1) That the .COM registry contract is a quasi-monopoly.

2) Lack of global stakeholder representation.

3) ICANN needs to step up to the plate

Further Reading

• Verisign Takedown Proposal Very Worrisome
• The Ramifications of US Government Domain Takedowns
• How SOPA Will Destroy The Internet
• Verisign Takes Down Foreign Domain On Behalf of US Authoritities

In fact even after the entire Z***** & Associates Facebook page had been deleted (see below), I still got another invitation after I got home from the office.

After the second or third one I started posting on their Facebook page. My first question was “Why are you emailing me? Do you realize that if we have no pre-existing relationship then it’s spam?” – my comment was deleted from their wall.

Then after another one came in, I filed an abuse complaint with their ISP. After another one came in, I went back to the Facebook page, and there was a post there saying “We apologize to anybody who received multiple copies of our invitation”. I posted a follow-up comment that finally somebody had clued in, but I still had no interest in receiving even a single unsolicited invitation from them, to which somebody actually replied saying”Obviously this was not our intent.”

I pressed the issue: “How did you get my email address in the first place?” (I use a separate domain name with wildcard email forwarding for all website opt-ins, all of these invitations were sent to my main easyDNS corporate email account). “Why are you sending invitations to people with whom you have no pre-existing relationship?” and “Do you realize that’s spam?”

The next thing that happened was this:

And using the Facebook search for “Z***** & Associates” no longer returned any internal Facebook results. In other words, either they were nuked by Facebook or they committed suicide and just removed the page themselves. I’m assuming I wasn’t the only crusty prick who got all curmudgeonly about it. But we all know that I have a long track record of despising spam in all it’s forms.

What earns these guys a post about all this is that when you go and look at their actual website, they bill themselves as:

Z***** & Associates is a successful Canadian technology consulting practice focused on helping high technology companies achieve market leadership.

Bang up job guys!

I humbly suggest that before they consult with anybody with the objective of helping them “achieve market leadership” via social media, they should pick up a copy of Scott Stratten’s UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. A good fast read (or listen, if you get the audiobook like I did.) It was a good book even though I figured “most people know a lot of this stuff already….(it’s just common sense)”.

Apparently not.

I finally got around to reading the text of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) today. While the ostensible intentions are to combat online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods, the bad news is that the legislation contains elements which basically puts every single domain registered under  generic TLDs under the authority of the United States Attorney General.

We have already seen in cases of the ICE domain seizures, improper takedowns and overreach resulting in the takedown of tens of thousands of websites when a single one was the target.

How does this affect you?

Our objections to SOPA are very similar to our objections to Verisign's recent proposal which contained overly broad takedown powers and could be used to assert US law (and "requests") on all domain holders internationally.

We consider SOPA far more pernicious because it is possibly to become US law, rather than a policy implemented by a private company (albeit one that holds a monopoly on large tracts of internet namespace).

SOPA differentiates between "domestic" and "foreign" domain names, but the definition of "domestic" basically includes all domains registered under any of the gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains), because their respective Registry operators are US-based entities:

(3) DOMESTIC DOMAIN NAME- The term `domestic domain name' means a domain name that is registered or assigned by a domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name registration authority, that is located within a judicial district of the United States.

All domains under .com, .net, .org, and .biz are "assigned by" a domain name registry in the United States. Verisign, Public Interest Registry and Neustar respectively. Afilias is incorporated in Ireland, however they are operationally in the US. And at the end of the day, all domain names exist in namespaces assigned by ICANN, which is a California corporation.

So basically this means everything. Any domain, any TLD, anywhere, can be cutoff at the knees by the US Attorney General issuing a court order against a service provider, registrar or registry. (Although they may find it more difficult to assert beyond the generic TLDs. ICANN cannot for example, operationally takedown a domain inside some given ccTLD, the way Verisign or some other gTLD registry could simply yank any domain's nameserver records out of the rootzones.)

Perhaps for the scope of this discussion, only gTLDs are at risk. This means you can probably ignore all of this unless your domain is under com/net/org/biz/info, or you use a US-based registrar, service provider or your website is ever visited by anybody from the United States.

Where This Is Going.

If this becomes law, it's a short stretch from SOPA to NODA (No Online Dissent Anywhere) and if you think I'm a nutcase for saying so, I'd like to remind everybody what happened just over a year ago, when US politicians were tripping over themselves to shut down wikileaks (a royal fiasco in which this company was embroiled) and to this day, they have not been charged with a crime anywhere.

