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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 11 2018, @02:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-money dept.

Submitted via IRC for takyon

The curious tale of ICANN, Verisign, claims of subterfuge, and the $135m .Web dot-word

An ugly struggle over the .Web top-level domain may soon spill into public view again, after one of the companies vying for control of the dot-word demanded an independent review of DNS overlord ICANN's handling of the saga.

More than two years ago, the internet infrastructure industry was agape when an unknown company paid $135m for the rights to sell .web internet addresses: the sum paid was three times the previous record paid for a new dot-word, and seven times the average auction price for a top-level domain.

All that money went directly into the coffers of ICANN, a financial sum that was more than double its annual budget. That was unusual since the vast majority of previous similar dot-word auctions had been decided in private between the bidders themselves with the proceeds split among them.

It soon emerged that the unknown winner – a company called Nu Dot Co – had been secretly funded by the owner of the dot-com registry, Verisign. But before that information emerged, many in the industry were astonished when Nu Dot Co refused to agree to a private auction and insisted all the money go to ICANN.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday December 12 2018, @01:00AM

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Wednesday December 12 2018, @01:00AM (#773217) Homepage Journal

    Obama, very stupidly, wanted to give away our Internet to foreigners. To Russia, to China, to Iran, to Syria -- Animal Assad -- to Canada -- Justin with the Bong. To so many countries that, I won't call them enemies. They're competitors -- very tough competitors. And so many of them say, "oh, death to U. S. A.!" They're not nice people. Just one more way Obama-Clinton sold out the citizens of this Magnificent Country. No more!!!

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