[LINK] Re: IAMEMS: Draft Resolution on Domain Tasting (and monitization) ICANN AtLarge Advisory Committee (ALAC)

[Kim Holburn]

Since the Blue Security incident I have been thinking that the  
"internet" has in a number of ways been taken over by organised  
crime.  Whatever your view is on what Blue security did, what it did  
clearly worked and riled the people behind a lot of spamming and  
scamming.  It showed up the fact that this stuff which we all try and  
cope with every day is being run by powerful people and a lot of  
money is involved.  The Blue Security incident highlighted the fact  
that our basic DNS infrastructure is not all that secure.  Isn't it  
one of ICANN's jobs to make sure the root DNS servers are secure and  
resistant to a major DDOS not to mention DNS node servers?  What  
happened to Blue Security's DNS servers and their registrars  
shouldn't have caused the havoc it did.  Not to suggest technical  
solutions here but perhaps if part of the registrar agreement was to  
host secondaries for the other registrars this might have been  
ameliorated.

I'd like to see ICANN to a better technical job in the current  
rapidly changing security environment.  If ICANN doesn't do anything  
then it will be governments who attempt it and this may just make the  
situation a lot worse.

On 2007/Mar/19, at 3:06 AM, cheryl at hovtek.com.au wrote:

> Dear list Members and associates,
>
> Since 2005 the Interent Society of Australia has been a certified  
> At Large Structure (ALS) in the Asia Pacific Regional At Large  
> Organisation (APRALO) please see http://alac.icann.org/applications/
>
> The APRALO in turn feeds into the policy development and processes  
> in the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) within ICANN. please see  
> https://st.icann.org/asiapac/index.cgi?
>
> As a condute therefore for for individual Internet users who want  
> to be involved in issues that affect their use of the Internet's  
> domain name system, we are hoping to elicit your *urgent*  
> responces, comments and feedback on the following *early and  
> provisional draft resolution* which in its however modified form  
> will be on the Agenda for consideration by the ALAC at this months  
> ICANN meeting in Lisbon 26 - 30 March.
>
> We apologise for the short time available to react to this  
> important document, and we will forward, as part of our general  
> reply, links to all articles and archives found within the auDA  
> website which shows the public comment process, the opinions  
> lodged, and outcomes of, our ccTLD's recent review which resulted  
> in the allowance of Domain Monetization as a bon fide business  
> purpose for the licencing of a particular domain name, with the  
> note that under our eligability rules content still must relate to  
> that name ->(which goes in my opinion, a long way towards  
> countering the very negative comments regarding this practice at  
> the end of the draft text, where is it outlined as a sleazy and  
> misleading activity)... So you do not need to cover points and  
> arguments already made in that set of documents.
>
> If possible, could any opinions, reactions or comments on the  
> follwing draft be disussed on these lists and within your  
> constituancies, as a matter of urgency. With final feedback  
> forwarded to me at treasurer at isoc-au.org.au by COB on Wed 21st this  
> week... I will then, on Thursday/ Friday compile a commentry /  
> report to return to Izumi for contribution into the ALAC meetings  
> in Lisbon.
>
>
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Cheryl Langdon-Orr
>
>
>
> Quoting Izumi AIZU <iza at anr.org>:
> Dear ALAC/RALO/ALS people,
>
> At the last ALAC conference call, I volunteered to write some draft
> resolution for ALAC on Domain Tasting (and Domain monetization).
>
> With my limited knowledge, I rather hesitate, but put forward the  
> following
> as a very crude draft. I owe much part to John Levin's comment (on  
> internal
> list months ago), who unfortunately left ALAC recently. I hope John  
> still
> watch this open list and make further contribution, together with  
> all others.
>
> I repeat this is very very crude, and I am aware that some  
> porposals may not
> be readily accepted by you guys, especially in the area of domain  
> monetization.
>
> I still feel that the speculation is not for the interest of  
> ordinary users,
> perhaps OK with Domainers as new and innovative industry. For that,  
> I really
> like you to come up with clear and convincing ideas and solutions.  
> This draft is just a step stone for that.
>
> Thanks,
>
> izumi
>
>
>
> *Draft Resolution on Domain Tasting
> ICANN AtLarge Advisory Committee (ALAC)
>
> V. 0.8
> Mar 12 2007*
>
> On behalf of the ordinary Internet users, AtLarge Advisory Committee
>
> (ALAC)
> would like to propose the following actions to be taken by the ICANN
> Community on Domain Tasting and Domain Monetization.
>
> *To gNSO Council:*
> Start a Policy Development Process on Domain Tasting. We believe  
