ICANN responds to comments from first draft guidebook.

[I'm on a plane to New Orleans so have had little time to review ICANN's many documents released today. But here's a summary.] After receiving hundreds of comments, mostly requesting major changes or clarifications to the original draft of the new TLD handbook, ICANN has made a good effort to acknowledge the comments. It released a 154 page analysis of the comments received and its response to them. Among them:

Intellectual Property: ICANN proposes setting up a number of meetings and working with IP organizations to figure out if there’s a way to avoid trademark holders having to make thousands of defensive registrations.

Demand: ICANN will release a study about the demand for new TLDs soon.

Registrar/Registry separation: Registries that are affiliated with a registrar (i.e. similar ownership) cannot treat the registrar any different, and the registrar may be limited to the number of registrations of that registry’s domain names.

Annual registry fees: reduced to $25,000 per year for smaller registries

Auction proceeds: any proceeds from auctioning off TLDs would be put into a fund with specific purposes, such as managing registry failures and outreach campaigns.

Timeline: It is unlikely applications will be accepted until at least December 2009.

Registry pricing: Some sort of mechanism to keep registries from jacking up prices without justification.

Domain name auction platform relaunches after long hiatus.

Remember Bido? Yeah, I know, it’s been a long time. The once a day domain name auction house launched to much buzz only to be sidelined by technical snafus. After a long (and I mean long) wait, Bido finally rears its head again today.

When you log into Bido, you won’t notice a bunch of new features. Most of the work has been on the back end. But there are some neat twists, all designed to get the domain name community active in the auctions.

“Experts” can comment on domain names before they go to auction, and other users can rate the comments. Experts get the benefit of exposure, as you can see in the graphic below:

In addition to reading expert’s comments, Bido users can click tabs to read about the expert, see their latest blog posts, or see expert-created links and additional information.

I expect more features soon, including perhaps a way to sell domains beyond the once-a-day listings (pure speculation) and auctions for other types of merchandise (not speculation).

I loved the concept of Bido when it first launched. The site also sold some decent domains at decent prices. Hopefully it will be able to pick up where it left off.

It’s time Americans agree to take responsibility.

I was playing out in the yard with my daughter this afternoon when I stepped in a pile of some dog’s poop.

I lost my cool, which is unusual for me. After cleaning off my shoes and regaining control, I asked myself why I lost my temper.

Then it hit me: I’m tired of people not taking responsibility. One of my neighbors wasn’t responsible and didn’t pick up after his dog. And I paid the price. All day, I had been reading about people being rewarded for not taking responsibility for their actions and how I was going to pay the price.

Just an hour earlier I read details of Obama’s homeowner bailout plan, paid for with my money. Obama claims that it will be cheaper for law abiding, mortgage-paying citizens like myself to bailout homeowners than to deal with the repercussions of foreclosed homes. He has a point, but he doesn’t address the long term affects of the homeowner bailout. It teaches our children the wrong lesson and creates moral hazard. Next time there’s a housing bubble and everyone’s buying more house than they can afford, you may as well jump in. The government will bail you out, anyway.

A couple weeks ago I talked to a real estate agent who told me how tough it has been lately. He bought three investment houses at the peak of the bubble and is losing $500 a month on each house. He explained to me (without me asking) that his credit and reputation were important, so he was still paying the mortgages. It was as if he felt like he needed to make an excuse for being responsible instead of just dumping the houses on the bank. He’s probably had to answer questions from friends about why he cuts back on spending to keep current on his mortgages. “Why don’t you just drop the keys off at the bank?” He is taking responsibility for his own decisions, but that’s not in style right now.

It’s time to take responsibility. It’s time for Barney Frank to take responsibility. Maybe he can admit that encouraging people who can’t afford homes to buy them is not a good idea. It’s time for GM to take responsibility. It’s time for you and me to take responsibility. If we made a mistake, we must understand that we’ll pay for it. Even if it means paying off a home that’s now worth less than we paid for it.

