An open letter to the new CEO of ICANN.

Congratulations, Rod. You’ll be the new CEO of ICANN.

You have your work cut out for you. Rightly or wrongly, ICANN is a punching bag for many grievances. As Michael Palage pointed out at the last ICANN meeting, ICANN will likely be subject to many lawsuits over the next couple years. Here are a few suggestions as you prepare to take over the reins.

1. Remember that domain owners ultimately fund your organization. Registries and registrars merely funnel domain owners’ money to ICANN.

2. Transparency requires understanding. Merely publishing information does not create transparency. Ironically, publishing too much disparate information can have a negative effect. People need to understand how ICANN works and how decisions are made. It’s ICANN’s job to educate people and operate in a simple manner.

3. Be visible with your ultimate constituents — domain owners. ICANN typically sends one representative to domain industry conferences. It’s great having him there, but I’d like to see more participation in the future.

4. Don’t be afraid to stop projects that don’t make sense. Prior investments are sunk costs. If it doesn’t make sense to proceed with an initiative, then cut it.

5. Registry competition means putting registry contracts out to open bidding.

6. Remember your core mission. Mission creep could spell ICANN’s doom.

7. Please respond to legitimate criticism, and not on the defensive. People want to know their voice is being heard.

Actress files claim with National Arbitration Forum to get SandraBullock.com.

My neighbor* Sandra Bullock has filed for arbitration to get the domain name SandraBullock.com. The case commenced last Friday and should be decided in the next month or two.

The domain name is owned by a company called Alberta Hot Rods. The domain’s nameservers point to SmartName, but the domain name doesn’t resolve so it was likely deactivated by the service. A March 2007 site capture from The Wayback Machine shows a parked page with the disclaimer “This is an UNOFFICIAL Sandra Bullock fan site. This site is not affiliated or endorsed in any way by Sandra Bullock or any other party.”

*Bullock was building a house a half mile down the road, but ended up tearing it down and suing the builder. She may be rebuilding, but I’m not one of those nosy celebrity hounds. And no, my house isn’t worth anything near $6.5M.

Photo credit: Angela George C.C. Sharealike license.

The ICANN IRT needs a lesson in getting buy-in.

Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) was set up by trademark interests to come up with a way to protect trademark owners during the launch of new top level domain names. The process by which it was set up and operated could be a case study in how not to get buy-in for a new idea.

I’ve worked with a lot of teams over the past dozen years and have had to sell ideas many times. I’ve managed groups of union workers, had to come up with a plan on how many people to lay off in a company (and whom) and faced many other challenges. One lesson that has been ingrained in me since I entered college at 18 was that you need to involve the people who will be affected by your plan in the decision making process. Ideally, you get them to think the plan was their own to begin with. (Try telling a group of 30 union workers that you’re changing how they do their work!)

So here’s a brief history of IRT. It was set up at the behest of ICANN’s intellectual property constituency. Few people were made aware of it and how to apply until it was basically too late. The one intellectual property expert that the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) recommended was rejected.

Once formed, members of the IRT operated mostly behind closed doors until its first draft recommendation was released. It was even so bold as to vote to keep its deliberations secret.

Then it released its “plan” all at once. This isn’t some minor tweaking to existing guidelines; it’s a bombshell. It completely re-writes the rules.

At the ICANN meeting in Sydney last week there was apparently quite a bit of push back to the plan. Kathy Kleiman, co-founder of the noncommercial users constituency, a drafter of the UDRP and also a trademark and telecommunications attorney, stated about IRT:

We object to the process that composed the IRT. This is largely the intellectual property constituency, which while experts also have opinions and they have things that they want on behalf of their
clients, I spent half a decade in ICANN as co-chair of different working groups banging heads with registrars, with business, with intellectual property constituency. That’s traditionally how we get things done.

So, Mr. Chairman, I would like to argue going forward the group that reviews the current and upcoming comments be one composed of constituencies excluded from the IRT process. Why? Because all week
the IRT committee has sat on high rejecting even the most basic of suggestions and ideas.

In the normal world, the way IRT has put forth its recommendations would surely result in defeat. But this process may be in a parallel world.

Count your blessings and help someone less fortunate.

If only we were all so lucky

It’s hot in Texas. Last week it hit 105 degrees, about 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year. I’ve complained aloud over the past week about the heat. My wife and I have even discussed packing up our bags and heading to a cooler climate such as Seattle.

I’ve complained when my home’s air conditioning struggled to keep the temperature down. I’ve complained about how steamy the car is when I first get into it. I’ve complained about walking the dog.

This afternoon I was lying on the couch reading a magazine, staring up at the ceiling fan. Then it hit me. I’m seriously complaining when the temperature in my house is a degree above what I want it to be? I complain about how my Acura is hot to sit in? I’m lucky to have air conditioning and a nice car.

I quickly searched for a way to help others out. I found a local charity that collects fans for the elderly and made a donation.

So next time you’re complaining about how rough things are, take a moment to realize how great you have it. And while you’re at it, donate what is surely a negligible about of your money to someone who really needs it.

Combined Insurance Group Ltd loses two domain name arbitration cases.

Combined Insurance Group Ltd has lost two domain name battles for seemingly generic domains, CheapAutoInsurance.com and CheapAutosInsurance.com. The company claims trademark rights to “Cheap Auto Insurance”, even though many of these trademarks and their dates of use are questionable based on evidence brought forth by the respondents.

The insurance company owns the domain name Cheap-Auto-Insurance.com. It should remind you of another case where a company with a hyphenated domain name is making a dubious case: the owner of c-a-s-i-n-o-s.org going after casinos.org.

For CheapAutoInsurance.com, the panel found that the complainant had not established a prima facie case in support of its arguments that respondent lacks rights and legitimate interests in the domain name.

The second case involves the plural version of auto, CheapAutoSinsurance.com. Combined Insurance Group Ltd claimed that this was simply a case of typosquatting, since the only difference between this domain and the trademark was the added ‘S’ on autos. But since the version of the domain that would be typosquatted isn’t just CheapAutoInsurance.com (it’s cheap-auto-insurance.com), this is a questionable claim. In this case, the panel found that the respondent had rights or legitimate interests in the domain, and it was not registered in bad faith.