News Review | ICANN61, ICANN's FY19 Budget, Extortion Racket, Fraud

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-03-11) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) ICANN61, March 10-15, San Juan, Puerto Rico,  2)Other ICANN news a. .WEB & Afilias, b. ICANN's FY19 Budget, Reserve Fund, Extortion Racket & Consumer Fraud, and more, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks, 4) ICYMI Internet Domain News: Censorship, Privacy, 5) Most Read.

UPDATE March 15: ICANN61 San Juan, Puerto Rico: GAC Communique & ICANN61 Tweets

UPDATE from ICANN March 14, 2018:

* ALERT: ADOBE CONNECT SERVICE *

"Yesterday we were notified by a member of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee of what appears to be a potentially serious security issue affecting our use of Adobe Connect. In order to protect the members of the multistakeholder community, and out of an abundance of caution, we have suspended our Adobe Connect services. This means that Adobe Connect services will not be available for the rest of ICANN61. Some remote participation will continue to be available this week including Livestream video [see below], multilingual audio, and live scribe feeds will be available in the main meeting rooms. Other rooms will be limited to listen-only audio streams ... Questions and comments from remote participants will also be accommodated via email as best as possible." (emphasis added)

1)  ICANN61 | San Juan | Community Forum 10-15 Mar 2018 San Juan, Puerto Rico

#ICANN61 | Local Time San Juan 

ICANN61 Meeting & Media Resources:

• ICANN61 meeting schedule 

Highlighted sessions Thursday March 15:

• ICANN GDD: Registry Operator Roundtable  8:30 - 9:45

• Q&A with ICANN Organization Executive Team 9:00 - 10:15 video below

• ICANN GDD: Registrants: Understanding the issues facing them and helping them navigate ICANN’s policies  9:15 - 10:15
• GNSO Council Wrap-Up  10:30 - 12:00

• Joint Meeting: ICANN Board and RSSAC 10:30 - 11:30

• ICANN GDD: Registry & Registrar GDPR Compliance Model 12:30-13:30 video below

• Public Forum 2 13:30 - 16:45 video below

• ICANN Board Meeting 17:00 - 18:00 video below

Q&A with ICANN Organization Executive Team 9:00 - 10:15 am EDT, Thu, Mar 15, 2018 

ICANN GDD: Registry & Registrar GDPR Compliance Model Thursday 12:30-1:30 pm EDT

Public Forum 2  13:30 - 16:45, Thu, Mar 15, 2018 1:30 - 4:45 pm EDT

ICANN Board Meeting  17:00 - 18:00 Thu, Mar 15, 2018 5:00-6:00 pm EDT

Public Forum 1 17:00 - 18:30, Monday, Mar 12, 2018

• Remote Participation info

• ICANN61 GNSO Remote Participation Details Open and Public Meetings

• Pre-ICANN61 Policy Report | ICANN.org 26 February 2018

• GNSO Policy Briefing ICANN61 Edition (pdf)

• Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO)--icann.org: Pre-ICANN61 Policy Open House Presentation | 1900 UTC (pdf)

• Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Advice Consideration Process (pdf) [GAC HANDBOOK English_FEB2018].
• Report to the ICANN & UASG (Universal Acceptance Steering Group) Community on Recent Activities (pdf).

• On Twitter: Samantha Dickinson @sgdickinson 

#ICANN61 GAC PSWG lists the many sessions that will discuss ICANN’s compliance with #GDPR this week. It’s a very full dance card, with many GDPR-related sessions by specific communities happening in parallel. pic.twitter.com/56jYeHqTvf

— Samantha Dickinson (@sgdickinson) March 11, 2018

• ICANN Live Event Stream on Livestream.com

• ICANNnews | YouTube.com

See also on Domain Mondo: 

• News Review | ICANN61 & Puerto Crypto [n/k/a Blockchain Unbound], San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Hearing Update on the Restoration of Puerto Rico’s Electric Infrastructure

And also: 

• FCC proposes nearly $1 billion toward recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands | TheHill.com Mar 6, 2018: "The proposal would allocate $64 million immediately to efforts to restore the existing networks in the territories. The rest of the $954 million would go toward medium- and long-term projects to expand mobile and fixed broadband networks."

2) Other ICANN news

a. New gTLD .WEB: Afilias vs ICANN, Verisign $VRSN & Nu Dot Co? | DomainMondo.com: New gTLD .WEB Applicant (and second-highest bidder) Afilias (domain: afilias.info) Requests Update on ICANN’s Investigation of .WEB Contention Set, and Further, Requests Documents under ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy.

b. ICANN's FY19 Budget, Reserve Fund, Extortion Racket & Consumer Fraud--Read the Comments submitted on ICANN Draft FY19 Operating Plan and Budget and Five-Year Operating Plan Update | ICANN.org (Close Date 8 Mar 2018) and ICANN Reserve Fund: Proposed Replenishment Strategy | ICANN.org: (Close Date 25 Apr 2018 23:59 UTC). Editor's note: my comments are here (pdf) and here (pdf), and embedded below.

