Objections filed against .com and .org IDN top level domains

[DomainNameWire]

If there's one thing I know I'm not, it's not an IDN expert.

So I'm posting this here to get any additional information you might have about the objections filed against .ком and .орг (http://domainnamewire.com/2013/03/22/objections-filed-against-com-and-org-idn-top-level-domains/).

Any intel on the objectors is appreciated.

[yanni]

It seems that Legato ltd is a subsidiary of Regtime.

Link in Russian (http://news.softodrom.ru/ap/b2774.shtml)

So, alt root provider trying to get something for nothing.

[IdnHost]

Isn't April Fools day a week and some odd days away still? :)

[DomainNameWire]

Interesting. Perhaps Legato is the one that actually offered the alt root domains.

[squirrel]

Is this the same guy that applied for .ryc ? (Regtime I mean)

[squirrel]

555 would probably know more

[Rubber Duck]

To file a Legal Rights Objection you are supposed to have "Standing."

I cannot see how either of these two outfits will be deemed to have Standing in this issue. I think they have just pissed their wad down the pan.

[blastfromthepast]

They claim to have standing by operating alternative root operations.

[Rubber Duck]

They claim to have standing by operating alternative root operations.

So if you want to be FED Chairman then you need forgery on your CV?

[Drewbert]

They claim to have standing by operating alternative root operations.

Yeah. That'll work. Not.

[Avtal]

Here is the section of the Applicant Guidebook that discusses objection procedures:
http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/agb/objection-procedures-04jun12-en.pdf. The relevant section is 3.5.2, starting on page 3-18.

To have "standing", the objector must have a registered or unregistered trademark on the applied-for string. I'm too lazy to figure out how to search the Russian Federation trademark database, but it wouldn't surprise me if Regtime had managed to obtain trademarks for .ком and .орг.

.рус, by the way, is a "community application" filed by "Rusnames Ltd."; I don't know if they are affiliated with Regtime.

So it looks like .ком will be delayed while this dispute is being adjudicated. One result is that Verisign will have to announce its plans for aliasing of the other .com-in-IDN gTLDs, well before they sign a contract with ICANN for .ком. Likewise for PIR and .орг. So if Verisign had been hoping to keep their plans a secret until all contracts were signed, they are out of luck.

Avtal

[Avtal]

.рус, by the way, is a "community application" filed by "Rusnames Ltd."; I don't know if they are affiliated with Regtime.

After two minutes of googling:

Rusnames.ru and rusnames.com are owned by regtime.net. So I guess that answers that question. Also, if you visit rusnames.ru, you'll see that they offer the opportunity to register third-level domains under .ком.рф, .нет.рф, and .орг.рф.

Avtal

[blastfromthepast]

By the way, Regtime is a company registered in Hong Kong.

[Avtal]

Third post in a row on this topic.

On the webnames.ru blog (webnames.ru is the domain that regtime.net redirects to) is a new blog post (http://www.webnames.ru/scripts/newsmaker.pl?news_id=1278) in Russian whose title translates to "The domains .КОМ and .ОРГ must belong to Runet". It's a long post, and I haven't read all of it yet. But it states that .ком and .орг are trademarks of webnames.ru, and it goes on at length about how Russian-language TLDs should be controlled by Russia.

Another new webnames.ru post (http://www.webnames.ru/scripts/news.pl?news_id=1277) quotes the director of Webnames.ru, Sergei Sharikov, as saying "Судьба доменов .КОМ и .ОРГ затрагивает национальные интересы России в доменном пространстве." This translates to "The fate of the .КОМ and .ОРГ domains affect Russia's national interests in the domain space." And so on and so forth.

But to state the obvious, even though Webnames.ru owns the Russian Federation trademarks for .ком and .орг, their case before WIPO is weak.

Here is why Regtime's Legal Rights Objection will fail.

In an older blog post (http://www.webnames.ru/scripts/news.pl?news_id=903) (2011), Webnames.ru states that they are the owners of the Russian trademarks КОМ, НЕТ and ОРГ.

But the presence of НЕТ in this list essentially destroys their case.

They might be able to claim that КОМ and ОРГ are abbreviations of the Russian words for "commerce" and "organization", but НЕТ is the Russian word for "no" (the Russian word for "net" is сеть). So clearly they chose the bundle КОМ, НЕТ and ОРГ solely because they sound like COM, NET, ORG, and not because they independently invented these particular TLDs.

Webnames.ru has no more rights to КОМ, НЕТ and ОРГ (which as I've just shown have no other possible meaning than as the transliterations of COM, NET, and ORG) than a random Russian has the rights to Порше (the transliteration of Porsche), even if the Russian Federation trademark office mistakenly granted them a trademark.

Hopefully Verisign's and PIR's lawyers will be able to make these points to the WIPO tribunal, and end this farce.

