ICANN Ombudsman upset about service from “the little guy” at Air Canada.

ICANN Ombudsman Frank Fowlie is giving a whole new meaning to “sticking it to the man”. The “little man”, that is. At the same time, he has learned what it’s like to be on the losing end of a complaint.

Here’s the story.

Fowlie was frustrated with the service he received from Air Canada after he did not get his meal choice in Executive Class last year on a flight from Paris to Montreal. He said he complained to the flight attendant and was then ignored for 35-45 minutes with no snacks until the correct meal was served. The flight attendant says that he informed Fowlie it would take thirty minutes to cook the meal and that he provided wine and bread to Fowlie during the wait. But apparently Fowlie became agitated and started ringing his call button.

What happened next is in to dispute, because Fowlie’s version of events differ from the entire flight crew of Air Canada.

The flight attendant claims that Fowlie cursed and shouted at him. The flight attendant informed Fowlie that if he didn’t calm down, he’d have to be moved to a different area of the aircraft. Fowlie took this to mean he’d be downgraded to coach.

After the flight attendant told his supervisor about the incident, the supervisor asked Fowlie to step into the galley to talk about it. The supervisor claims:

Dr. Fowlie was physically imposing through his tone of voice, his body language and the use of his finger in her face. She also states that Dr. Fowlie referred to the flight attendant as “the little man” or “the little nothing”.

Fowlie says his reference to the flight attendant as “the little man” was just a descriptive term of his appearance. Hey, this might be fair. After all, the Ottawa Citizen reports that the attendant is just 160 pounds. As you can tell from Fowlie’s picture, he’s weighs a bit more than the attendant.

The supervisor then reported the incident to the captain, who issued a citation to Fowlie.

Once Fowlie arrived at his layover, he allegedly acted aggressively toward the ground manager. The crew for his next flight was told what happened, and the captain denied Fowlie access to the flight because he was a “risk of further disruption.”

The ground manager was concerned enough that she called airport security. Fowlie had to wait until the next day to be allowed to continue on his trip. That’s quite amazing for someone who has a Doctorate of Conflict Resolution and a Master of Arts in Conflict Analysis and Management. Perhaps a Masters of Anger Management is in order.

Fowlie filed a complaint with Canadian Transportation Agency, which denied his claim. I suppose Fowlie now knows what it’s like to be on the losing side of a complaint. After all, he’s quite skilled at ignoring the key points that are presented in cases filed with his office.

According to the Ottawa Citizen article, Fowlie is a SuperElite member of Air Canada’s frequent-flyer program and regularly logs 240,000 km a year in his work as ombudsman for the ICANN.

Your ICANN fees at work, folks.

A look back at February in the domain world.

It’s over already? February is a short month, but it was still packed with interesting domain name news. Here are the top five stories on Domain Name Wire for the month, ranked by views.

1. GoDaddy Rated Best Domain Registrar (Again) – for the fifth year in a row, GoDaddy was rated the best domain name registrar in Domain Name Wire’s annual survey. For more survey results, see the survey page.

2. Mike Mann Speaks His Mind about Sex.com – Mike Mann, one of the investors in Sex.com, speaks his mind about the domain name being called into foreclosure.

3. In Demand: How Demand Media is Profiting from Web Content – a look at Demand Media’s content model. To see how this could play a role in the domain name industry, see part 2 of the story.

4. .Co Domain Name is .Coming – Colombia’s country code domain name is coming to a registrar near you later this year.

5. How Baidu Got Hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army – Domain Name Wire is the first publication to write about how a hacker managed to get a Register.com employee to hand over control of the Baidu.com domain name account.

Lawsuit over employee bidding scandal voluntarily dismissed by plaintiff.

A lawsuit against SnapNames and parent company Oversee.net that was requesting class action status has been voluntarily dismissed.

Steward Resmer, a SnapNames customer who lost $20 in an auction thanks to the “halvarez scandal”, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court, Central District of California in November. Resmer was seeking class action status for the case on behalf of U.S. customers who had lost money due to inflated bidding. He was asking for Snapames to “Disgorge Defendants of all revenue earned from SnapNames.com Internet domain name auctions during the Class period”.

The lawsuit hit a major roadblock when the judge questioned the dollar amount in question in the suit. In order to be certified as a class action, at least $5 million in damages must have occurred. As it turned out, U.S. customers lost less than $1 million in direct over bids thanks to the employee bidding.

Resmer dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning it can be refiled at a later date. A copy of the dismissal is here.

ICM Registry notifies ICANN of its hopes and intentions.

Fresh off an independent review victory over ICANN, .XXX top level domain name applicant ICM Registry is asking ICANN to get the show on the road.

In a letter (pdf) to ICANN chairman of the board Peter Dengate-Thrush, ICM chairman Stuart Lawley writes:

“I am hopeful, as are others in the community, that ICANN will embrace the communications of the panel and use them to improve its processes and to restore confidence in ICANN as an institution.”

Lawley said time is of the essence for ICANN to regain institutional confidence:

“Assuming, as I do, that the Board takes its obligations under the accountability provisions of the Bylaws seriously and will respect the conclusions of this Panel of preeminent international jurists, we believe that it is now incumbent on ICANN to move expeditiously to execute a registry agreement with ICM for operation of the .xxx top level domain.”

And if ICANN doesn’t act expeditiously to get a contract in place with ICM registry? It probably faces a lawsuit:

“ICM is mindful that our patience has not always been rewarded in the past and can see no purpose (other than the expenditure of yet more time, money and effort by both parties) that would be served by delay. Accordingly, and with respect, I hope you will understand that we must protect our rights if it appears that our efforts to work in partnership with ICANN are failing, once again, to bear fruit.”

My guess is ICANN either approves the agreement or pays off ICM registry to go away until the new gTLD round gets going.

Bob Parsons buys house at auction for $8.72 million.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Go Daddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons just bought a house in Hawaii owned by singer Cher. The house went up for auction, and Parsons was the winning bidder at $8.72 million.

The house description isn’t bad, if I do say so myself:

The Hawaiian property, at the Four Seasons’ Hualalai resort, includes a main house flanked by four one-bedroom bungalows. Singer-actress Cher bought the 0.76-acre property in December 2004 for $2.9 million and last year began building the house but never lived in it.

You can see pictures of the house here (go to slides 10 and 11).

The only problem I see with the house is that you can’t bike from Arizona to Hawaii. But I’m sure Parsons can buy another motorcycle to keep in Hawaii.

Hey Bob, if you ever need a house sitter, just give me a ring.