According to a recent SEC filing (see page 14), Medidata Solutions Inc., a provider of cloud-based solutions for clinical research in life sciences, acquired the Medidata.com domain name for USD $600,000 in the first quarter of 2019. According to Archive.org, the domain name used to redirect to Medidata.ch, operated by a Swiss company.
In the past month, one of the most controversial topics in the domain name world has been the proposal by ICANN to permit unlimited fee increases for .ORG domain names, compared to the current generous allowance of 10% annual fee increases (far above inflation). My own submission in the public comment period can be read in a prior blog post.
Yesterday, PIR, the registry operator, wrote an open letter to the .ORG community that can be summarized in 2 words, "trust us." That is insufficient. Organizations have a tendency to change their minds, especially when it serves their interests. What matters is what's in the contracts, as what is allowed to happen often does happen.
Below is a (slightly reformatted) version of the comments I submitted to ICANN today regarding the proposed .org, info, .biz and .asia contract renewals. The deadline for comments on the .org and .info contracts is just a few hours away (longer deadline for .biz and .asia), so hopefully they inspire others to submit comments, if they've not already done so.
Submitted by: George Kirikos Company: Leap of Faith Financial Services Inc. Website: http://www.leap.com/ Date: April 29, 2019
We write to oppose the proposed contract renewals posted by ICANN for the .org, .info, .biz and .asia contracts, as posted for public comments at:
While our arguments are focused on the .org TLD, to the extent that the contractual terms are similar for the other TLDs, we repeat the same comments for .info, .biz and .org. Indeed, while the majority of the thousands of public comments to date have focused on .org, ICANN should read those comments as also applying to .info, .biz and .org, even if the submitters did not explicitly submit their comments to all 4 email addresses.
ICANN staff put forth outrageous proposals for the renewal of the .org, .biz, .info and .asia contracts, which are now open for public comment (with the first deadline being April 29, 2019). ICANN is proposing allowing unlimited fee increases for .org domain names, which currently are allowed to increase a maximum of 10% annually. That 10% annual cap of fee increases came about after the huge public outcry that ensued in 2006 when a comparable proposal to eliminate price caps was made, and successfully opposed by the public. It seems that ICANN did not learn from history.
More than 100 comments have been submitted so far regarding the .org contract renewal, with most of them vehemently opposed to the potential for unlimited fee increases.
Should ICANN staff be held accountable for such outrageously one-sided contracts? Please vote in the poll below on Twitter:
In this series, I examine past behavior at ICANN, contrasting it with the Expected Standards of Behavior (ESOB), and ask you to decide for yourself whether it has been applied equally to everyone, or instead is applied selectively to achieve different results when different people are involved.
Philip S. Corwin is Policy Counsel at Verisign (the dot-com registry operator), and one of the co-chairs in the RPM PDP working group that is chartered to review the UDRP, URS and other rights protection mechanisms.
On October 23, 2018, Mr. Corwin sent a bizarre email to the RPM PDP working group mailing list in his "capacity as co-chair" rebuking me for using the term "wish lists".
In this series, I examine past behavior at ICANN, contrasting it with the Expected Standards of Behavior (ESOB), and ask you to decide for yourself whether it has been applied equally to everyone, or instead is applied selectively to achieve different results when different people are involved.
I had the pleasure of having a discussion today with several members of the ICANN At-Large community, regarding the proposed contracts for .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ and .ASIA that are now out for public comment. Glenn McKnight, Jonathan Zuck and Eduardo Diaz participated, along with myself, and it was recorded (see YouTube recording here; best to fast forward to 1:40 into the recording, to get to the true beginning of the discussions). I hope you find it educational, and will comment on these proposed contracts. I'll have more to say about these contracts as we get closer to the deadline for comments later this month.
In this series, I examine past behavior at ICANN, contrasting it with the Expected Standards of Behavior (ESOB), and ask you to decide for yourself whether it has been applied equally to everyone, or instead is applied selectively to achieve different results when different people are involved.
In this series, I examine past behavior at ICANN, contrasting it with the Expected Standards of Behavior (ESOB), and ask you to decide for yourself whether it has been applied equally to everyone, or instead is applied selectively to achieve different results when different people are involved.
Recall that ICANN General Counsel John Jeffrey has claimed that there is "zero tolerance" for conduct in violation of the ESOB. The preamble to the ESOB makes it clear that it should apply to ICANN staff.
Those who take part in ICANN multi-stakeholder process, including Board, staff and all those involved in Supporting Organization and Advisory Committee councils, undertake to:
