Granting the .pharmacy domain to NABP would confer legitimacy on pharmacies sanctioned by NABP, to the detriment of those that are not.

NABP has proposed an unfair standard that would bar online pharmacies that serve US consumers but are located outside of the United States from using the domain (see NABP’s application at Section 18(a) IV*). This would exclude many licensed pharmacies which offer American consumers low-cost medicines of quality.

Whether a pharmacy is located in the United States does not determine whether a pharmacy is licensed and provides medicines of quality.

Consumer access to medicines depends in significant part on price and competition. It would be inappropriate to allow NABP to control such an important gTLD while it maintains exclusionary plans for the domain, which work against the consumer interest in a robust market of quality affordable pharmaceuticals.

The pharmaceutical industry has prioritized trying to shut down legitimate pharmacies selling safe Canadian drugs to U.S. consumers (as currently allowed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration). But their tactics to achieve these anti-consumer goals involve censorship regimes allowing government seizure of domains, blacklists of sites, or suspended hosting services for legitimate competitors.

NABP supporters have justified their actions by preying on consumer fear of counterfeiters, when their real goals include shutting down sites providing cheaper legitimate drugs. Pfizer joined the assault on the Net in 2011, testifying to Congress that: "The major threat to patients in the U.S., however, is the Internet..." ...

NABP's supporters define "fake pharmacies" as those not registered with VIPPS, rather than only those selling actual counterfeit goods.

The clearinghouse "doesn't necessarily prevent trademark infringement or cybersquatting, but it does help trademark owners and brand owners somewhat in mitigating the damage that might occur," he added. "We've been telling brand owners it's not that expensive to protect themselves and they ought to do it."

But companies such as Amazon, Google, Goodyear, L'Oreal and others also applied for a wide array of words and indicated that they would like to operate the registry as "closed" -- meaning they may not allow other firms to buy what are known as second-level domains.

Clearly, companies want to own and control generic words as domains so that they can offer their services. But with that comes the possibility of blocking competitors who want to attach their brand to a term. For example, Ford might want to buy ford.truck but be blocked from doing so by the owner of .truck.

1. "Honestly, if it was up to me, I would delay the whole release of new gTLDs by at least a year."

2. "... a lot of the foundations that I would be comfortable with, as someone who has built businesses before, are just not yet there."

3. "We have people who took six years to write the [new gTLD Applicant] Guidebook and we're asking engineers and software people and third-party vendors and hundreds of people to get that whole program running in six months."

4. "When the number two at IBM called me, Erich Clementi, after we signed the deal with them to do the [Trademark Clearinghouse] he said 'Are you nuts?'. Literally, quote. He said: 'Fadi you've built these systems for us before. You know it takes three times the amount of time it takes to write the specs to build reliable systems.'"

5. "We're facing a difficult situation, we're working hard as we can, our people are at the edge."

6. "I don't mean to scare you, because I know many of your businesses rely on this, but the right people are now in place, we're building it as fast as we can but I want you to understand that this is tough, and I wish it were different. I wish you would all raise your hands and say: 'You know what? Let's take a break and meet in a year'."

7. "I don't want to delay this program, but under all circumstances my mind would tell me: stop."

This indicated the U.S. decision to retain ultimate control over the global Internet, which enabled it to unilaterally close the Internet of another country. A suddenly paralyzed Internet would definitely cause huge social and economic losses to the country.

More and more countries are beginning to question the U.S. control over the world’s Internet as the international resource should be managed and supervised by all countries together. However, the United States has conducted a pre-emptive strike, and refused to give up control over the Internet in the name of protecting the resource. The refusal reflects its hegemonic mentality and double standards.

The United States controls and owns all cyberspaces in the world, and other countries can only lease Internet addresses and domain names from the United States, leading to the U.S. hegemonic monopoly over the world’s Internet.

• Lots of companies applied for their own name or an acronym of their name. This is one area where I could see some benefit in potentially stopping certain phishing scams... But it seems unfortunate that only super rich companies should be able to do that. A few companies sought gTLDs on related terms -- like Nationwide Insurance seeking .onyourside to match with its slogan. Ralph Lauren just wants .polo. Chrysler wants .ram. Travelers Insurance wants .redumbrella (really?!?).