Many of the "dirty tricks" employed against Wikileaks would be enshrined in law under SOPA (and someday, NODA):

• A requirement that service providers block access to offending domains, including that they stop resolving their DNS
• Search engines to purge search results for offending domains
• Payment processors to sever ties to offending domains

And they added an extra provision that it will be an offense to knowingly create a service or system to provide a workaround to a banned domain or host. So for example, they would no longer have to hassle Mozilla to remove that firefox plugin that lets you reach ICE blocked websites, it would be illegal to make it or distribute it.

While this is an Online Piracy law, it already contains additional "enhancements" under Title 2: Additional Enhancements to Combat Intellectual Property Theft:, namely:

• SEC. 201. STREAMING OF COPYRIGHTED WORKS IN VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL LAW.
• SEC. 202. TRAFFICKING IN INHERENTLY DANGEROUS GOODS OR SERVICES.
• SEC. 203. PROTECTING U.S. BUSINESSES FROM FOREIGN AND ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE.

Where All This Ends

Even if ICANN is officially against SOPA (Former chairman Vint Cerf wrote a good letter opposing it), failure on ICANN's part to oppose SOPA would mean catastrophic failure in their mission of overseeing the namespace to the benefit of all stakeholders.

If this happens, there needs to be a serious conversation around a topic so incendiary, so heretical that I will probably become persona non-grata within domain policy circles for saying it, but I'm going to say it:

The Internet RootZone would have to be administered by a non-US Entity instead of ICANN.

The reason why is because the internet root is held together largely through two things:

• Consensus
• Convention

As all of the world's peoples, businesses and websites come increasingly under the jurisdiction and law of a single country, consensus will fragment. The internet root will have to be under the stewardship of an honest broker who can respect the rights of all sovereign interests as they relate to the internet.

Otherwise, it ends with a split internet root, if we're lucky. If not, it ends with a completely Balkanized one, because while it may not be the case now, as this escalates (and I suspect it will), it will pose intolerable risk to non-US entities of all stripes.

Already we get business from companies whose stated corporate IT policy is to not use US based servers to hold email or route web traffic. I'm not talking about torrent hosts, whistleblowers and fake Rolex vendors. We're talking large enterprise entities whose legal departments find even the theoretical legal ability for Homeland Security to monitor their corporate communications simply intolerable.

While I'm not complaining about the extra business, I still smell trouble on the horizon.

If you found this post of interest and would like to subscribe to the author's Domain Insights mailing list, sign up here.

 Further Reading:

• First They Came For The FileSharing Domains
• Timeline of an Epic #FAIL: The Wikileaks Takedown Fiasco
• Career-ending moments in Celebrity-CEO-ism (or How To Transfer Your Domain Away From Godaddy)
• What Is Your Registrar Doing With Your Parked Domains? (DomainComix Episode #1)

The gist of the epiphany was this:

That there is a new era dawning where the smart corporations were going to “get religion” and actually make it a point to be ethical. I don’t mean that they’ll organize “Team Movembers” and send stuffed animals to the Sick Kids Hospital (although those warm and fuzzy things are nice). I mean that they would: start thinking long term, moving toward sustainable business models, realize the role of natural capital in their equations, and start eschewing irrational economic models.

And further, that new “business ethic” was not going to be a liability or an impediment. It would be an edge. Maybe not a short-cut to “quick buck” profits that so many are obsessed with, but more along the lines of a path toward sustained relevance.

One part of that thought was a notion that hit on the way up north: I had gotten to the point in Vicker’s book where he talked about “hydrofracking” and I was pretty mortified. And being a value-investor, for whom an investment is held as actual ownership in the company the question hit me like a fist: Do any of the companies I own do this?

It was then that I realized that even my, modest portfolio was too complex to know for sure (and I’m less exposed than most to public equities). “So what is the solution?” I asked next. The answer came pretty quick. It was simply Investing Local.

Investing Local: The Game-Changer

You’ve got localvores, who eat locally sourced food, shop local, buy as much that is produced within your own community. If people started Investing Local, then instead of punting their money into an anonymously complex mutual fund and hoping for the best (“Pay and pray”), they could allocate a portion of their capital into businesses within their own communities.

By doing this many things could be accomplished:

• The investor would actually know where their money is going, and what it is doing.
• It would be more likely to have access and input to the management of the local business. You would have a say in how the business would move forward.
• The usual benefits of community business: local jobs, local goods and services and the revenues being recycled back into the local community.

Over the next few weeks I started clumsily telling my colleagues and business associates about “my epiphany” about the next “ethical business” wave.  It had varied reactions, most often that it resonated with them and they felt something similar was happening too. But whenever I got to the “investing local” part, they invariably zoomed right in on that point. “Investing local, you may really have something there with that concept”.