Avtal

[squirrel]

Nice find Avtal

Other relevant stuff
What criteria will a panel use to determine the outcome of a Legal Rights Objection? (http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/lro/#3a)

[squirrel]

These guys are clearly drunk on their own cool-aid. If they want to be part of the ICANN root, they must play by ICANN's rules, not simply bash California laws, make sovereignty claims and name drop (ICANN archnemesis) ITU in a blog post.

[blastfromthepast]

Russian-language TLDs should be controlled by Russia.

And speaking English requires paying taxes to the Queen.

[blastfromthepast]

:)

[Avtal]

These guys are clearly drunk on their own cool-aid. If they want to be part of the ICANN root, they must play by ICANN's rules, not simply bash California laws, make sovereignty claims and name drop (ICANN archnemesis) ITU in a blog post.

He explicitly says that he's trying to get Russia's GAC representative (Igor Milashevskiy, according to the GAC website (https://gacweb.icann.org/display/gacweb/GAC+Representatives)) to bring this case before the GAC. But Mr. Milashevskiy would look pretty foolish defending Webname.ru's "right" to the translits of Verisign's and PIR's IP. He might as well demand that the GAG give Webnames.ru exclusive rights to .тойота.

Avtal

[Emil]

it think no such thing as bad publicity and if anything i think this is great news! shows how valuable those extensions are and that's coming from locals too that are supposedly all so "happy" with .ru

[idn]

These guys are clearly drunk on their own cool-aid.

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/5725/koolaid.gif (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/46/koolaid.gif/)

[squirrel]

ahhh it's a K

[Avtal]

The phrase "Drinking the Kool-Aid" has a rather grim origin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid), though in fact the perpetrators of the Jonestown massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown#Deaths_in_Jonestown) used a lesser-known brand, Flavor Aid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavor_Aid).

Avtal

[domainguru]

Since Kool Aid is so famous, why isn't it sold round the world? Does it smell or something? :confused:

[Rubber Duck]

Since Kool Aid is so famous, why isn't it sold round the world? Does it smell or something? :confused:

Limited supply.

Not enough for Export.

Perhaps if they could synthesize it they could solve their balance of payments problems?

Of course it may only be effective in conjunction with a genetic abnormality that is only prevalent in North America.

[domainguru]

Limited supply.

Not enough for Export.

That's cuz it keeps getting destroyed on Family Guy

[Rubber Duck]

That's cuz it keeps getting destroyed on Family Guy

Of course, it may also be subject to licencing provision to protect the competitive advantage of Wall Street.

[welkin]

Since Kool Aid is so famous, why isn't it sold round the world? Does it smell or something? :confused:

Recently found a Korean shop in Beijing selling Capri-Sun. Never thought I'd be reliving 5th grade lunch memories here.

Course they're covered in debris and about half are missing the straws. They definitely don't have a comfortable voyage.

[squirrel]

http://domainincite.com/13347-engineering-russias-cyrillic-revolution-guest-post

[squirrel]

Does someone know if Regtime was charging clients a renewal fee to keep domains in their alt. root alive after their 2010 deal with ICANN to stop selling alt. domains ?

[Drewbert]

http://domainincite.com/13347-engineering-russias-cyrillic-revolution-guest-post

Blog post has gone?

[alpha]

Blog post has gone?

I asked Kevin, he said it was deleted at the request of the guest writer.

I don't doubt Kevins integrity one bit - but the guest poster (regtime i think?).. hmmm did they receive blog comments that put them in a negative light? smells fishy to me.

[Drewbert]

Wow. A bit sad that Kevin would do that.

I think I'll stop commenting on his blog. Why contribute if the blog owner is prepared to wipe comments without any thought to the time the person took to make them?

I wonder if he's going to blog on the outcome of the LRO if it turns out detrimental to his guest poster?

His actions call his integrity into question, if you ask me. His guest blogger couldn't handle the truth, so Kevin did him a favour and wiped the evidence. Sad.

[alpha]

Wow. A bit sad that Kevin would do that.

I think I'll stop commenting on his blog. Why contribute if the blog owner is prepared to wipe comments without any thought to the time the person took to make them?

I wonder if he's going to blog on the outcome of the LRO if it turns out detrimental to his guest poster?

His actions call his integrity into question, if you ask me. His guest blogger couldn't handle the truth, so Kevin did him a favour and wiped the evidence. Sad.

Maybe regtime wasn't the guest poster (maybe it was Stephane Van Gelder - affiliated with a gTLD consultancy I think), I really can't remember. But either way, yes it's a bit sad, as you say.

I pointed this out to Kevin in my SMS exchange with him, and he asked for my email addy to discuss offline.
Alternatively, Kevin, if you're reading this, we can chat here, as others are also questioning your motives.

[Drewbert]

Sergei Sharikov must hate that if you google his name with ICANN, regtime or domain appended, IDNF comes in #1 or on the 1st page.

I wonder if he's at the Durban ICANN meeting?

[squirrel]

the guest poster (regtime i think?)..

Edit: yes, as you said, I believe it was Stephane Van Gelder

[Kevin Murphy]

Hi all.

