[At-Large] Sonoma Valley Hospital loses 3-letter domain name to hijackers

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 at 14:05, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:


> One of the hallmarks of the concept of ownership is the power to say "no".


At the risk of further sidetracking this discussion (or maybe it is deeply
related), I have always wondered about the concept of domains and ownership.

It is claimed that you as a registrant own a domain -- but if you don't pay
the annual fee your "property" is returns to the pool where it is either
dissolved or resold to someone else.
These are the characteristics of things that are rented or leased, with you
holding rights so long as you keep up your end of the subscription. Indeed
even the term "registrant" suggests that you are simply a registered user
and not owner.

I submit that ICANN actually owns (ie, has property rights over) each and
every non-cc domain, and leases rights to registrants via its official
agents (the contracted parties). ICANN has the authority to simply
annihilate any domain by instructing its agents (the appropriate registry)
to remove the domain's ability to be resolved.

If this premise is accepted, ICANN has an obligation to deal with competing
claims to its property.


> If you think someone is committing an abuse, then it should be easy to create
> a body of evidence to support that belief.  And when you dig into that
> whois database you ought to be able to state, into a permanent record,
> who you are and why you believe you are justified.  (And I'd go
> further that you should pay some $$ in order to create friction against abusive
> inquiries.)
>

So end-users have to pay out of their own pockets to fight abuse against
them?

Just imagine if police asked you for money any time you wanted to file an
incident with them about a neighbour, door-to-door scammer, peeping tom,
etc. How many people would just bear the abuse instead?
Your scheme protects against abuse of the abuser while penalizing the
original victim. Unacceptable.

Indeed most people would consider a regime in which you had to pay to lodge
a complaint to be highly corrupt, a description not wholly inappropriate to
ICANN. So maybe it is indeed consistent.

- Evan
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