Internet Collusion for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN):
Whatever these guys are supposed to be for, they are primarily there for the enrichment of the registries and registrars. Here is a run down of the money making schemes that they have endorsed or which they at least ignored for a long time:
* Allowing registrars to sell (or keep!) any and all expired domains at no cost at all without payment to the previous owner. How would you like to have thousands of names to sell each and every month without spending a penny for them plus you can keep the really good ones!
* Add an infinite number of new extensions giving registrars land rush sales and auctions from here until domainers figure out that owning 'Sex.goop' may really not be that big of a deal (and with new suckers coming in all the time, that may never happen!). This will likely cause user confusion and diminish the value of many (if not most) existing domains.
* Look the other way on domain tasting until they finally figured out that a little something had to be done after most everything worth tasting has been tasted 100 times over. You would think that they would have a little more control over the registries who you would think would have wanted to at least make some money on this process. Then again, there may be more collusion on some level here.
* Allow registrars and registries to hold (warehousing) better domains without seemingly even cosmetically renewing them. ICANN is looking at prohibiting this practice but they don't even have a definition of what warehousing is. They'll probably decide that no registrar can own more than 10,000 HDTV sets or tennis shoes at any one time should that prohibit whatever they define 'warehousing' to be. This also applies to registrars keeping domains in general as addressed above too.
* Allow registries to increase their fees yearly for the next few years (the matter addressed here isn't new). What exact costs are involved on a per name basis with regard to operating a regsitry? If there was much involved, surely the registries wouldn't allow unabated tasting!
Originally ICANN was to have a board with 50% internet users (us) and 50% business people. After about a year or two, the 50% users part was truly kicked out and it became, pretty much, 100% business people. That's when he problems started, I believe. This business has few checks and balances and that's bad. Inside trading and other unethical (by most normal standards) are the norm in this business due to ICANN's very weak and limited regulation. Unfortunately, as I see it, ICANN seems to be a major part of the problem.