I write Domain Incite.

I just received a headsup that this thread existed so I thought I'd come register on the forum and see if I can address any questions you might have.

Nope, it was a new gTLD consultant guy, Stephane Van Gelder I think

Correct. SVG wrote the article. He's a former journalist as well as well as a former chair of the ICANN GNSO.

For avoidance of doubt, there's no financial relationship in either direction there. I occasionally take guest posts, as long as I know the author and trust that they're not trying to sell anything. I've probably turned down somewhere in the region of $20,000 from people wanting me to post their sales pitches over the last few years.

Wow. A bit sad that Kevin would do that.

I think I'll stop commenting on his blog. Why contribute if the blog owner is prepared to wipe comments without any thought to the time the person took to make them?

I wonder if he's going to blog on the outcome of the LRO if it turns out detrimental to his guest poster?

His actions call his integrity into question, if you ask me. His guest blogger couldn't handle the truth, so Kevin did him a favour and wiped the evidence. Sad.

It's not quite as exciting as all that.

I deleted the post through laziness.

It was a guest post and the subject of the article had beef with the author for one of the usual bullshit reasons subjects of stories have beef with journalists -- they said something they regretted and it got printed.

I could have either stepped into a he-said she-said fight between the two of them or just deleted the post and gone back to writing and defending my own stories.

It was a busy day so for a quiet life I chose the latter. With hindsight maybe that was a mistake, but what's done is done.

Frankly, at the time I thought it was a relatively boring story and maybe a little too fluffy for my liking, so I didn't think anyone would miss it.

I must confess I didn't think to check whether there were any comments before I deleted the post. Sorry about that, Drewbert.

I still have copies of the comments in my in-box that I'd be happy to post here if you let me know which ones you're interested in.

[squirrel]

It was a guest post and the subject of the article had beef with the author for one of the usual bullshit reasons subjects of stories have beef with journalists -- they said something they regretted and it got printed.


Hi Kevin.

I read Domain Incite.

I thought SVG had the 'subject' as a client .. ?

I think we can all agree that given the pending legal right objection and the amount of stupid stuff originating from Regtime, it would have been fun to let the blog post live for a while :-D

[Kevin Murphy]

I thought SVG had the 'subject' as a client .. ?



Nope. He assured me he had no interest in the story and if I had any reason to believe he did I would never have published the article.

[squirrel]

Nope. He assured me he had no interest in the story and if I had any reason to believe he did I would never have published the article.

oh well.. yes fluffy


Could it be that the source of disagreement was that the story was quoted in part or in full as part of the LRO proceeding ? wild guess

[alpha]

This should fill in the blanks

courtesy of domainnameresellerindia.com (http://domainnameresellerindia.com/engineering-russias-cyrillic-revolution-guest-post/)

Engineering Russia’s Cyrillic revolution [Guest Post]

Russian domain entrepreneur Sergey Sharikov has ambitions to spread the use of his language’s alphabet on the Internet far beyond its current state.

To do that, the use of Cyrillic web addresses must increase. But why don’t Russians use the English alphabet to browse the web like everyone else? After all, they learn our script at school, don’t they? And anyway, how hard can our 26 characters be to read, surely everyone on the Web can understand them, right?

This simplistic, almost imperialistic view of today’s internet is obviously a caricature. But the fact remains that English-speakers tend not to understand other alphabet users’ craving for web addresses in their own language.

Until they are given an example that is. So consider the Cyrillic word PECTOPAH. Whilst you struggle with it, understand that in the same way that a word as simple and universal as “restaurant” (yes, that is what I’ve just spelled in Cyrillic) is undecipherable to you, Russian internet users constantly face the same struggle in reverse.

Right now, most of Russia’s internet traffic comes from its capital Moscow, where it’s a fair bet that Latin script is read by many. But what about elsewhere, in the nation’s smaller cities or even its countryside? Requiring a country as wide and diverse as Russia to comprehend a foreign script in order to go online is an obvious limit to the spread of the internet there.

A few pioneers have been working to find solutions to this problem for a number of years. Sharikov is one of them. He runs a mid-sized consumer registrar in Russia called Webnames.ru through which he has been looking for alternatives to the all-ASCII internet since 2001.

“That year we launched Cyrillic versions of .COM, .NET, .ORG and .RU using an alternative root,” said Sharikov, talking to DI from Russian registrar RU-CENTER’s domain and web hosting conference held this year in the St Petersburg region. “At first we encountered a lot of resistance from our local market. People had grown used to having to type in ASCII and simply did not believe Cyrillic web addresses would work.”

Still registrations in the alternative domains started picking up. Sharikov and his team partnered with Singapore company I-DNS.net to develop the IDN (Internationalised Domain Name) technology needed to make Cyrillic use possible on an internet originally only designed for ASCII.

