ICANN Closes Most Popular Comment Forum

Hello "Anonymous"

Have you been participating actively in that forum? The majority of regular participants would take an opposite view to yours. The problem with the forum has been ICANN's failure to enter into the dialogue, or to respond to the fair and serious points raised there (among occasional wild messages you get in any unmoderated forum or free society).

Garry Anderson's messages have been fairly clear and consistent. He's not been "flaming" as you put it, but he has regularly raised relevant issues - and the need to repeat serious issues is because ICANN is running scared of answering criticisms that indict them... they get "anonymous" posters to try to back them up instead.

Garry's main point is straightforward. He has questioned why the New TLD agreements accommodated a "Sunrise" privilege for trademark holders, when it is absolutely obvious that many generic words have scores if not hundreds of trademarks against them all over the world. His point is one of simple logic : what gives just ONE of those trademark holders the right to claim a generic word (belonging to the whole human race) when hundreds of other people may have equal claims?

Furthermore, the outworking of the Sunrise "abomination" (to quote Afilias director Robert Connelly) vindicated his scepticism about a hopelessly flawed agreement : thousands after thousands of names applied for dishonestly by registrars linked to the staff and board of Afilias.

Why, in a free society, is it seen as a bad thing to criticise bad systems?

The people being criticised on the ICANN public forums are not consumers and members of the Internet public like Garry Anderson, but executives who talk endlessly about transparency and accountability - but who run away from dialogue; try to marginalise critics; and seem accountable to no-one.

Why did Vint Cerf or Stuart Lynn or one of their staff not answer the many fair and serious questions posted on the forum? They evaded the criticism by simply not answering.

Do you think that there were no legitimate concerns raised in that forum?

Are you kidding?

Who are you, my friend? You know who I am. I believe in openness and dialogue. But, my "anonymous" friend - the executives at ICANN run away from forums, run away from disclosure, run away from people who challenge their autocracy.

The DNS is a worldwide resource - a benefit for the whole world community. If Vint and Stuart can't operate it in a wholly open and responsive way, then they should make way for people who will.

They have presided over fraud, they have presided over bad agreements, they advertise dishonest registrars, they fail to answer questions (or get their staff to). Why on earth shouldn't people like Garry Anderson and other members of the Internet public raise issues in the face of this kind of management?

They are not alone. They are being sued by one of their own Directors. They are being criticised by Congressmen. The two most significant TLDs were a farcical shambles - which resulted in loss and inconvenience to consumers.

ICANN exists for the public, and open discussion is nothing to worry about... unless they have things they should be worried about... it is their management, and not the forum, which is "a joke".

I wish you'd choose to post messages in your own name. I wish people like you and the ICANN authorities would participate openly in the forums, and engage in open discussion about the serious issues being raised.

Have a nice day.

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