• Google's bids are slightly (just slightly) obfuscated by the use of "Charleston Road Registry Inc." as their applicant. But as the company had suggested last month, it was pretty active, going after some clearly Google related names, including .google, .goog, .gmail, .android, .gbiz and .goo. But it also has a few more broadly worded ones, including .ads (which no one else sought), .car (for their autonomous vehicles?), .dad (just in time for father's day?), .mom, .dog, .family, .fyi, .plus, .tour, .prod, .here, .prof, .phd, meme., .lol, .day, .love (which has a lot of competition), .rsvp, .mba, .vip, .web, .eat, .soy and (believe it or not) .and. There are some strange ones too, like .zip, .boo (did Google scare you?) and .foo. They also want .page (is Larry getting his own TLD?).


• Thirteen applications were made for .app -- including from Google and Amazon, but also a whole bunch of companies that were clearly set up just to seek .app and all of which have similar names: Dot App LLC, .APP REGISTRY Inc., DotApp Inc., and dot App Limited. Not confusing at all.


• Both Amazon and Google would like .book (where they have competition from seven others) and .search (where they have competition from two others).


• Amazon and Google actually come up against each other an awful lot, including for .buy, .shop, .store, .free, .game, .play, .movie, .show, .mail, .map, .spot, .talk, .wow, .you and .cloud -- all of which have a bunch of other suitors as well. They also go head to head (with no other competitors) for .drive. They just missed each other in going after children. Google wants .kid, while Amazon wants .kids. Think these two companies are competing in a lot of areas?


• Amazon would also like both .safe and .room, but not .saferoom (no one went for that one). Amazon has no competition for either of those.


• Amazon would like you to .smile. Somewhat surprised no one else sought that one.


• For .docs, Google's competition is... Microsoft. No surprise there. Those two companies also face off (with one other applicant) for .live.


• Six different companies are seeking .baby, including Johnson and Johnson... and Google? Not sure I get that one.


• Surprised that there are only two applications for .money -- since that's what this whole thing is all about anyway.


• Nine companies want .blog. I really have no desire to pay anyone for techdirt.blog.


• Slightly surprised that only American Express wants .open.


• Hasbro wants .transformers. Seriously.


• TJX (owners of stores like Marshall's and TJ Maxx) wants .winners. No one went for .winning. Apparently Charlie Sheen has fallen off the face of the earth.


• Six different applications for .cpa (including one from Google). Apparently some people expect that CPAs have money to blow on new domains...


• Two different companies want .dot (which actually is kind of creative): Google and Dish. Not sure I understand either one.


• McDonalds wants .mcd (and .mcdonalds).


• Three different companies want .rip. I'm assuming these are for "memorial" sites.


• AOL wants .patch. Meanwhile plenty of people expect that Patch will soon need .rip.


• Many regional ones are unopposed, but .osaka has two proposals.


• Notorious hater of anyone who uses the word "Monster," Monster Cable is seeking .monster, but has to compete with the jobs site Monster.com. Those two companies already have an agreement about the use of the term, but you have to imagine they're not happy to see each other here.


• Eleven companies want .home, once again including a bunch with similar names. DotHome Inc., Dot Home LLC, .HOME Registry Inc., DotHome/CGR E-Commerce Ltd. Oh yeah, and GoDaddy and Google are both there as well.


• The MPAA cannot be happy that Google is also seeking .film, where it's competing against two others, including the "Motion Picture Domain Registry". According to the website for that group, they have a strong association with the MPAA. Both those companies (and a bunch of others, including Amazon as mentioned above) are also competing for .movie.


• As expected, there's also a big fight to be had over .music -- including (once again) Google and Amazon, but also a bunch of operations set up just for this purpose: dot Music Limited, DotMusic, DotMusic Inc., and .music LLC. For what it's worth, the RIAA has endorsed the proposal from .music LLC, because it only would allow "accredited" musicians to use it, and the RIAA loves nothing more than the chance to be a gatekeeper.


• Starbucks (Starbucks?!) would like .now, but it has steep competition from five other companies, including its neighbor, Amazon.


• Seven applications were made for .news (including one from Amazon). I also do not want to buy techdirt.news.


• Three different applications for .sucks. Perhaps I'd buy techdirt.sucks.


• Yes, someone did apply for .wtf.


• .ninja actually is a cool idea for a TLD. I might want one of those.


• There are two competing applications for .sex, because we didn't already have enough of a battle over the sex.com domain name years ago.


• This is slightly outside the list, but related to it. After the list came out, I received a press release from some silly grandstanding "morality" group insisting that .porn, .sex and .adult need to be opposed because "more porn domains means more porn on the internet." I don't think that requires any response other than laughter at the basic cluelessness.

