No Such Weblog

You may have noticed that this weblog has changed URLs: Due to slightly absurd side effects of a change in hosting arrangements, this site now resides at log.does-not-exist.INFO. For the time being, the old URL will continue to work and will redirect you to the new one.

It seems like the ERC’s approach to setting up the future ccNSO may have caused some irritations among ccTLD managers. See this message from Peter Dengate Thrush to Alejandro Pisanty for details.

Dotster has sent a letter to ICANN, complaining about the board’s decision to permit WLS. The argument goes like this: Section 4.2.4 of the RAA says that “new and revised specifications and policies may be established” concerning “principles for allocation of Registered Names”. WLS changes these principles. Thus, the board’s decision constitutes new policy which would require appropriately documented consensus. Dotster says that no such consensus exists (certainly true), and that it would like to bring this to the Independent Review Panel. Since no Independent Review Panel exists, Dotster is not obligated to comply with the new policy. Consequently, WLS must be stayed.

The Transfers Task Force is going to hold an open telephone conference today at 2:30 p.m. EST; details here. If you want to participate in the call, you most likely want to look at the latest proposal (note this remark).

It looks like Verisign registrar is finally fixing its WHOIS services. See this file for the current state of affairs.

At IcannWatch, Ted Byfield has taken up my brief comments on the ERC‘s Second Implementation Report and its suggestions about the GA‘s future. Bad enough, Ted gets much of this wrong: The ERC does indeed move into the right direction, as I wrote.

The ERC‘s Second Implementation Report contains a long section on reforming the General Assembly. This looks like they are moving in the right direction.

Some discussions on the WHOIS task force brought up a relatively fundamental question: Who does actually make use of the bulk access provisions from the Registrar Accreditation Agreement? For what purposes are these data being used in practice? I’d welcome any pointers.

The .org applicants’ comments on the preliminary staff report have been posted to the ICANN web site. From a quick first glance on some of the reports, several (if not most) applicants were not at all amused by the process and by the quality of the underlying evaluations, offering detailed comments and corrections. I’m looking forward for the responses from those who did the evaluation. But maybe this entire process is unnecessary anyway.

For some nice quotes picked from the individual comments, I’d recommend you read this selection which was just posted to the GA list.

The DNSO secretariat has announced that the nomination period for the ICANN board member to be determined by the DNSO is closed. Candidates who accepted their nomination: Vivek Durai, Alejandro Pisanty (current board member), and Youn Jung Park. For a candidate to be accepted, the candidate will need 10 endorsements from members of the DNSO’s GA. Endorsements can be made until September 20, 2002. Accepted candidates will then be forwarded to the Names Council for selection. For more details, see the nomination procedure document posted to the DNSO’s web site.