When I told my friend, the keynote speaker and futurist, Jim Carroll about it, he wanted to co-author a book on the subject on-the-spot. So we started researching this. Turns out we weren’t alone in our thinking, the book “Locavesting” by Amy Cortese was listed on Amazon as about-to-released, which I pre-ordered, read and recommend to anybody interested in this.

The other thing I did was I started looking for local companies who either had done this, or were looking to do this. After wading through “business opportunity” ads for  a lot of crap businesses and stupid ideas on Craigslist (isn’t that always the case?)  I found this one:

Seeking Partner/Investor for Established Organic Skincare Firm  (Southwest Ontario)

---

Date: 2011-03-29, 12:49PM EDT

---

This exclusive & unique little company is ready to grow to the next level. It seeks leadership and working capital.
It requires an industry professional with the right Cosmetic Marketing/Web Marketing/Spa experience, and the capital to invest.
ABOUT US:
Currently manufacturing over 75 skus of Organic, Petroleum Free and Eco Friendly body care.
Dynamic and Active E commerce Website. Untapped retail market on the internet.
Over 400 established Spa and Boutique wholesale clients across Canada.
Gross annual revenue averages $NNN,NNN
Poised with a new line of products to break into the larger franchise market.
NPN #s are pending with Health Canada for the marketing of alternative & non toxic Sunscreen and Insect Repellent.
Small cosmetic kitchen for manufacturing with larger production outsourced.
This company is all potential and is waiting for the right person to help it grow.
Seeking the leadership experience & capital a new partner/investor can bring.

What happened next is where it the story takes a bit of a turn. After going back-and-forth over the summer with research and ideas, Jim’s already hectic schedule suddenly got busier and was suddenly booked for keynotes all over the place and for a long time. He didn’t think he would be able to keep working on the book.

On my front, I had started talking with Mari-Claire Watkins, the founder of  the company in that ad. They turned out to be just over in Guelph, and after I few phone interviews, I decided to go down and meet with her and see the operation. In the weeks after the meeting I could feel the book slipping onto the back burner, but in the meantime I had already decided: I was going to be the investor.

Introducing: Nature Balance Wellness

So I’m pleased to say that this week we closed the transaction and I’m now a principal in Nature Balance Wellness, or nbw.ca. I’ll be taking on the role of COO, to Mari-Claire’s Founder/President and our business is to provide skin care products that don’t make your armpits burn after you apply them.

I also dusted off the book and have been chipping away at it, because I really think that this is the proverbial game-changer (Jim has agreed to write the forward). By investing local you end-run Wall Street. Your money stays within your community and cultivates a virtuous circle. You no longer compartimentalize stuff you actually own and what your money is doing away from the effects it has on the world. You’re involved, you’re accountable and if you do well and earn some profits…you earned them.

Verisign just released an overview of their proposed "Anti-Abuse Domain Use Policy" Under ICANN's Registry Services Evaluation Process. The program's chief aim is to provide a takedown mechanism of malicious websites distributing malware. In itself, not a bad thing, considering some registrars are unresponsive toward abuse or network stability issues.

However, lumped in with the conditions under which Verisign can invoke their takedown capabilities are some troubling "add ons", as quoted below:

"The new anti-abuse policy, would be implemented though a change to the .com. ,net and .name Registry Registrar Agreements and would allow the denial, cancellation or transfer of any registration or transaction or the placement of any domain name on registry lock, hold or similar status as necessary:

 (a) to protect the integrity, security and stability of the DNS;

 (b) to comply with any applicable court orders, laws, government rules or requirements, requests of law enforcement or other governmental or quasi-governmental  agency, or any dispute resolution process;

 (c) to avoid any liability, civil or criminal, on the part of Verisign, as well as its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers, directors, and employees;

 (d) per the terms of the registration agreement,

 (e) to respond to or protect against any form of malware (defined to include, without limitation, malicious code or software that might affect the operation of the Internet),

 (f) to comply with specifications adopted by any industry group generally recognized as authoritative with respect to the Internet (e.g., RFCs),

 (g) to correct mistakes made by Verisign or any Registrar in connection with a domain name registration, or

 (h) for the non-payment of fees to Verisign. Verisign also reserves the right to place upon registry lock, hold or similar status a domain name during resolution of a dispute;

 The main problem here is Section (b), which let's Verisign takedown any domain that is inimical toward a government "requirement" or at the "request" of a law enforcement or other governmental or quasi-governmental agency.