Last June, then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated the goal of Russia and its allies as “establishing international control over the Internet” through the I.T.U. And in September 2011, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan submitted a proposal for an “International Code of Conduct for Information Security” to the U.N. General Assembly, with the goal of establishing government-led “international norms and rules standardizing the behavior of countries concerning information and cyberspace.”

Word of a few other proposals from inside the I.T.U. have surfaced. Several authoritarian regimes reportedly would ban anonymity from the Web, which would make it easier to find and arrest dissidents. Others have suggested moving the privately run system that manages domain names and Internet addresses to the United Nations.

Such proposals raise the prospect of policies that enable government controls but greatly diminish the “permissionless innovation” that underlies extraordinary Internet-based economic growth to say nothing of trampling human rights.

1. Lowering the standard for when the simplified URS process (seize domains quickly, ask questions later) process can be put in place. Originally, the bar had been set high so that this process could only be used in truly egregious cases where there was no question that the domain was infringing. But the proposal sought to lower the standard such that it's the same as the UDRP standard (effectively stepping in and replacing UDRP).
2. Changing the already agreed upon URS system, such that domains that go through the process aren't just suspended, but transferred to the trademark holder. In other words, rather than just shutting down the domain, this fastpass system would simply turn the domains over to the trademark bullies.
3. Saying that the URS process (which was developed just for these new TLDs) should also be expanded to cover the most important TLD of all: .com. Yes, that's right. That's the goal in all of this. To actually make it much, much easier for trademark bullies to completely shut down and gain control of domains that they don't like others to use, and to do it cheaply, with very little review.

"I believe it is time to further tighten up the rules that have allowed perceived conflicts to exist within our board," Mr. Beckstrom said in a speech during an Icann meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica, last week. "This is necessary, not just to be responsive to the growing chorus of criticism about Icann's ethics environment, but to ensure that absolute dedication to the public good supersedes all other priorities."

In a worrying turn of events, it appears that ICANN had no idea about the rejection of its bid for long-term running of the IANA contract prior to an announcement being posted on the NTIA's website today.

The organization - which has run the IANA functions for over a decade - is also waiting to hear why the US government feels it has failed to meet the RFP criteria that defined a new, more open approach to the contract.

In a series of sudden and unexpected announcements earlier today, the NTIA first announced it was canceling the entire rebid process for IANA, then that it was canceling it because no one had met its criteria, and then that it was extending ICANN's IANA contract for six months to give it time to re-run the RFP process.

In my view, ICANN's behavior of late regarding the NTIA has been something like the Wall Street firms vs. their ersatz regulators -- a sense of entitlement and "we're too important to be replaced" plowing forward with the domain-industrial complex's "get rich quick" agenda, with only lip-service being paid to NTIA. As I said earlier today, I would expect ICANN to find a way to come into "technical" compliance for now. But I still also feel very strongly that we need a purpose-built replacement for ICANN that will not carry its ever increasing political and "domainer" baggage. Not the UN. Not the ITU. But a new international forum that cares about all the Internet's users, not mainly the monied domain exploitation interests at the top of the DNS food chain.

In a statement, Astrolabe said, "Astrolabe's lawsuit against Mr. Olson and Mr. Eggert was based on a flawed understanding of the law. We now recognize that historical facts are no one's property and, accordingly, are withdrawing our Complaint. We deeply regret the disruption that our lawsuit caused for the volunteers who maintain the TZ database, and for Internet users."

When the sellers of .xxx domain names put them on sale last week, they did not address their marketing campaigns just to adult content owners. Instead, they ran ads with headlines like ".XXX LANDRUSH IS NOW OPEN. PROTECT YOUR BRAND" or "SECURE YOUR DOMAIN. PROTECT YOUR REPUTATION," By heeding their warnings, brands, universities, and individuals flocked to the sites of domain name sellers and bought up tens of thousands of names, at about $200 per name. According to press reports, more than 70,000 applications have been received since the doors opened, netting sellers more than $15 million barely out of the gate.

"We are aware of the lawsuit," [Kim Davies, a technical manager at ICANN] said. "We believe it's important to continue the operation of the database. We'll deal with any legal matters as they arise."

We are concerned that a music themed gTLD will be used to enable wide scale copyright and trademark infringement.

We strongly urge you to take these concerns seriously... we prefer a practical solution to these issues, and hope to avoid the need to escalate the issue further.