When I started asking people a few weeks ago whether they were going to attend the ICANN meeting in Colombia that starts today, the vast majority of the responses I got was something along the lines of: “no I’m not going. Nothing is really on the agenda or going to happen at this one I’m waiting for SF in March”.
Well all of a sudden after the events of this week, this ICANN meeting looks like it might be VERY interesting.
After all in the past 7 days we have seen the US government seize over 80 domain names based on some enforcement by Homeland Security of intellectual property interests, we have seen, probably the most controversial site in the world, move from a .Org to a ccTLD (.ch) to avoid seizure although for some strange reason the US government seemed uninterested in seizing that domain; we have the case involving the Kentucky gambling domain name seizure case hitting the courts again; we saw at one of the largest torrent sites in the world move their operations from a .com to a ccTLD (.me) to avoid seizure, the biggest torrent site, ThePirateBay.org rolled out plans for its own peer to peer DNS system to bypass ICANN and regulation altogether and we had the Department of Commerce tell ICANN off.
Oh right, there is still that .XXX discussion going on and the Free Speech Collation is leading the charge for ICANN to disregard its decision in the last ICANN meeting to grant ICM the right to run the registry.
Its been a long 7 days.
So now ICANN takes the stage among quite a different atmosphere that most expected just weeks ago.
I’m on my way to Colombia to report on the meeting and dig into the nit and grit of ICANN meeting.
It no longer sounds like this one’s going to be boring.
I may not be around as much to police the comments over the next few days so behave yourselves and we will chat again from Colombia.
I would like to know as well about ICANN’s take on these seized domains.
#DNS insiders headed to San Francisco for ITS.ON #NewTLDs – Ex #ICANN Vice President Keynote ://www.isoc.org/ion/ #domains #ISOC #IETF
@ MHB, You don’t think it’s going to be predictable? Let’s hear your predictions how ICANN will address current events, if at all. My prediction is:
They’ll hand out form letter or form email for you to mail US gov’t, assuring your support for ICANN!
there are already TOO many TLDs
further increase their number is crazy
but, unfortunately, they’ll do that… 🙁
wish you a nice trip Michael! Hope things roll out well for domain registrants…
Can the US gov. seize ccTLD domain?
Do you know whether there’s going to be any talk about the recently launched .CO? Considering the location…
so, according to the economist, social networks alleviate the need for domain names. then i guess facebook doesn’t need a domain name?
there was a time when people did memorise numbers for the computer. bbs access numbers. slip access numbers.
if you can get people to use numbers again, yeah, you could alleviate the need for dns. good luck with that. users are suckers for “features” that bring greater “convenience”. dns is such a feature. a convenience (at what expense?) whose justification is repeated ad nauseum without question: “it’s too difficult to use numbers. hosts file got too big. gotta keep track of every new host by the hour. blah blah blah.”
well, the internet of the 1980’s, its _users_, its architecture and its enabling technology, was different from today. but we pretend the decisions of the 1980’s must make the same sense today. not “may”, not “should”, but “must”. we assume the consensus of the 80’s can never change.
find me a non-corporate user today who’s worried about a file on her computer getting “too big”. or one that’s concerned about keeping track of new hosts added to the network, by the hour. heck, some people, with a vested interest in the future of dns, have proclaimed on circleid that most new domains added each day are usually of dubious character.
well then why are we using a system designed to update people about these worthless sites by the hour or even the minute? that system is dns.
i don’t need someone to sell me access to a “blacklist”. i’ve got my own “whitelist”. it’s a list of the sites i consider legitimate. it’s called the “hosts” file. no dns needed.
dns is good for corporate users and their internal networks.
similarly, social networks, if they were manage to break away from the internet, would probably use dns internally anyway.
domain names were never necessary. but good luck getting convenience-loving users to stop using names in favor of numbers. not going to happen.
In the past week I have received more Facebook Friend Requests from businesses than I have in the last year combined. It’s as if every webmaster simultaneously told their clients “Social media is where it’s at!”.
Last night I was at a cocktail party and was told, “My company has over 10,000 friends on Facebook, but it’s not helping my business.”
Anyone who thinks that Facebook is going to replace domain names reminds me of those in the 1980’s who claimed that live concerts on HBO would kill performance venues.
I agree with David. Facebook is way too much overrated IMO.
and to top it off, the author is trying to sell his employer’s own dns-based marketing data collection scheme: econ.st
unreal.
every time you use a shortening service, you’re using a proxy. you’re telling a third party what sites you visit, and enabling them to track everyone who visits the site on your recommendation.
but the author forgot to mention that “mere technicality”.
Facebook is a Fad …
Like Myspace WAS!
Next.
Joe
ICANN has no control over ccTLD’s or country codes which .Co is, that’s why you saw some sites move them this week (ccTLD’s not .co) to avoid seizure
I know .Co is holding a big party on Monday night for many of the attendees
Amr
The US government might be able to seize domains whose registry is US based or who is using a US company to provide the band end system for the registry.
A totally offshore ccTLD whose registry operates offshore, and whose servers are offshore, the answer would be no
David’s Quote: “Anyone who thinks that Facebook is going to replace domain names reminds me of those in the 1980′s who claimed that live concerts on HBO would kill performance venues.”
That’s enlightening. I sure don’t remember that. I can just see how that played out.
I still think .mobi though will eat into .com traffic. Just kidding. 🙂
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://www.bitcoin.org/
If a business sends you a Friend Request, and you accept, do they get to see your Profile?
What if your email address, mobile number, or other contact info is in your Profile? Does the company now get access to this information?
Not only will Facebook replace the need for domain names it will replace email too, now that we’ve got Facebook mail. Is anyone even using email these days, when they can “… click on this link to reply directly to…” someone who has contacted them through Facebook?
Facebook will also replace the need for live perfomance venues, as well as cable TV, including HBO.