I’m pained to lose 35% of my stock portfolio in a year. I’m pained to see my income go down. But that’s what happens in a recession. I have no doubt this will be a long and painful recession. Yet I’m prepared for it. I’ve done my best not to overextend myself. The last thing I want is for the government to halt the recession before we have a chance to weed out the bad businesses and over extended credit. That will only prolong the inevitable.

Proposed budget includes increased contractual fee from VeriSign.

Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has published its Proposed Framework for FY10 Operating Plan and Budget (pdf). ICANN’s Financial Year 2010 runs July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010.

Despite the possibility of declining domain registrations, ICANN will get a $6 million windfall thanks to a fixed fee provision in its dotcom agreement with VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN). VeriSign will pay $18 M to ICANN for running the .com registry during the year, compared to $12 M in FY ’09. (VeriSign pays a variable free of 75 cents for each .net transaction.)

Because of this fixed fee, ICANN expects a 28% increase in registry related revenue for FY ’10 compared to FY ’09. It forecasts a slight decrease in registrar revenue.

ICANN expects to spend nearly $7.5 M on new gTLD implementation and delegation for the year, which is 14% lower than forecast for 2009. However, admitted delays in new gTLD implementation may push back expenses. ICANN is budgeting that it won’t be able to contribute its goal of $10M-$15M to its reserve fund in FY ’10 due to new gTLD expenses. A separate new TLD budget will be published prior to the launch of new TLDs. This budget will include the revenue and expenses anticipated from new TLDs (the $7.5 M forecast is for implementation, not execution).

If you’re wondering where the rest of your money goes, here’s a breakdown of the proposed FY ’10 budget compared to the actual expenses in FY ’07:

Personnel: $24.7M, up 79%
Travel & Meetings: $11.5M, up 85%
Professional services: $11.9M, up 102%
Administration: $6.3M, up 105%

During the same period, revenue is up 56%.

Clearly ignorant cybersquatter can now answer question “What’s the worst that can happen?”

There are two types of cybersquatters: big, systematic cybersquatters and small, just-don’t-know-any-better cybersquatters. Sometimes it’s the big guys that get hit with lawsuits, but a recent case shows even the small time cybersquatter can be hit hard.

That’s the case of Fawn and Terry Myers, who are named in a lawsuit alleging they registered about 20 domain names related to Hells Angels. Either Fawn or Terry subsequently listed the domain names on eBay with titles such as:

“Hells Angels Domain Name HA-MC.COM USA Europe RARE Dot”
“Hells Angels Domain Name ALL 81 LLLL.com 4L USA EUROPE”

Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation sued the Myers this month on 20 counts of cybersquatting at $100,000 each.

Many small time cybersquatters think a UDRP is the worst that can happen to them. This case shows that’s not true. I asked Hells Angels’ attorney Fritz Clapp today why the company chose to file a lawsuit rather than UDRP. He cited the delay in UDRPs as well as the attention this case will draw to other people that might cybersquat on Hells Angels’ brand.

Clapp first contacted Terry Myers through the eBay contact system. Myers allegedly wrote a terse response to Clapp before listing another related domain name on eBay. Clapp contacted eBay, which removed the auctions.

You’ll find the eBay listings somewhat humorous, so I’ve uploaded a copy here (pdf).

Among Myers claims in the eBay listings:

I b.s. you not, once this name is sold, it will NEVER be up for sale EVER again. Buy it now, it will go FAST. First off, I would like to say I have no HA affiliation and the purchase of multiple 4 letter (LLLL.com) and 5 letter (LLLLL.com) domain [sic] was quit [sic] by accident. I did not correlate the 81 with the Hells Angels identification at time of purchase. I have purchased 100’s of four letter .com domains prior to them running out before November 2007, and some after that went up after expiration. I was contacted by a person outside the United States interested in purchasing 81EU.com for a European web site. A brandable four or five letter dot com domain name now days goes for $3800 all the way to $1,000,000 +.

Huh, at $8,181.81, I’m shocked this domain name didn’t sell within minutes

GoDaddy was named as a defendant in the original lawsuit, but was dropped after cooperating. In at least one of the eBay auctions, Myers wrote “If auction is canceled on ebay, please go to domain
site host (godaddy). It will be placed for auction there.”

Hat tip to Fresno Bee.