[IFWP] Fallout From An Exchange of Emails with Esther Dyson About ICANN Disenfranchising Internet Users Right to Vote For the ICANN Board Governing the Internet

[cpart]

Hey everyone, 

REVERSE HIJACKING

1.  Check out this email article from TheStandard.com about the Madonna.com dispute.  
The original registrant tried to give the name to the Hospital named Madonna in order 
to to avoid a reverse hijacking.  

If the story below is true... that one of the ICANN/WIPO judges is a member of the law 
firm that represents another party fighting the registrant over another name... Wow!!! 
 

A justice system that permits this to occur is something you might expect to find in a 
third world country... but not on the internet..  shame shame shame.

I am sure it was done all legal and proper and that's the problem.  

Unfortunately the registrant has a reputation as a troublemaker with names such as 
Wallstreetjournal.com, Whitehouse.com and Brunswicksucks.com.

Still... why should the Material Girl have a higher claim on the name than Madonna 
Rehabilitation Hospital or the Catholic Church?... just becuase the registrant is a 
trouble maker??  

Looks to me like some form of institutionaly sanctioned vigilante justice...   The 
rules need to be changed, even for pornographers.  Until then, none of us will be safe 
(the good, the bad, or the ugly).  

The email article below  came from TheStandard.com (you can sign up for news from the 
Standard at http://www.thestandard.com).  You should take a good look at the links 
below as well.  They lead to a number of good articles on this subject.

Curtis Sahakian
1-847-676-2774
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.Corporate-Partnering.com/cpi

2.  Adam and Eve's Bones Are Found - and Madonna Gets Her Domain Name

If only there were such a thing as the Weekly World Net News, the supermarket tabloid 
would have been all over the story of Madonna, the Net and hints of pornography. As it 
is, there is no such publication (yet), and that left straight-business journos to 
gleefully report that the World Intellectual Property Organization had ruled that the 
Material Girl is the rightful owner of Madonna.com.

According to outlets, Madonna had filed a complaint with the WIPO, a specialized 
agency of the United Nations, about site operator Dan Parisi's use of the name 
Madonna.com. She claimed that Parisi had no trademark right to the name Madonna and 
failed to prove legitimate interest in the Internet domain name that he had registered 
in bad faith. The WIPO liked Madonna's argument that she had used her name and 
trademark Madonna professionally since 1979. Decision, Madonna. Reuters was restrained 
in its coverage, reporting that Madonna.com was "initially a porn site" and referring 
to Parisi as a Web site developer and businessman. But the Associated Press had no 
time for qualifiers. It reported that Madonna's win came after the WIPO "ruled a 
pornographer had improperly registered the site to cash in on the pop star's name."

Internetnews.com sniffed conspiracy. But it had little to back up its provocative 
headline - "Was the Madonna Decision Rigged?" - other than a post by Parisi on his 
soon-to-be former site claiming that the panel's composition is tilted by the 
inclusion of a Chicago attorney whose clients include corporations trying to evict 
cyber squatters. In a note on Madonna.com, Parisi offered the skinny on how he knows 
this tidbit: It's because the attorney, Mark Partridge, has represented Brunswick, and 
Parisi owns Brunswicksucks.com. Internetnews reported that Parisi declined an 
interview but Partridge was chattier, telling the site that the dispute process offers 
respondents a chance to complain up front about the panel's composition, but that 
Parisi declined to do so until the panel ruled against him.

The UK's The Register skewered the WIPO's decision, feigning shock at a group that it 
has referred to as a "friend to rich companies and people everywhere." It pronounced 
some of Parisi's arguments compelling, but in the end conceded that "Madonna is rich 
and famous so she can have" the name. There's lots more on the Madonna decision, but 
we have no time - aliens have landed and Elvis has been spotted bidding on eBay. - 
Deborah Asbrand

Madonna Wins Internet Domain-Name Dispute 
http://www.livedaily.com/news/2003.html 

Madonna Wins Fight Over Web Site Name (AP) 
http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/0,1643,500269426-500419391-502599595-0,00.html
 

Madonna Boots Cybersquatter Off Web Address (Reuters) 
http://news.cnet.com/news//0-1005-200-3209475.html 

Was Madonna.com Decision Rigged? 
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,,3_487271,00.html 

Madonna Wins Her Domain Namesake 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14042.html 

Celebs Mince Cybersquatters 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/13885.html 

Madonna.com Fight Heats Up 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/13227.html 


3.  Here is a collection of resources for anyone who wants to learn more about ICANN 
vs. Internet Democracy.
http://infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/10/02/001002oplivingston.xml (by 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]) 

[IFWP] Re: Auctioning .US ? (and The UDRP and .US)

[Michael Sondow]

Thanks to Jim Fleming for posting the URL and text.

> 
> http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/usrfc2/comments.html
> 
> "The proposed plan would auction new generic second-level domain names under
> .us (.e.g. business.us, loans.us), the proceeds from which would fund a
> "Digital Opportunity Trust" that connects, educates, and empowers people to
> participate in the networked society.  Until now the .us space has been
> unattractive for commercial users and individuals because of its cumbersome
> registration system under geographic localities, e.g. ibm.armonk.ny.us.  The
> new .us system we propose will auction generic names as an efficient way to
> allocate scarce resources and would be restructured to facilitate
> non-commercial uses in the public interest."

This proposal has been made by The Benton Foundation and the Media
Access Project, in response to the NTIA's call for comments on its
Statement of Work (SOW), pursuant (supposedly) to another RFC on .US
management (there have been previous ones).

The proposal is interesting and worth a read. However, the above
quote from it raises an obvious question: How does auctioning 2LDs
facilitate non-commercial uses in the public interest? Commercial
interests with more money will get them in an auction.

Another question of interest, which perhaps the NTIA persons copied
could respond to: On the ISI's new .US website (http://www.nic.us/),
a "Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy" is listed under "General
Information" and linked to ICANN's website (no mention of the UDRP
anywhere else on the .US website). Does this mean that .US has been
placed under ICANN's UDRP by NTIA or ISI fiat? If so, does this mean
that there are elements of the management of .US which have already
been decided by the NTIA? If that is the case, could the NTIA tell
us what these elements are, so that we won't waste time discussing
them and submitting proposals regarding them?


Michael Sondow
=
  INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS
   http://www.iciiu.org(ICIIU)[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Tel(718)846-7482Fax(603)754-8927
=