“We worked with Michael Seng who chaired an IETF working group tasked with developing IDN technologies,” Sharikov said. “Singapore University was also involved in work that led to the development of Punycode, today’s IDN standard which is also used for scripts like Korean, Chinese or Japanese. As part of this project, we were the first to work with I-DNS.net to launch Cyrillic domains.”

So it’s fair to say that not many people know more about what it takes to kick start Cyrillic internet use than Sharikov. And for non-ASCII addresses with no presence in the “traditional” internet, i.e. the one working under the root managed by ICANN, his Cyrillic .COM, .NET and .ORG did fairly well. Today, each has around one thousand names registered whilst the alternate Cyrillic .RU has around 3,000 names.

Considering new registrations in these domains were stopped a couple of years ago, that’s not half bad.

“Three years ago, we agreed with ICANN that we would stop this program when the IDN Fast Track came online,” Sharikov said. The ccTLD Fast Track was developed to enable any country to have a non-ASCII version of their national domain approved by ICANN and go live on the global Internet.

For Russian users, it basically made Sharikov’s alternative domains moot overnight as the country launched it’s own “official” Cyrillic national suffix .рф (.RF in ASCII) to such success that today, in it’s third year, the TLD is nudging a whopping 800,000 registrations.

Clearly, Russia is more hungry for Cyrillic domains than those watching Sharikov’s earlier alternative domain attempts had understood. But the man himself bears these early doubters no grudge. He’s already moved on, looking to turn another dream he’s had since 2001 into reality.

Under new company Rusnames, which he created with support from venture capital funding including Russian investment fund Dnepr Invest, Sharikov is looking beyond .рф.

His new project is a Cyrillic TLD made by Russians, for the world: .рус (.RUS in ASCII). “.рф can only be sold through Russian registrars,” Sharikov answers when asked why he feels another Cyrillic TLD for Russia can coexist with the existing dot RF. “.рус will be an IDN gTLD, so sold through ICANN-accredited registrars, according to ICANN rules, to a worldwide audience.”

Beyond traditional Sunrise and Landrush phases, the TLD will run an open, no registration restrictions, model. This means that not only those actually living in Russia but anyone with an interest in the country and an understanding of Cyrillic will be able to register a .рус domain.

Sharikov is hoping for a modest 50,000 registrations in his TLD’s first full year of operation. Given .рф’s success, that estimate may seem conservative. But Sharikov’s business plan is deeply rooted in the realities of his previous IDN ventures.

Under his agreement with ICANN, he has now stopped taking new registrations in the alternate Cyrillic versions of .COM, .NET, .ORG and .RU. But existing customers refuse to let the domains die and he has decided to continue to maintain existing names.

Their registrants’ long-standing commitment to Cyrillic IDNs will be rewarded as .рус goes live. Existing alternative .RU names will be grandfathered in the new TLD, meaning that their .рус versions will automatically be assigned to their registrants should they wish to have the domains.

So will Sharikov’s dream of adding another Cyrillic dimension to the internet through .рус actually work out? Barring additional ICANN delays, we should start seeing the answer to that question in September or October this year. .рус has already passed Initial Evaluation and as an IDN, was a priority application in ICANN’s prioritization draw. It has number 56.

So an October start for the planned one-month Sunrise looks realistic. A three-week Landrush is then planned, meaning that by the end of the year, Russians the world over could have a second fully operational Cyrillic domain at their disposal. A kind of second Russian revolution, only this time one without any bloodshed and benefits to all involved.

This is a guest post by domain name industry consultant Stephane Van Gelder of Stephane Van Gelder Consulting. He has served as chair of the GNSO Council and is a member of ICANN’s Nominating Committee. He has no affiliation with the companies mentioned in this article.

As a recap, regtime.net (http://regtime.net) and webnames.ru (http://www.webnames.ru/) are the people who have been selling alternate root (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root) domains under .ком (com) and .нет (net) for years.

When it came to ICANNS (http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/) new gTLD application round, did they apply for them so that they could have a chance at legitimising all of their customers who had bought domains that only resolve in their alt root? errr no. but they did apply for .рус and also of course they filed a legal rights objection to try to stop/slow down Verisigns legitimate application for .ком and .нет. The first to market could have a huge advantage, coincidence? you decide.

The really funny thing in all of this, is check out who owns the IDN in Verisigns registry: регтайм.net (http://domaintools.com/xn--80affsptq.net)

Registrant:
Sergei Sharikov
Email: s.shar@regtime.net
Organization: Regtime Ltd.
Address: post box 11123
City: Samara
State: Samara
ZIP: 443001
Country: RU
Phone: +7.8469799039
Fax: +7.8469799038

[Kevin Murphy]

Could it be that the source of disagreement was that the story was quoted in part or in full as part of the LRO proceeding ? wild guess

I wouldn't have thought so. The article was published long after the deadline for new gTLD objections had passed.

