If a 'Mars rover' was heading towards a cliff, in the 20 minutes it would take to perceive the problem, and the 20 minutes needed to respond, the vehicle would have plummeted to destruction.

In contrast, I have waited over two years for a reply from ICANN."

862 days ago I foresaw the danger of the .info Landrush 2 being abused by registrars who could exploit their position to submit exclusive short lists in order to secure the best domain names available. This had already happened in the .biz2B, so I sent Dan Halloran and the ICANN Board a list of concerns and examples of serious abuse of the ICANN processes.

The problems "highlight the need for a broader discussion within the ICANN community of the advantages and disadvantages of the various allocation options".

But how can people seriously engage with ICANN when the line "has gone dead"... when ICANN consciously chooses to evade your comments?

Ms Sapiro also called into question (as I did) the efficacy of the Sunrise provisions, which had seen 43% of all .info Sunrise registrations shown to be false, and which the Afilias Director Bob Connelly called at the time "an abomination".

Throughout this period (which was billed as a 'proof of concept')ICANN ignored fair and reasonable concerns and warnings...

It may take 20 minutes for Mr Cerf to respond to a warning from Mars... it has taken 862 days for ICANN to respond to my warnings (finally acknowledged by Ms Sapiro) about abuse of the ICANN processes... or rather, NOT to respond.

I sent Dan Halloran my detailed concerns by e-mail on May 12th 2002.

A copy of the letter to Dan Halloran was posted at ICANNWatch.

I notified the GA of these concerns on 12th May as well.

I notified GA again of these concerns on 26th May...

and again, the next day.

I asked again on 29th May.

I posted a further request, which was also sent direct to Dan Halloran.

Further comments on Dan Halloran's silence on 29th June (also e-mailed direct to him)can be found here.

A further polite request for answers, also CC'd directly to Dan Halloran, was publically posted on 7th July 2002.

As I say, I had also posted the same 14 questions at ICANNWatch and on public mailing-lists.

My mail was re-sent on 2nd September 2002.

I later mailed Paul Twomey on 18th May 2003 to try to obtain a response - I got no reply or acknowledgement from him either (notwithstanding his public comments on the importance of responsiveness).

Neither Dan Halloran nor Paul Twomey ever acknowledged receipt of my mail.

Is this the openness and responsiveness we should expect from an organisation which serves the whole world?

I believe that ICANN does not want to answer awkward questions and therefore consciously evades them. I take the view that it is irresponsible and inexcusable of ICANN to ignore serious and reasoned letters.

Is this openness? Is this dialogue? Is this acceptable for an organisation entrusted with running a world resource? My questions raised fair concerns. My questions were serious and not flippant. I have patiently asked, again and again, for a response.

Now .info LR2 has come and gone, and exactly the same "exclusive" lists have gamed the system as they did in.biz2B, as I warned Dan Halloran. He did nothing. He didn't answer.

As you can see, I've tried, but ICANN just didn't want to answer.

Conclusion: It's far easier to communicate with Mars than with ICANN. 862 days is too long to wait for a response. I can only conclude that ICANN has ceased to exist as an open and transparent, communicative and responsive life form. Vint Cerf's vision for the planets is grandiose and - who knows - visionary? But here on Earth, ICANN is like a remote rover, out of control, and out of touch, careering from one disaster to another.