Tech Giants Urge Go Ahead With ICANN Turnover As Oct 1 Turnover Date Looms

U.S. Senator Says "Not So Fast". What Does It Mean to You? Corwin, Esq. Speaks to One BIG Concern

[Webwork]

From [reuters.com ]

Major technology companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter are urging Congress to support a plan for the U.S. government to cede control of the internet's technical management to the global community, they said in a joint letter dated on Tuesday.

Who is being "authoritarian": us, as in U.S. or "them"?

If this transfer goes badly who will be hurt and how? Really, how?

Phil Corwin, Esq. speaks to one BIG concern: What will happen to .Com and .Net pricing? [circleid.com ]

Some of Corwin's analysis / takeaways:

That means that:
The imposition of new gTLD RPMs on legacy gTLDs should await the recommendations of the GNSO WG that is currently charged with addressing that issue — a major policy issue that should not be settled by GDD staff via contract negotiations.
.Com wholesale pricing should be reviewed by NTIA in consultation with the DOJ as the renewal date for the Cooperative Agreement approaches in November 2018.
Competition between .Com and "not com" new gTLDs should take place in the marketplace, where new gTLDs have already achieved millions of collective registrations.
Any adjustments of the presumptive renewal clauses in all gTLD agreements, including changes that address anticompetitive pricing behavior, should be addressed by ICANN through an open and transparent process that considers all relevant interests and objectives, and is not just a closed door negotiation between ICANN and registries.

[bill]

In the real world most of likely won't see much difference because of this switch. We can only hope that moving the defacto control of ICANN to a more international group will work out better in the long run. From an outside perspective ICANN seems to be getting fat on the new keyword gTLD scheme they've foisted on the Internet.