[Kevin Murphy]

This should fill in the blanks

courtesy of domainnameresellerindia.com (http://domainnameresellerindia.com/engineering-russias-cyrillic-revolution-guest-post/)



I see RSS thieves have their uses after all :-D

[alpha]

I see RSS thieves have their uses after all :-D

when waybackmachine and google cache let you down, you can always rely on the content scrapers :rolleyes:

[Drewbert]

But the RSS thief doesn't have the comments which is the bit Sergei didn't like - the bit exposing him as an altroot registry who never mentions that fact when playing a high-flyer at ICANN.

That there would be a domain blogger out there who had the balls to expose him rather than letting him try to rewrite history by censoring comments - at least we now know Kevin isn't a real journalist.

[Kevin Murphy]

But the RSS thief doesn't have the comments which is the bit Sergei didn't like - the bit exposing him as an altroot registry who never mentions that fact when playing a high-flyer at ICANN.

I think you'll find that the comments were a lot less interesting than you remember. Here they are:

Author:
JS
Comment:
Sharikov files legal rights objections against PIR and VRSN and now does interviews in which he states having stopped doing business 3 years ago... ?

Author:
Stéphane Van Gelder
Comment:
In the interview, he did not state that he had stopped business on those alternative IDN domains 3 years, ago. He stated that he had stopped taking new registrations. He clearly explained that the existing names were maintained, as stated in this article.


Author:
carledgar
Comment: There's no such thing as an English alphabet. It's a Roman alphabet and was alive and well when there were no English - but their antecedents were painting their bodies blue. Get a grip.

Children might see that and get marks off on an examination.

Author:
Stéphane Van Gelder
Comment:
Wikipedia seems to disagree with you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_alphabet

But given, the nature and tone of your comment, I'm sure you are right and everyone else is wrong...

Author:
Gary
Comment:
It's fairly clear to all that the legal rights objections filed was simply to delay the go-live of competing Russian IDN gTLDs, while his Russian .рус gTLD moves ahead along the process, gaining what might be a valuable early advantage.

It's a dirty game this gTLD fiasco

Author:
Betty
Comment:
you are really ridicolous
go back to school


Author:
Drewbert
Comment:
Someone at ICANN needs to read up on their internal documentation before giving these guys the time of day.

They should start with http://www.icann.org/en/icp/icp-3.htm and then move on to the Registrar agreement:

5.3 Termination of Agreement by ICANN. This Agreement may be terminated before its expiration by ICANN in any of the following circumstances:

5.3.6 Registrar continues acting in a manner that ICANN has reasonably determined endangers the stability or operational integrity of the Internet after receiving three (3) days notice of that determination.

Author:
carledgar
Comment:
Too late, Betty and Stephane . . . I'm a retired newspaper editor. What Wikipedia says is that the alphabet used for the English language is the Latin alphabet (as opposed to the cyrillic alphabet which derives from St. Cyril of Greece).

The Romans were writing in Latin before Christ, when the English were rolling around in the muck like that John Cleese skit in which he's wearing the handkerchief on his head etc (you had to be there).

The latin alphabet (from the first two Hebrew letters, aleph and bet, predates anything remotely English. The English didn't start using it till hundreds of years later.

Author
carledgar
Comment
I guess .pyc is .rus in Latinate, but presumably we won't see the extension rendered that way?


Author:
Avtal
Comment:
carledgar, how would you classify the é in Stéphane? Latin alphabet, French alphabet, or what? Just curious.

Avtal

Author: Avtal
Comment:
Stéphane, thanks for the interesting article.

A surprising number of Russians feel that by moving to Cyrillic domain names, Russians would be cutting themselves off from the worldwide Internet. Did you happen to hear any such views on your trip?

Avtal



Author:
Stéphane Van Gelder
Comment:
Absolutely. As you saw, at the start of the article I quote Sharikov explaining that at first, people in Russia did not feel Cyrillic domains would work. He explained to me that some in Russia thought that because everyone writes in Latin script on the Internet, Cyrillic domains, although nice to have, would have limited takeup.

But to be honest I did not encounter those views that much. The view that people using non Latin script on the Internet would be isolated may actually be shared more by people who do not read or understand non Latin scripts and feel the "homogeneous" ASCII only Internet is the best way to make the Internet universal.

What my Russian trip and conversations with people there taught me was that this is a very English-centric view of things. To me, as an English speaker, it would be simpler if everyone spoke and wrote in English. But unfortunately that is simply not the case. And other cultures need to access the Internet with their own scripts and languages.

I was also talking to an Arab speaker recently. A user, not a domain or Internet professional, and he was explaining that finding arabic sites was a nightmare (he lives in Europe and therefore uses Latin script keyboards) because he can't even type the site name in a search engine without using some kind of translation tool.

Sorry to go on Avtal but the short answer to your question is that I have no clear stats on the matter, but it does seem that Russians have been forced to access the Internet in ASCII and would appreciate using it in Cyrillic.



Author:
M
Comment:
http://www.idnforums.com/forums/29460-sergey-sharikov-regtime-net-webnames-ru-alternate-root-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC-sellers-on-icann-wg.html


Which of these comments do you think was the most terrifying?