> that Domain Tasting is an abuse of existing Five-day Add Grace  
> Period which results
> confusion for the ordinary Internet users and give unfair treatment to
> peculiar speculators. We propose to abandon the five day "Add Grace  
> period".
>
>
> *To Registrars Constituency:*
> Finalize and implement Registrars Code of Conduct that prohibits  
> unfair speculation and exploitation on Domain name registration  
> including the use of five day Add Grace period.
>
>
> *To Registry Constituency:*
> We request the registries to consider how to avoid user confusion  
> and unfair practices by abolishing the five day add grace period.  
> Adding small fee, such as 25 cents per Domain to those registrants  
> who kept their names using add grace period may be one solution,  
> but we are not fully convinced.
>
>
> *To ICANN Board:*
> We request ICANN Board to seriously consider how to prohibit unfair
> speculation, enhance consumer trust to Domain Name registration  
> system, by
> a) Initiating a third party study on the impact of Domain Tasting  
> and Domain Monetization/speculation to the ordinary Internet users.
> b) Initiating review of Registry ? Registrar Contract that will  
> promote the fair trade and restrict unfair speculation.
>
>
>
> *Background and Rationale:*
> Domain tasting uses the five day add grace period to register  
> domains without paying for them. We think they are unfair acts:  
> somewhere between larceny and extortion, because the registration  
> cost is zero and the purpose of these registrations is just to make  
> money taking advantage of automated bulk registration to exploit  
> the domain names which are the public goods in essence.
>
> As many people have noted, it's exploiting a loophole that  
> shouldn't be there in the first place.  There was a great deal of  
> debate both in the ICANN community and on the ICANN board about the  
> deletion grace period, but
> none at all about add grace which was apparently tossed into the  
> package by
> an ICANN staffer without asking anyone. So says Karl Auerbach, who  
> was on the board at the time, and I haven't seen anything to the  
> contrary from any other board member.
>
> As Bob Parsons wrote in his blog:
> *Millions of good .COM domain names ? on any given day over 3.5  
> million and
> climbing ? are unfairly made unavailable to small businesses and  
> others who
> would actually register and use them in ways for which the names were
> intended. Many times businesses accidentally let their domain names  
> expire. When they go to renew them, they find they have been  
> snapped up ? and taken
> away with a huge expensive hassle to follow ? by an add/drop  
> registrar.
>
> *(http://www.bobparsons.com/adddropscheme.html)
>
> The usual explanation of domain tasting says that the registrars  
> register millions of domains, watch the traffic, and then after 4.9  
> days they delete the ones that don't seem likely to make back the US 
> $6.00. Often they just
> delete them all and then reregister what they can a few minutes  
> later until
> they find the ones which produce enough traffic that yields well  
> above $6 cost.
>
> The add grace period is just a mistake. The problem it purports to  
> solve is
> not and never was an important one. If you let an important domain  
> expire,
> you risk losing the entire investment made in that domain over many  
> years. But if one registers a domain by mistake, the most one risks  
> is the ten or
> twenty dollars you paid to register it.
>
>
>
> *On Domain Monetization*
> We note that there is a meaningful difference between domain  
> tasting and
> domain monetization. Monetization is a straightforward arbitrage  
> between the cost of domain registrations and the revenue from as  
> much pay-per-click traffic as the domain owner can get from people  
> who visit web sites in the
> domain. It's a fundamentally sleazy business, since the web sites  
> have no
> useful content and the way they get the traffic is basically by  
> tricking
> people, either via typos or recently expired domains.
>
> We do not think it is appropriate in this case to make ICANN as a  
> regulator
> to watch and prohibit the Domain monetization practice. Instead, we  
> like to
> ask those commercial activities such as Google or Overture to stop  
> paying
> for clicks on pages with no content, thereby dealing with a problem  
> that is
> not limited to typo and expired domains. We've seen click  
> arbitrage, people buying Google ads to drive traffic to pages that  
> are simply other Google
> ads. This kind of self-generating traffic for pay-per-click  
> advertising is confusing and unnecessary for ordinary Internet  
> users and, in the long run, not healthy for the development of  
> Internet as a whole.
>
>

--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +39 06 855 4294  M: +39 3494957443
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request

Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961