Ion Mag did an article that broke down the money that ICANN is making and the kind of salaries being paid out. It is a pretty thorough look at what goes on over at ICANN. Average pay per staff over $187,000 stood out to me. From the article: ICANN’s 2014 tax return (IRS form 990) shows a net trading loss. The true picture is somewhat masked by ICANN’s new gTLD cash windfall. In 2013, ICANN … [Read more...]
Google Hates ICANN’s Attempt to Eliminate Whois Privacy Calling it “Impractical & Ineffective
Google filed it's comment on the whois privacy issue with ICANN today. Google seems to hate the proposal of the ICANN working group to prohibit commercial domain registrants from using proxy or privacy services calling it unfair to small businesses and individuals. Google even cites it's own Charleston Road Registry an example of how big companies will still be able to use … [Read more...]
ICANN Best Estimate For New gTLD Renewal Rate 50%; 25% For Free Domains: 35% Worst Case
In releasing its 2016 operating budget ICANN made some estimate for the purposes of budgeting revenue from new gTLD's. ICANN is saying its "Best" estimate is that the average renewal rate will be 50% for new gTLD's except for TLD's that provided free registrations where the renewal rate was estimated at 25%. On The Low estimate the ICANN seems to be indicating a new gTLD renewal rate of 35% … [Read more...]
ICANN March 2016 Meeting To Be In Morocco, October 2016 In Puerto Rico
The ICANN Board selected locations to hold its meetings for March 2016 and October 2016 before heading out of the ICANN Buenos Airs meeting. The March 2016 ICANN meeting (ICANN 55) with be held in Marrakech, Morocco which had already been selected for the site for the March 2016 ICANN Meeting after ICANN relocated the meeting scheduled for March 2014 to Singapore during the outbreak of … [Read more...]
GAC Communiqué From The ICANN Meeting In Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Governmental Advisory group has issued its Communiqué From The ICANN Meeting In Buenos Aires, Argentina outlining its activities for the week and suggestions for the ICANN Board: The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) met in Buenos Aires, Argentina during the week of the 20th of June 2015. Sixty nine (69) GAC Members … [Read more...]
Russian Govt Blocks The Way Back Machine: Still Sure The US Should Give Away ICANN?
According to GlobalVoicesOnline.org, the Russian government has blocked the Wayback Machine, which allows users to view archived webpages to see how domain sites looked like in the past. According to the website Rublacklist.net (a censorship-monitoring project operated by the Russian Pirate Party), the entire domain and IP address for the Internet Archive was added on June 23, 2015, to Russia's … [Read more...]
This is Why People Hate ICANN: GNSO Resolution for Next round of New gTLD’s
The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) just sent me over this resolution concerning the next round of new gTLD's which it seemed to just pass. Read through it a few times. I have no idea what it says and I'm a lawyer For me it means nothing, just a lot of noise Last year we predicted the soonest we would see a 2nd round of new gTLD's open is in four years, 2018. I think we … [Read more...]