Which of them outs him as an alt-root registry? Your link to ICP-3?

That there would be a domain blogger out there who had the balls to expose him rather than letting him try to rewrite history by censoring comments - at least we now know Kevin isn't a real journalist.

:lol:

Classy.

Why don't you start your own blog and see how you get on? Sounds like you have lots of very interesting and important things to say.

[domainguru]

Kevin, I sincerely appreciate your write articles and then actually allow people to comment.

I can't tell you how many times I've attempted to add a comment to an article this last year and its never appeared. Many article writers appear to be giving up the "comment section" even though they pretend to invite them.

I can't honestly say I understand why these comments were deleted. Sure, some were off point, but some were actually pertinent in revealing what Sergey is about.

Who runs an alt registry and then stops taking new registrations for 3 years? Doesn't sound like a great business plan does it .... unless he never really cared about the actual registrations, only the fact he was running a .ком registry and somehow (bizarrely to me) hoping this would block VeriSign's .ком and force VeriSign to settle with him.

In the end, it doesn't matter. The guy is delusional and his inane "master plan" will get what it deserves, nothing.

But Kevin I respect the fact you came here and attempted to explain why you deleted stuff. Most blog owners just wouldn't give a toss.

[Kevin Murphy]

Kevin, I sincerely appreciate your write articles and then actually allow people to comment.

I can't tell you how many times I've attempted to add a comment to an article this last year and its never appeared. Many article writers appear to be giving up the "comment section" even though they pretend to invite them.

I can't honestly say I understand why these comments were deleted. Sure, some were off point, but some were actually pertinent in revealing what Sergey is about.

Who runs an alt registry and then stops taking new registrations for 3 years? Doesn't sound like a great business plan does it .... unless he never really cared about the actual registrations, only the fact he was running a .ком registry and somehow (bizarrely to me) hoping this would block VeriSign's .ком and force VeriSign to settle with him.

In the end, it doesn't matter. The guy is delusional and his inane "master plan" will get what it deserves, nothing.

But Kevin I respect the fact you came here and attempted to explain why you deleted stuff. Most blog owners just wouldn't give a toss.

Appreciated.

I should explain in case it isn't clear that I didn't consciously delete any comments. I deleted the article. Obviously, when you delete the article the comments disappear too. That was an oversight. As I said earlier in this thread it did not occur to me to check for comments first.

Because I didn't write the article, I don't know enough about the facts of the story to say whether anyone is delusional or not.

I've found it's true that alt-root players are generally either bitter about new gTLDs stealing their "business" or have tried to get in on the program with everyone else.

It's also true that quite a large number of new gTLD program objections are bullshit and will fail accordingly.

I've reported on both of these things quite extensively and I fancy that had I written the story we're discussing here, it may well have have had a different angle.

[domainguru]

Cool. I understand. There's an amazingly knowledgable bunch of people here, so if you have an IDN question, this is the place to ask.

We've known since 2000 / 2001 ".ком" and versions of .coms in other languages would come to fruition via VeriSign one day. Anyone launching an alt root with the same name knew exactly what they were attempting to do ... its just their plan was always doomed to complete failure.

[Avtal]

Elaborating on squirrel's suggestion, my guess is that Sergei Sharikov didn't like the quote that was attributed to him:

“That year we launched Cyrillic versions of .COM, .NET, .ORG and .RU using an alternative root,” said Sharikov.

In his LROs, Sharikov presumably relies on his Russian Federation trademarks for .ком and .орг, and it would perhaps be awkward if Verisign and PIR in their responses quoted an article where Sharikov seems to admit that these trademarks are simply "Cyrillic versions" of Verisign and PIR intellectual property.

But I think Verisign and PIR made a strategic error by not contesting Sharikov's RF trademarks at the time they were granted.

Avtal

[domainguru]

Elaborating on squirrel's suggestion, my guess is that Sergei Sharikov didn't like the quote that was attributed to him:

“That year we launched Cyrillic versions of .COM, .NET, .ORG and .RU using an alternative root,” said Sharikov.

In his LROs, Sharikov presumably relies on his Russian Federation trademarks for .ком and .орг, and it would perhaps be awkward if Verisign and PIR in their responses quoted an article where Sharikov seems to admit that these trademarks are simply "Cyrillic versions" of Verisign and PIR intellectual property.

But I think Verisign and PIR made a strategic error by not contesting Sharikov's RF trademarks at the time they were granted.

Avtal

As Squirrel said, that was a "wild guess" .... no wonder conspiracy theories take hold so easily on the Net :-p

VeriSign have lawyers, very expensive ones I've no doubt, they don't need recent blog postings, deleted or not, made by 3rd parties, to make their case against Sharikov.

He's going to lose, end of.

[Avtal]

VeriSign have lawyers, very expensive ones I've no doubt, they don't need recent blog postings, deleted or not, made by 3rd parties, to make their case against Sharikov.

The expensive lawyers will have to work for their money. They have to convince WIPO to disregard a long-standing Russian Federation trademark in exactly the line of business (TLDs) that Verisign plans to operate in. I hope they succeed, of course, and I hope PIR has managed to hire some good lawyers as well.

In any case, the decisions should make interesting reading.

Avtal

[Drewbert]

Sorry for being abrupt before, Kevin. As you can see - my comment actually took time to construct - I had to go find the ICP3 document and go through it looking for the appropriate paragraphs. I get so peeved when comments I worked hard on get disappeared - same with forum threads that go downhill and a moderator just deletes the whole thread even if it had lots of good information in it. Gaaa.

It would be interesting to find out why Stéphane decided he wanted the post removed. My guess is that Sergei met Stéphane at an ICANN meeting and turned on the charm to get him to do a puff piece. Stéphane didn't check the guys history first before writing it, then found out to his horror that they guy he's flying the flag for is actually an altroot operator. Whoops.

Thanks for re-posting the comments. They're back on the record now. :)

[Drewbert]

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/multilingual/presentations/S6-Sharikov.pdf

May 2006.


We register full russian domain names in five TLDs in russian.
generic:
- .КОМ equivalent .COM
- .НЕТ eq. .NET
- .ОРГ eq. .ORG

ccTLD:
- .РУ eq. .RU
- .РФ abbreviation of Russian Federation

[bwhhisc]

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/multilingual/presentations/S6-Sharikov.pdf
May 2006.

Talk about stealing intellectual property. :lol:

[domainguru]

The expensive lawyers will have to work for their money. They have to convince WIPO to disregard a long-standing Russian Federation trademark in exactly the line of business (TLDs) that Verisign plans to operate in. I hope they succeed, of course, and I hope PIR has managed to hire some good lawyers as well.

In any case, the decisions should make interesting reading.

Avtal

Its ICANN that controls which domains go in the (real) root, not alt-clown operators or bogus TMs. TMs are not hard to get you know, especially in places like Russia.

If you can't see the inevitable outcome of this, I'm really very surprised.

[Avtal]

Its ICANN that controls which domains go in the (real) root, not alt-clown operators or bogus TMs. TMs are not hard to get you know, especially in places like Russia.

The task facing the WIPO panelists is to say that in a more polite way. It will be interesting to see how they go about it.

Avtal

[svg]

It would be interesting to find out why Stéphane decided he wanted the post removed. My guess is that Sergei met Stéphane at an ICANN meeting and turned on the charm to get him to do a puff piece. Stéphane didn't check the guys history first before writing it, then found out to his horror that they guy he's flying the flag for is actually an altroot operator. Whoops.

Thanks for re-posting the comments. They're back on the record now. :)

Hi everyone,

Like Kevin, having been alerted to this discussion, I undertook the necessary steps to join this forum so I could provide some extra info.

I have no links to Sharikov, whom I met for the first time when I attended a domain name event in Russia a few weeks ago. He is not a client of STEPHANE VAN GELDER CONSULTING, my consultancy business. Having been told that he was involved in a bid for Dot PYC, I sought him out to interview him. We sat down and tried to do the interview in English (I do not speak Russian), but that proved difficult so we ended up being helped by a translator.

Once I had written up the interview as an article, I submitted it to Kevin and made it very clear that I had no business links to either the organisers of the event I was attending or Sharikov.

Once the article was published... nothing happened! Then days later, I was asked to remove it. I sent the request to Kevin, who took the steps he has described.

I hope these explanations help. There really is no conspiracy theory as far as the article is concerned. I found the PYC story interesting as a way to highlight the potential of IDNs through a "real life" project. Once it became evident that there were conflicting forces at play, I did not see the point in leaving the story up on the Domain Incite website. This is what I told Kevin, although as he has already explained, as editor of DI, the final decision was his. I would have supported him either way, but feel that he was right to consider that this was "more trouble than it was worth".

Stéphane Van Gelder

[Kevin Murphy]

I think I should add, because there seems to be some confusion, that Stephane's story actually states pretty clearly that the TLDs were launched in an alt-root first. That wasn't a fact that only emerged in the comments.

[Drewbert]

Right, so ICP3 applies.

http://www.icann.org/en/icp/icp-3.htm

Some of these operators and their supporters assert that their very presence in the marketplace gives them preferential right to TLDs to be authorized in the future by ICANN. They work under the philosophy that if they get there first with something that looks like a TLD and invite many registrants to participate, then ICANN will be required by their very presence and force of numbers to recognize in perpetuity these pseudo TLDs, inhibiting new TLDs with the same top-level name from being launched through the community's processes.

No current policy would allow ICANN to grant such preferential rights. To do so would effectively yield ICANN's mandate to introduce new TLDs in an orderly manner in the public interest to those who would simply grab all the TLD names that seem to have any marketplace value, thus circumventing the community-based processes that ICANN is required to follow. For ICANN to yield its mandate would be a violation of the public trust under which ICANN was created and under which it must operate. Were it to grant such preferential rights, ICANN would abandon this public trust, rooted in the community, to those who only act for their own benefit. Indeed, granting preferential rights could jeopardize the stability of the DNS, violating ICANN's fundamental mandate.

Perhaps an article in circleid wondering why this guy is being given the time of day AT ALL by ICANN would be appropriate?

Thanks for taking the time to register and present the fact here, Stéphane.

[alpha]

Perhaps an article in circleid wondering why this guy is being given the time of day AT ALL by ICANN would be appropriate?

I tell you my problem. Forgetting any vested interest I have in Verisign/PIR being successful in defending this LRO, or indeed putting aside that policy you refer to..

If Regtime had also applied for КОМ and ОРГ, with a view of legitimising their current alt-root customer base, then that for me would be credible. And therefore citing their alt-root usage might carry some sort of weight to their argument. But these guys didn't even apply.

Instead they want an outcome where they stop КОМ and ОРГ being legitimised. Their current alt-root customer base continue to be screwed. and the majority of the planet that operate outside of this alt-root bubble are denied ever being able to use full IDN.IDN

it's just such a selfish motive, and for what? The only upside I can see is that it reduces Cyrillic competition to regtimes recently applied for рус

It's just BS. And I too would like to see this covered. @Kevin, you said in your opening comment that the original story was "boring". Well this tale of gTLD shenanigans has a nice plot, interesting back story, and is right up your alley as a gTLD topic. But something tells me, we won't see you writing about this - I would love to be proven wrong.

[Drewbert]

The guy runs altroot registries AND is an ICANN accredited registrar. What the hell is with THAT?

And complete silence from SSAC about it!

WTF???

[alpha]

The guy runs altroot registries AND is an ICANN accredited registrar. What the hell is with THAT?

And complete silence from SSAC about it!

WTF???

Being icann accredited means they can splash that logo all over their site.
I wonder how many buyers of these alt-root domains have been duped into thinking they're buying something "accredited".

I have no doubt their T&Cs spell it out somewhere, but who really reads all that.

terms and conditions: PayPal agreement is longer than Hamlet, while iTunes beats Macbeth (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2118688/PayPal-agreement-longer-Hamlet-iTunes-beats-Macbeth.html)

[Kevin Murphy]

@Kevin, you said in your opening comment that the original story was "boring". Well this tale of gTLD shenanigans has a nice plot, interesting back story, and is right up your alley as a gTLD topic. But something tells me, we won't see you writing about this - I would love to be proven wrong.

I was clearly wrong about it being boring.

I'll be writing about all the LROs as they are decided and this one is no exception. You can hold me to that.

[alpha]

I was clearly wrong about it being boring.

I'll be writing about all the LROs as they are decided and this one is no exception. You can hold me to that.

What i'd like, is for you to write about it before it is decided. WIPO don't exactly have a clean record for making sensible decisions. I'm not suggesting you should try to influence that decision, i'm suggesting getting all the facts out there may remove ignorance from the equation.

There are a number of people here who can assist, and more than a couple of Russian speakers who can help you navigate any foreign content.

All the bloggers on the domaining roll will be writing the same dull stuff as each LRO is decided - you have an opportunity to do a scoop with unique material - just saying.

[squirrel]

All the bloggers on the domaining roll will be writing the same dull stuff...

By all bloggers you mean Kevin and Andrew plus the occasional piece by Berkens :-D and Berkens is biased most of the time so that leaves only the first 2 to report on new gTLDs in a timely fashion.

[alpha]

By all bloggers you mean Kevin and Andrew plus the occasional piece by Berkens :-D and Berkens is biased most of the time so that leaves only the first 2 to report on new gTLDs in a timely fashion.

I'm sure there's more than that - anyway, all that happens is one of them copy/paste the decision into wordpress. top and tail it with a sentence or two, then publish. You'll likely learn very little more by reading the next incarnation of the same copy/paste.

[squirrel]

Right.


I think Sharikov deserved a well researched piece when he first filed his silly objections. I believe now to be too late, the decisions will be rendered anytime now. Let's just forget this guy and move on.

[Kevin Murphy]

I'm sure there's more than that - anyway, all that happens is one of them copy/paste the decision into wordpress. top and tail it with a sentence or two, then publish.

Just so you know, I don't do this.

[Drewbert]

You can hold me to that.

Careful. Alpha will certainly hold you to something. You'll be craving a scalding hot shower and lots of soap afterwards.

[Drewbert]

Most blogs are just reporting news after the facts. Content aggregators. Very few blog posts actually uncover anything not published somewhere else first.

I can't remember any ICANN accredited registrars running altroot TLD's being outed on blogs, along with ICANN's pitiful response.

[Drewbert]

2/3 of LRO cases now decided, all but 2 rejected.

[Drewbert]

Now only 15 LRO cases undecided.

Tick. tick. tick.

[alpha]

Tick. tick. tick.
Ding

[Drewbert]

Finally.

[IdnHost]

Opa gagnam style