I applaud that a few of the major domainers were willing to “charge the hill” hoping that we would follow.
Unfortunately, the masses did not follow. But, a few did which is a good start.
Hopefully, more will join the charge.

The last thing we need is fighting among ourselves.

Lets stay focused on who wants to directly or indirectly weaken us.
They are -
Verisign, Icann, Google, IP community, just to name a few.

Half of the domaining community were banned from Rick’s forum in 2006, and WADND was basically a meeting place for what was next for TRAFFIC conferences. Many domainers locked into your site for months watching your posted “Board meetings”, and WADND wasn’t reaching out to the hundreds of new domainers. They were shunning them, as TRAFFIC “exclusive invites” consistently scared away new people, who today would be Elliot Silver, Bruce Marler, and even Chef Patrick. (If they were involved back in 2005)

If you wanted support from the domain community, don’t claim “exclusivity” from the “noise” and expect everyone outside the “Schwartz Circle” to jump in when you need them, even if it is to their best interest. I stated this 100 times in 2006.

Today, The King is more respected because he has a completely open blog and that is what brings in the best of the best, and the worst of the worst. The game at that point is to sort it all out, but that’s how history is made, don’t you agree?

Censorship and “Exclusivity” creates a stagnant pool of increasingly incestuous inbreeding that goes nowhere for everyone in the “accepted” group. Thank God you don’t hold to that theory anymore. I’d check out the book “EXPLOITING CHAOS”. My favorite!

Cheers and Happy Holidays!

The major issue being skimmed over is ICANN … moreso than Verisign. Verisign’s just another soul-less corporate giant. However, ICANN are the supposed “neutral” overseer who obviously are anything but neutral. The Verisign award exemplified ICANN’s lack of regard for the business community. And shows their inner circle, profit-oriented back-scratching MO.

As is often the case with ICANN, there are prevailing & simple principles at stake which they expertly avoid dealing with. Verisign monopoly just another example.

Its not that people are whining about a 7 – 10$ maintenance charge,

DNS Is a government run service which I ask who controls the root servers? ICANN and the us government has the most sway, its a government service.

And its real costs are $1 – 2$ to run… ok give them all bonuses…take $3 per domain but for them to arbitrarilty price .coms based on their whim is greed and not American.

You say who cares? Well, if you only own a handful of domains..goodie for you. Otherwise it will hurt..a lot.

You think im whining? Hey why not jack up postage stamp rates (another gov service) Tell me you wouldnt pay $7.51 to the USPS if the government only awarded the postal delivery contract to ONE organization to run and they are the only game in town and you need mail sent out.

Ohhh but thats different Matt… uh huh. Sure.