Bureau of Economic Affairs’ Office of International Communications and Information Policy, into a new Bureau for Cyberspace and the Digital Economy.
• Global Internet And Jurisdiction Conference 2018 | conference.internetjurisdiction.net: Feb 26-28, 2018, Ottawa, Canada.
5) Four Most Read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com:
1. News Review | GDPR & ICANN WHOIS: "We're all Europeans now"
2. Tech Review | Robot Revolution: A New Age of Manufacturing (video)
3. Beware Wall Street's Charging Bull: "We Are In A Massive Bull Market"
4. Tesla, Inc. $TSLA Q4 2017 Results, LIVE Webcast, Feb 7, 5:30pm ET
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo