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The Internet Technology

ICANN Cancels 'Digital Archery' Program 54

Posted by Soulskill from the icann-see-why dept.
itwbennett writes "ICANN announced today that it has canceled the Digital Archery contest it had planned to use to decide which gTLD applications would be evaluated first. The organization gave no indication of what it will do instead. In making the announcement, Cherine Chalaby, chair of the gTLD Program Committee, said, 'We will not make a decision in Prague but will take all of the ideas into account and build a roadmap,' adding that the roadmap will detail the next steps and timelines as well as assess implications to applicants and the risk to the program."
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ICANN Cancels 'Digital Archery' Program More

ICANN Cancels 'Digital Archery' Program

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  • Time for UN takeover? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    These stumbles with the sponsored gTLD flop speak volumes for ditching the whole ICANN in its current form. In practice, this hastens the development that will eventually lead to the United Nations taking over the ICANN's current operations; a death sentence to Internet neutrality and uncensored access.

    • This isn't a 'stumble'. They just finally realized they are leaving money on the table by having this stupid lottery to only let some fraction of these new gTLD's be granted. Now, they need some way to announce that all of them will be permitted, followed by some kind of internal bonus awarded to everyone involved within ICANN.

  • Insane mismanagement (Score:5, Interesting)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Saturday June 30, 2012 @07:21PM (#40507939) Homepage Journal

    This shows that ICANN has no clue what they're doing. All they cared about was getting the huge cash infusion from the application fees. They should at the very least have had the entire process planned out from the beginning.

    What would be nice now would be fore a coalition of major ISPs to state that the new TLDs are stupid, and they won't support any of them on their name servers. That should pretty much kill the whole thing. In fact, and association of ISPs could use this as a chance to replace ICANN, demonstrating that their authority is limited based on the extent that the ISPs agree to let them have the authority.

    • Re:Insane mismanagement (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gQuigs ( 913879 ) on Saturday June 30, 2012 @07:51PM (#40508065) Homepage

      Sorry no.. almost anyone but the ISPs.. I want my ISP to be as close to a dumb pipe as it can be.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by crow ( 16139 )

        I agree with you, but I don't see who else has the power to simply reject ICANN and make it stick.

        • Re:Insane mismanagement (Score:5, Insightful)

          by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Saturday June 30, 2012 @08:34PM (#40508231) Journal
          Unfortunately, anybody with the power to simpy reject ICANN and make it stick also has the power(and, certainly in the case of ISPs, also the inclination) to be even worse...

          In particular, ICANN has room for TLD fuckery, and seems to be making use of it lately; but ISPs are in the position to both engage in TLD fuckery and the overwhelmingly more serious business of controlling traffic for various rent-seeking or voice/cable TV legacy service preservation purposes.

          TLDs are a penny-ante sideshow by comparison.
    • Nope, they'd still go ahead with it because they won't save much money by cancelling it now, but if just 1 person buys one, they'll probably break even. Even if every tech-savy person in the world knows no ISP's will support them, there will always be some sucker^H^H^H^H^H^Hinvestor to buy a thousand of them.
  • ... ICANN is likely just waiting to see if they can get some of the bidders to offer some additional revenue under the table for the names that more than one company wanted to buy. They certainly don't give a damn about coherence or ethics at ICANN.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by KPU ( 118762 )

      So this will make it closer to an auction, which is what should have been done in the first place?

      • So this will make it closer to an auction, which is what should have been done in the first place?

        Somewhat (though ultimately no), and no.

        It somewhat makes it closer to an auction in that more money wins the contest. However, most auctions follow a time table and have some sort of equal chance for bidding. Bribery - which is likely closer to what ICANN is after as they are openly crooked - does not care about equality. If they have companies A B and C bidding for the gTLD .icannsucksass, they will shop it around to all three. If they like company C better than B, but B offers some amount that is

        • If [...] B offers some amount that is higher they will go tell C what the offer was from B and ask them to beat that offer.

          And on eBay, each bidder knows when he has been outbid. How is this different?

