[bestbits] Fwd: Re: [At-Large] Results Available for 17 December 2014 New gTLD Program Auction

Thu Dec 18 03:07:44 EST 2014

.baby is auctioned off to Johnson and Johnson, I understand, for private 
use - meaning it wont be available to anyone other than J&J. It went for 
$3,088,888 . See https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-3-2014-12-17-en

   It is a clear loot - cultural and financial... But the civil society 
associated with the IG scene is too well 'engaged' and pampered by the 
status-quo-ists for them to ask the needed questions... I wrote the 
below email to a civil society group that is directly associated with 
ICANN...

In fact,  when discussions on 'closed generics'* was underway in ICANN, 
some prominent members of civil society here wrote a paper approving 
this practice in the name of 'innovative business models'...

(* closed generic are those top level domain names like .baby and .book, 
that are allocated for private use, whereby no one else will be able to 
use them. They get used to indicate services, products or activities 
exclusively of just that one company. )

parminder

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [At-Large] Results Available for 17 December 2014 New gTLD 
Program Auction
Date: 	Thu, 18 Dec 2014 13:22:50 +0530
From: 	parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
To: 	at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org

It really hurts deeply to my public and political convictions when a 
generic term of language like 'baby' is auctioned off to the highest 
bidder for a certain, extremely important, exclusive use. What public 
interest has been served here? Is there anyone to ask this question? And 
I direct this question specifically to that part of the civil society 
which the rest of the world would trust should be asking the questions 
in the ICANN's context.

Any trademark authority would have rejected out of hand if Johnson and 
Johnson had sought 'baby' as a trademark for itself. The reasons are 
obvious. But those reasons do not mean anything to ICANN, and perhaps 
neither to civil society groups associated with ICANN.

But the trademark authorities are expressly public interest bodies, 
under public authorities, which are in turn subject to institutionalised 
public oversight and accountability.

ICANN on the other hand is a system captured by a group of people, who 
have developed the perfect means and system to keep all those close by 
and powerful happy in different ways - it uses the euphemism 
'stakeholders' for them.

Most of all, it keeps the big daddy, the US, happy, by employing various 
means to support its  reign over theglobalInternet - it keeps a 
boisterous IG circuit in play that supports the status quo, and drowns 
out every other voice. This has been done very effectively till now. 
Btw, which technical governance mandate ICANN was pursuing to propose 
and set up the World Economic Forum based new Net Mundial Initiative, 
which is simply a way to divert global demands for addressing pressing 
Internet related public policy issues. This is done directly to appease 
US government's political interest, which ICANN has no business to be 
doing.. And then it keep the domain name industry happy and prospering, 
and also other major industries.... This group of people, which goes in 
the name of ICANN, does all this using the enormous funds that it 
illegally collects as a tax from global public using the Internet. This 
is where the money goes, and it produces conditions for further extraction.

It is a sorry state.

parminder

On Thursday 18 December 2014 11:18 AM, Seun Ojedeji wrote:
> How long that will continue/last will be a question to answer in near
> future.
>
> Cheers!
>
> sent from Google nexus 4
> kindly excuse brevity and typos.
> On 18 Dec 2014 02:02, "Carlton Samuels"<carlton.samuels at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> The money pile grows...
>>
>> -Carlton
>>
>> ==============================
>> Carlton A Samuels
>> Mobile: 876-818-1799
>> *Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround*
>> =============================
>>
>>
>>    [image: ICANN]<http://www.icann.org/>  News Alert
>>
>> https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-3-2014-12-17-en
>> ------------------------------
>> Results Available for 17 December 2014 New gTLD Program Auction
>>
>> 17 December 2014
>>
>> On 17 December 2014, Power Auctions LLC<http://www.powerauctions.com/>,
>> ICANN's authorized auction service provider, conducted a New gTLD Program
>> Auction to resolve string contention for two new generic top-level domain
>> (gTLD) strings: .BABY and .MLS. Applicants for these strings were unable to
>> resolve contention among themselves; thus their contention sets proceeded
>> to auction, which is the method of last resort to resolve string contention
>> as prescribed in Module 4 of the New gTLD Program Applicant Guidebook
>> <http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/agb>. Subject to payment of the
>> winning price and meeting all other criteria for eligibility, the winner
>> will enter ICANN's contracting process to sign a Registry Agreement to
>> operate the respective gTLD.
>>
>> Six applicants participated in the auction for .BABY. Johnson & Johnson
>> Services Inc. prevailed with a winning price of $3,088,888.
>>
>> Two applicants participated in the auction for MLS. The Canadian Real
>> Estate Association prevailed with a winning price of $3,359,000.
>>
>> All proceeds from the Auction are being segregated and withheld from use
>> until ICANN's Board of Directors define a plan for an appropriate use of
>> the funds through consultation with the community.
>> More Information
>>
>>     - Auction Results webpage
>>     <
>> https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus/auctionresults
>>> :
>>     Auction reports on this page on the New gTLD Microsite provide
>> additional
>>     information on bidding.
>>     - Auction proceeds and costs
>>     <http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/auctions/proceeds>: A detailed
>>     summary of the proceeds and costs of all auctions conducted through
>>     November 2014. This information is updated at the end of each month.
>>     - Auctions schedule
>>     <
>> http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/auctions/schedule-12dec14-en.pdf>
>>     [PDF, 253 KB]: Subsequent auctions are scheduled to occur on a monthly
>>     basis throughout 2014 and into early 2015. Auction events are intended
>> to
>>     resolve multiple contention sets simultaneously.
>>     - General New gTLD Program Auctions
>>     <http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/auctions>  information.
>> _______________________________________________
>> At-Large mailing list
>> At-Large at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large
>>
>> At-Large Official Site:http://atlarge.icann.org
>>
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> At-Large at atlarge-lists.icann.org
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