FC: Why are ICANN-crats talking about evicting .org owners?

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

This is very dangerous terrain for ICANN to enter. If ICANN forcibly evicts 
owners of dot-org domains, any remaining goodwill it has in the Internet 
community will evaporate. It -- and perhaps the Commerce Department -- will 
also be exposed to litigation, all for a proposal with uncertain benefits, 
and one that is being floated approximately five years too late.

This in reference to:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-01774.html
>Icann indicated that it wants "org" Web addresses reserved only for
>nonprofit organizations "after some appropriate transition period," a
>restriction that hasn't been enforced in recent years. Details haven't been
>worked out, though one Icann official suggested that current "org" Web sites
>may be allowed to continue regardless of their affiliation with nonprofits.

Also, Michael Froomkin emails me noting that icannwatch.org has been 
relaunched.

-Declan

***********

From: "Thomas Leavitt" <thomasleavitt@hotmail.com>
To: declan@well.com
Cc: comments@icann.org
Subject: Fwd: FC: Verisign will surrender control of .org and .net, by Ted 
Bridis
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 00:50:14 -0800

Declan,

HEY! I don't like the idea at all that some goddamn bureaucrat may 
post-facto decide that I don't have the rights to my personal web site, 
www.internetmanifesto.org, because I'm not a "non-profit organization".
Furthermore: I don't think that requirement has *ever* been "enforced".

Not to mention them challenging my ownership of "space.org", either - I've 
had that for nearly half a decade, with content up (of varying currency) 
during that entire period. That represents a substantial investment (in the 
thousands of dollars) over that period!

There are tens of thousands of people out there with personal, 
non-commercial web sites in the .org domain - ICANN will have a huge 
shitstorm on their hands if they don't immediately, unconditionally 
guarantee that all current owners of .org domains may retain the right to 
use them, regardless of their non-profit status. I will personally make 
their life hell until they do so!

Furthermore, I think the whole idea of enforcing this requirement is 
ludicrous... there are a ton of non-commericial activities of all sorts who 
will be rendered homeless, or forced to assume a .com identity, even if 
they don't want one, by this policy. Things are working fine just now, why 
try and fix something that isn't broken, when so much else is?

ICANN: I demand a formal statement from your organization, post-haste, 
unconditionally guaranteeing that no action will be taken to require 
existing domain name holders in the .org TLD to do anything to justify 
their continued ownership of these domain names, now, or in the future.

Regards,
Thomas Leavitt





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