“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell
According to a recent SEC filing (see page 30), blockchain company Prometheum acquired the Prometheum.com domain name in October 2018 for USD $71,842.
Once charted by DNJournal, it would become the 99th highest reported domain name transaction for 2018.
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 below; 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.
There’s also an audio MP3 recording of our discussion.
Just to followup on the earlier blog post of today, I received the following email from Keith Drazek (GNSO Council Chair),
Dear Mr. Kirikos,
Receipt of your letter is acknowledged.
We note and regret that you have elected to not accept and agree to abide by ICANN’s Expected Standards of Behavior (ESOB).
As such, per the notice provided in the Council Leadership Team’s letter of 29 March, you will be placed in observer status in the RPM PDP WG and any other GNSO-related forum until such time we receive the necessary communication confirming acceptance of the ESOB, or until such time the ICANN Ombuds rules that you may return to member status following any appeal.
Sincerely,
Keith Drazek
GNSO Chair (on behalf of the GNSO Council Leadership Team)
So, unless I “bend the knee” and “swear an oath of fealty” (or unless the ICANN Ombudsman says I can return), I’m forever banished. Is that reasonable and proportionate?
And, this affects participation for all working groups (not just the RPM PDP), even though there’s no issue in the IGO PDP!
ICANN, in an affront to free speech and due process, has threatened to restrict my participation on important domain name policy issues, and I think it’s crucial that these topics be brought before the public for debate. Continue reading “ICANN Threatens to Restrict Participation Rights of critic George Kirikos”
I have launched this new blog today at FreeSpeech.com, in order to better educate the public about domain names, internet governance, ICANN, free speech, and other topics. Continue reading “Hello, World!”