          • If [...] B offers some amount that is higher they will go tell C what the offer was from B and ask them to beat that offer.

            And on eBay, each bidder knows when he has been outbid. How is this different?

            A couple important ways

            • eBay auctions follow a time limit. Everyone has a set amount of time to get in their bids and try to outbid the other people who want the same item
            • eBay auctions don't reveal the identity of the other bidders, or the maximum bids that they placed. In the case of a cronyism driven auction both of those bits of information are likely given away (at least to the favored bidder) in order to get more money for the item

            In other words, it really isn't like eBay. Few people would want eB

      •     That'd be a lovely idea. They'll be cobranded "gTLD by Google" and "gTLD by Microsoft". Well, I'm sure a few banks would get in on the game too. Anywhere they can make money for nothing is their favorite industry.

  • From the end of the article: (Score:5, Funny)

    by bmo ( 77928 ) on Saturday June 30, 2012 @07:40PM (#40508021)

    Applicants stated that ICANN was not the owner of the money of the application funds it received, and asked when they could get their money back.

    "I am sad to tell you we are not giving you the money back, "ICANN's chair of the board Steve Crocker said,

    BECAUSE WE ALREADY SPENT IT ON HOOKERS AND BLOW.

    --
    BMO

    • Re:From the end of the article: (Score:5, Funny)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Saturday June 30, 2012 @07:58PM (#40508101) Journal
      Unfortunately, in their quest to make their own internet, with blackjack and hookers, they have in fact appear to have forgotten about the 'internet' part...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by santax ( 1541065 )
      I thought this was a joke, but he actually did say that... Somewhere, some lawyer is laughing. Really really hard.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )

        yeah.. it's rather ridiculous. notice that he didn't even dispute who is the "owner" of the cash, just said that he wouldn't be paying the deposits back.

        fucking ridiculous, "hey, pay us money! you might get a tld!" then later.. "yeah yeah we're exploring the options how to make it happen, honest!"

  • That's cool, I think "digital archery" sounds like a better idea for Nintendo.
  • "We will not make the decision in Prague ... no, this decision will require at least 15-20 more all-expenses-paid meetings in luxury resorts around the world."

    • "We will not make the decision in Prague ... no, this decision will require at least 15-20 more all-expenses-paid meetings in luxury resorts around the world."

      I think it's just a matter of cultural sensitivity. It's against local custom to make any decisions in Prague. If you make an important decision, you may even end up paying a stiff fine to the city magistrate. There is an ordinance against making important decisions here and the city council takes these matters very seriously. If they actually wanted to make a decision at the summit, they'd have to make a phone call to Vienna, Berlin, or Moscow in order not to offend the locals.

  • "Digital Archery" is very apt. It's a stupid name for a stupid idea made by a stupid organization.

  • Seriously? I mean, seriously? ICANN, even briefly, introduced online gaming into the process of creating new top level domains? I knew that the Internet could resemble a circus, but that really stretches the limits of believability.

    Pardon me while I file a registration for .barnum.

  • > ICANN Cancels 'Digital Archery' Program

    The article continues:

    "The 'Digital Archery' program had itself replaced the earlier and even less popular 'Digital Ball Cupping' Program."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      ..and the original plan was to only allow tld's that one couldn't dispute. for example pepsi getting .pepsi. basically if there's any dispute between two applicants - even just between two potential applicants, then the tld shouldn't be granted.

      it's just a fucking money grab now.

  • Has ICANN ever had any clue about what it's doing? It is the keymaster to the modern Fort Knox, and it has always been supremely incompetent in every way.

    How is it possible for "typo domains" to scam millions every year by violating legitimate trademarks? Why would you expand the top level domains without ensuring they segregate names into sites that don't conflict with each other, which is the only purpose of a namespace, thereby ensuring that names in the different TLDs do conflict and confuse the consume

  • Is why are domain names still a hierarchy? They were only designed that way because computing resources were expensive.

    Think about it. Do we want to give people names or entire hierarchies and hops they do the right thing?

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