Thanks for posting the link to the suit.

RKB.

Chances are they won’t. As long as VeriSign won’t sue them by that time, that is.

BTW, the link below relates to the suit I mentioned earlier:

http://www.icann.org/en/general/litigation-cfit.htm

The gist of it is the contract is, unfortunately, upheld.

Lets just hope that ICANN does not keep renewing Verisign’s contract perpetually. Many other companies can manage the dot-com registry securely and provide a much much lower price.

If I remember correctly, I think Godaddy offered to do it for almost half the prevaling rate when ICANN awarded the contract to Verisign couple of years ago. I am not sure about the exact amount though!

Of course. People generally register domain names (especially .com) to “invest” it on something, be it financial or some other personal cause, but they ought to consider their long-term goals for it or them (if multiple) if they wish to be able to keep them.

If anything, it so happens the .com Registry is currently contracted to a publicly-listed company that has primary obligations to its shareholders to maximize their value. ICANN has stated their practical reasons for extending VeriSign’s contract, though naturally lots of people (including me) don’t agree with it.

Anyway, when there’s a will, there’s a way. And I like how your comment box is designed.

You have made real good points above. I mostly agree with your views but I still disagree with the following statement:

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Uh…what barrier exactly? A .com costs about $7-$10 a year average, surely that’s affordable to the average joe?
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I am sure that people in poor countries where $1US equal 50 or more bucks don’t feel the same way. Its not easy to pay 1000s in your local currency to register/renew a domain on a yearly basis let alone buy a boat load of them like people do here in US and Europe.

It is still quite a bit of money to spend every year in my opinion.

Btw, thanks you for your visit and very nice input on this topic.

ICANN has still not fully secured the internet DNS from hackers.

ICANN has already stated on their site how they’re addressing it so far. Of course, it still needs cooperation from the numerous parties who physically control and manage the servers, so it’ll take a while.

ICANN should provide tools to warn and prohibit innocent domain registrants from unknowingly register a TM infringing domain during the registration process. Majority of people who register domains, especially the first time, don’t have a clue about trademark infringement. Why can’t ICANN and registries implement warning systems during the registration process?

I kinda agree there ought to be some kind of small warning on a sign-up page of the risk of registering a domain name bearing a trademark. But it’s the registrars who offer that service directly to end users, not ICANN or the Registries, so maybe they ought to be the ones doing that.

Then again, do you see Toyota stating in their receipts what the gear stick is for? Or gun or knives dealers saying such can be used to hurt themselves or kill people?

Unfortunately there’s a possibility that if a registrar states such on their sign-up page, that might “turn off” the average ignorant customer and go with someone who doesn’t state that. Naturally, that can hurt their sales.

ICANN should stop registries from auctioning Trademark infringing domains. Buyers of those domains suffer while registries keep pocketing the profits.

One question is why would people want to buy domain names bearing trademarks to begin with? Maybe unique famous ones like Microsoft, Kodak or even Dell are no-no’s, but how about if it has words like Shell, Tide or even Head And Shoulders which aren’t necessarily obvious yet are arguably famous too?

UDRP/WIPO process under ICANN became a big joke and a tool to help greedy corporations snatch domains from legitimate registrants.

If one checks the history of UDRP, you’ll notice it’s the corporations themselves who lobbied (or pressured?) for such because of cybersquatters back in the ’90s. It was actually more draconian, but a few enterprising people managed to scale it down to what it is now.

Like most if not anything else in life, it can be useful and it can be abused. I do agree it needs “considerable” changes, and I’m hoping ICANN will re-open a comment period for it.

ICANN has awarded a virtual monopoly to registries especially to dot-com registry thus killing all open competition. It was rumored that ICANN did it to settle lawsuits.

It’s not just a rumor. It’s true as ICANN themselves stated in their blog and their main site.

Besides, only one party can run the Registry for an extension. You have more than one and it can still create issues.

If anything, they ought to bid it out as they should’ve back then.

Domain registration prices have gone considerably higher under ICANN. ICANN let the dot-com registry raise prices by almost 30% over a 6 year period over the original price when it renewed the registry contract. Now that’ss a blunder! Who else can do it except the mighty ICANN? We need open competition and it will sure lead to lower prices.

Well, one kind of competition is bidding out the Registry to whoever can sell such at as low prices as possible. Again, hopefully they’ll reconsider that.

On the side, there was a lawsuit against ICANN regarding the .com Registry contract. Not sure what its status is, so still checking.

ICANN has created a barrier to internet growth from poor developing countries as people in those countries can’t afford high domain-registration prices.

Uh…what barrier exactly? A .com costs about $7-$10 a year average, surely that’s affordable to the average joe?

Besides, a domain name isn’t as necessary as food or water. No one ought to be buying stuff they can’t really afford if it’s not really that needed for survival.

Plus, there’s .org, .info, even a .biz domain name. They might have as much appeal as .com, but they’re still cheaper.

ICANN let domain tasting and domain kiting flourish for so many years. Only recently ICANN has started moving to control these issues.

I realize a lot of people want ICANN to resolve this immediately. But as you’re aware, some issues aren’t fixed overnight.

Yes, ICANN could’ve done something about it sooner. But domain tasting has flourished maybe the past year or so, and sometimes people need “proof” of something before they take action.

Domain registrants fund ICANN and its activities

Uh…we pay our dues to the registrars, while the registrars pay their fees to ICANN. Maybe the average registrant doesn’t really have a “voice” at ICANN, but we average registrants aren’t the only registrants around aside from the intellectual property constituency and maybe the domainers themselves.

Now many of us may not need ICANN, but I seriously wonder who is willing to handle the different and possibly conflicting interests among registrants coming from different countries, diverse cultures, and varying beliefs. Try balancing all of them together.