ICANN FY19 Budget -- ICANN's Extortion Racket & Consumer Fraud:

Editor's note: re ICANN's "extortion racket" .BRAND new gTLDs -- see testimony of Dawn Grove (pdf), Corporate Counsel for Karsten Manufacturing (.PING), September 14, 2016 hearing before the US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts.

ICANN Reserve Fund:

c. GDPR & WHOIS | ICANN.org updates here and here. See also: Interim Model for Compliance with ICANN Agreements and Policies in Relation to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation–Working Draft for Continued Discussion--ICANN.org: 08 Mar 2018 gdpr-compliance-interim-model-08mar18-en.pdf [922 KB]

d. ICANN Correspondence | ICANN.org:

• 21 February 2018 Letter from Mike Rodenbaugh of Rodenbaugh Law, to ICANN Board Chair Cherine Chalaby [Published 6 March 2018] re: Asia Green IT Systems’ applications to operate the .Islam and .halal new gTLDs.
• Letter from Giacomo Mazzone to Jamie Baxter | ICANN.org: European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Issue: European Broadcasting Union Analysis of .radio CPE Process & FTI Reports--excerpt:

"We find it shocking that the FTI Consulting investigation has ignored these inconsistencies and incoherencies, in spite of ICANN’s responsibility as an organization to adhere to its nondiscriminatory commitments in carrying out CPE and to ensure that all community applicants are treated equally and fairly. We hope that the ICANN Board will achieve enough clarity to set aside the FTI reports when addressing the case of DOT.gay."

• 7 March 2018 Letter from Arif Ali to Kate Wallace[Published 9 March 2018] Dechert LLP counsel for new gTLD .GAY applicant re CPE Review and .MUSIC applicant letter embedded below, replying to Kate Wallace's (lawyer with Jones Day) previous letters [here (pdf) and here (pdf)] sent on behalf of ICANN Board:

e. Internet Root Name Servers: RSSAC FAQ | ICANN.org excerpt: 7. "In 2016 there was a large attack on Dyn. Could the same thing happen to all the root server Anycast instances?" Answer: "Yes, at least in theory. That is one of the reasons that the Root Server System (RSS) has many operators and many root server instances. The large number of Anycast instances increases the capacity of the RSS and certainly helps in attack situations." ....14. "Can DNSSEC protect us from fast flux and super fast flux attacks?" Answer: "No, not really. DNSSEC is designed to protect against data tampering, but not fast-flux attacks."

f. ICANN Complaints Office Semi-Annual Report--ICANN.org: 07 Mar 2018 complaints-office-semi-annual-report-07mar18-en.pdf [317 KB].

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Move Your Domain Day - Transfer Issues With GoDaddy | Namecheap.com: "... GoDaddy appears to be returning incomplete WHOIS information to Namecheap, delaying the transfer process. This is not the first time something like this has happened. First and foremost this practice is against ICANN rules and regulations. Secondly, we believe it violates “unfair competition” laws."..."

b. Evidence of Decreasing Internet Entropy: The Lack of Redundancy in DNS Resolution by Major Websites and Services | Harvard Business School | hbs.edu: "Stabilizing the domain name resolution (DNS) infrastructure is critical to the operation of the internet. Single points of failure become more consequential as a larger proportion of the internet's biggest sites are managed by a small number of externally hosted DNS providers. Providers could encourage diversification by requiring domain owners to select a secondary DNS provider."

c. What’s In a Name? | Burns & Levinson LLP | JDSupra.com

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

Censorship:

China Presses Its Internet Censorship Efforts Across the Globe | NYTimes.com

What’s Going Down in China is Very Dangerous – Part 1 | washingtonsblog.com

China’s Internet Underground Fights for Its Life | Bloomberg.com: "The government wants to shut down private operators that offer access to Facebook, YouTube, and other services." 

Conservatives to Facebook, Google and Twitter: Stop censoring our posts | tennessean.com 

New Foils for the Right: Google and Facebook | NYTimes.com: journalist Peter Schweizer plans to release a documentary on tech companies' role in filtering the news, casting them as censorious and oppressive. See also: Should Facebook, Google and Twitter Be Public Utilities? | blogspot.com .

Privacy: Your Location Data Is Being Sold—Often Without Your Knowledge | WSJ.com: "Location-based ads are growing, which means the industry has more ways than ever to track you"

5) Most read posts this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1, News Review | Privacy & Cyber Sovereignty: US vs. Microsoft (video)

2. $SBUX Starbucks Reserve First Store, Could Expand to 1000 Locations

3. New gTLD .WEB: Afilias vs ICANN, Verisign $VRSN & Nu Dot Co?

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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