[ga] ICANNWatch comments on failure of ICANN and Afilias to uphold Agreements
Title: Help A Peaceful New Year to all of you (and the families, women and children of
Iraq)
With the Jeff Field court case looming, some further demonstration of the
way consumers lost out because of ICANN-Registry Agreements, the abuse of those
agreements, the misuse of those agreements, and the failure to properly
implement and uphold those agreements, can be found at this page at
ICANNWatch
Elsewhere further up the same ICANNWatch threads you can re-visit the now
familiar details of the Lubsen - DomainBank - Lorenz case, involving the abuse
of the .info process by DomainBank, who charged IRO $15000 to submit 93 names
which were ineligible and not allowed to be submitted according to the Registry
rules, because there was zero data in each of the 4 mandatory Trademark fields.
Hal Lubsen, though long-term involved with DomainBank, was at that time CEO of
Afilias, but Afilias waived the Registry rules and went ahead and registered the
names for DomainBank. When Lorenz, the hapless registrant was told that his
names were wholly ineligible, he requested both DomainBank and Afilias that the
names should be deleted at once, which would have enabled the names to be made
available to Landrush customers, but this request was refused. Afilias should
not have registered these names (they broke the conditions for submission).
Afilias had the power to cancel these names when requested. They declined.
Afilias through various Directors had already participated in the abuse of the
process anyway. The close association of Hal Lubsen with both Afilias and
DomainBank is particularly unpalatable to people who lost money because of these
abuses of process. Although repeatedly challenged on these matters, Hal Lubsen
has never responded in defence of what happened. Hal Lubsen has never explained
why the wholly ineligible names were submitted in the first place. Hal Lubsen
has never explained why Afilias went ahead and registered these names anyway.
Hal Lubsen has never explained why these names were not deleted (as requested)
in time to honour landrush pre-registrants for those names. Hal Lubsen has never
explained why, after these applications were shown to be ineligible, and it had
been strongly argued that DomainBank had in actual fact charged Lorenz IRO
$15000 for a product they knew the Agreement did not permit, they then proceeded
to demand completion of payment from Lorenz, threatening legal action, knowing
that DomainBank had broken the Registry rules by submitting the names.
Hal Lubsen has said absolutely nothing about any of this. Hal Lubsen
remains CEO of Afilias. Hal Lubsen maintains his involvement with
DomainBank.
ICANN's view on all this (and all the other cases) is "laissez-faire"
(quote: Dan Halloran).
What better demonstration can there be of the need for elected
representatives on the ICANN Board, accountable to ordinary Internet Users, and
standing up for fair play and openness?
But alas... those are the very people who ICANN have chosen to EXPEL from
their Board Room.
Richard Henderson
|