What does this mean?

It means domains can be taken down without judicial process and in the absence of any overt network abuse. I refer anybody who thinks the possibility of abuse of this policy is remote to the actions of Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman,  last December regarding Wikileaks – an entity which has still never been charged with any offence in any jurisdiction and which continues to operate in a perfectly legal manner. (Lieberman called on "any company or organization that is hosting Wikileaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them." – Which sounds like a "request" to me.)

What Wikileaks did was expose bad actions of the various governments themselves, some of those – illegal. It can be assumed that governments that are acting against the interests of their constituents or committing actual crimes have a "requirement" that everybody shuts up about it. Thus any whistleblower, journalist or egregious truth-teller using a domain under .com or .net to bringing light on issues such as these could find themselves with their domain unplugged under this policy.

In the case of Wikileaks, Lieberman's staff telephoned various web services providers and demanded that they sever ties and cease providing services.  Next time all they would have to do is call Verisign and tell them that the government "requires" them to takedown their domain. (Of course, Wikileaks is under .org, not .com or .net, but next time it may not be Wikileaks. Maybe it'll be Zerohedge. Maybe it'll be easyDNS. Maybe it'll be you.)

Under the proposed rules, it's not just the government that could initiate takedowns but even "quasi" governmental agencies. What's a quasi-governmental agency?  It's a government created entity that undertakes commercial activities on behalf of the government. That would mean entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation could takedown any .com or .net domain based on having a "requirement" or making a "request" to do so.

Section (c) is also troublesome: providing that Verisign can takedown any domain to avoid liability to themselves. So if other avenues of removing a troublesome domain fail, you could just simply sue, or threaten to sue Versign and they can unplug the underlying domain.

Last year the US Department of Homeland Security (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) began a series of domain takedowns intended to enforce copyright violations. In one case they seized a third-level domain provider (mooo.com) which resulted in the takedown of over 84,000 unrelated and innocent websites.

Since the ICE takedowns were arbitrary and widening in scope, there became a perceived benefit to using non-US based Registrars for domain registration, as the takedowns were being implemented via court orders to those US-based registrars.

If this policy goes into effect, there are no safer jurisdictions for any .com or .net domain anywhere in the world. They all come under US government, quasi-governmental and law enforcement agency "requirements".

The Verisign proposal concedes that:

 " Registrants may be concerned about an improper takedown of a legitimate website.  Verisign will be offering a protest procedure to support restoring a domain name to the zone. "

Which is not very comforting. What is the "protest procedure" and how long will it take? Will a contested takedown put the domain in an online or offline state while the procedure is implemented, and how long does that take?

 Proposed Modifications

If this is to move forward, our recommendations are as follows:

• Section b should be stricken, and the current model that government inspired domain takedowns be requested via the Registrar of record be retained.
• In cases of court-ordered takedowns, Verisign should only intercede in the case of a non-responsive Registrar and again, under a court order.
• Section c should be stricken. Verisign already insulates itself from liability in its Agreements with Registrars and under the various Registrant Agreements already in place. This should not be a back-door method into taking down a domain.
• If a Registrar feels a false-positive takedown has occurred, there needs to be a mechanism to bring the domain back online immediately pending the outcome of a challenge or disputed takedown.

 Also See:

• First They Came For the FileSharing Domains
• easyDNS Comments on Anti-Abuse Domain Use Policy on ICANN's registryservice archives

When I was a child, I was proud of my heritage and the fact that I counted among my distant relations none other than Otto Von Bismarck, the inventor of the modern welfare state as we know it today. As I matured and learned more about things like economics, math and the works of Charles Ponzi, I began to downplay my roots to Herr Bismarck.

Like a politician who’s largest campaign contributor was just pulled over by police, drunk and with the body of a teenage hooker in the trunk, it occurred to me that this connection wasn’t something I should be advertising. And really, he wasn’t a relative per se, it was via marriage. Barely a half-cousin at that.

Bismarck set out to create a pan-German state with progressive social ideals, groundbreaking at the time, and at first glance, would work in perpetuity (so long as the population and the real economy grew indefinitely). It created a social safety net and took a bit of the Darwinism out of life. It looked good on paper until populations realized they could vote themselves ever larger entitlements, and politics became a profession, one where it turned out you could advance your career by promising to redistribute other people’s money.

“Too little attention has been paid to the fact that electoral politics lures disorded, messianic personalities into positions of power.”
– Davidson & Rees-Mogg in The Sovereign Individual

(Read the rest on Wealth.net )