freespeech.com
Open in
urlscan Pro
172.67.75.138
Public Scan
Submitted URL: http://www.freespeech.com/
Effective URL: https://freespeech.com/
Submission: On January 31 via manual from TR — Scanned from DE
Effective URL: https://freespeech.com/
Submission: On January 31 via manual from TR — Scanned from DE
Form analysis
2 forms found in the DOMGET https://freespeech.com/
<form role="search" method="get" class="search-form" action="https://freespeech.com/">
<label>
<span class="screen-reader-text">Search for:</span>
<input type="search" class="search-field" placeholder="Search …" value="" name="s">
</label>
<button type="submit" class="search-submit"><span class="screen-reader-text">Search</span></button>
</form>
POST
<form method="post">
<input type="submit" value="Close and accept" class="accept">
</form>
Text Content
Skip to content FREESPEECH.COM “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell Menu * About Us * Contact Us * Twitter Featured UPDATE: MY PARTICIPATION RIGHTS HAVE NOW BEEN ELIMINATED AT ICANN WORKING GROUPS Just to followup on the earlier blog post of today, I received the following email from Keith Drazek (GNSO Council Chair), > Dear Mr. Kirikos, > > Receipt of your letter is acknowledged. > > We note and regret that you have elected to not accept and agree to abide by > ICANN’s Expected Standards of Behavior (ESOB). > > As such, per the notice provided in the Council Leadership Team’s letter of 29 > March, you will be placed in observer status in the RPM PDP WG and any other > GNSO-related forum until such time we receive the necessary communication > confirming acceptance of the ESOB, or until such time the ICANN Ombuds rules > that you may return to member status following any appeal. > > Sincerely, > > Keith Drazek > GNSO Chair (on behalf of the GNSO Council Leadership Team) So, unless I “bend the knee” and “swear an oath of fealty” (or unless the ICANN Ombudsman says I can return), I’m forever banished. Is that reasonable and proportionate? And, this affects participation for all working groups (not just the RPM PDP), even though there’s no issue in the IGO PDP! Author George KirikosPosted on April 5, 2019April 5, 2019Categories domain names, ICANNTags ICANN Featured ICANN THREATENS TO RESTRICT PARTICIPATION RIGHTS OF CRITIC GEORGE KIRIKOS ICANN, in an affront to free speech and due process, has threatened to restrict my participation on important domain name policy issues, and I think it’s crucial that these topics be brought before the public for debate. Continue reading “ICANN Threatens to Restrict Participation Rights of critic George Kirikos” Author George KirikosPosted on April 5, 2019April 5, 2019Categories domain names, ICANNTags ICANN Featured HELLO, WORLD! I have launched this new blog today at FreeSpeech.com, in order to better educate the public about domain names, internet governance, ICANN, free speech, and other topics. Continue reading “Hello, World!” Author George KirikosPosted on April 5, 2019Categories domain names, ICANNTags ICANN, UDRP, Verisign DID GALAXY DIGITAL ACQUIRE THE GALAXY.COM DOMAIN NAME FOR $1.8 MILLION? [UPDATED ON JANUARY 30, 2022: Based on additional information from the buyer’s broker, it’s now unclear whether the transaction price for the Galaxy.com domain name was USD $1.8 million, so we’ve adjusted the headline and text below accordingly.] A new SEC filing by Galaxy Digital has disclosed that they purchased a domain for USD $1.8 million last year. See page F-25 of the filing, which states: > During the third quarter of 2021, the Company purchased a website domain name > for $1.8 million. While the SEC filing didn’t reveal the actual domain name, Galaxy.com was the likely candidate for the domain name upgrade, given that their current primary domain name is GalaxyDigital.io. The Galaxy.com domain name is under WHOIS privacy, which doesn’t assist us in proving the ownership of that domain. And there is no active website at present for Galaxy.com. However, there are other clues which point to Galaxy Digital as the new owner of the Galaxy.com domain name. Continue reading “Did Galaxy Digital acquire the Galaxy.com domain name for $1.8 million?” Author George KirikosPosted on January 29, 2022January 30, 2022Categories domain namesTags domain transactions FORGE.COM DOMAIN NAME ACQUIRED FOR $2.2 MILLION BY FORGE GLOBAL Forge Global, a private securities marketplace, revealed in a recent SEC filing that it had acquired the forge.com domain name in the third quarter of 2021 for USD $2,202,000. This was documented on pages F-96 and F-97 of the filing. Forge Global announced in September its intention to go public in a $2 billion SPAC deal. Author George KirikosPosted on December 18, 2021December 18, 2021Categories domain namesTags domain transactions I SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT I AM UP TO NO GOOD ICANN has a public comment period that ends today for “Proposed Revisions to the ICANN Documentary Information Disclosure Policy.” Below is a PDF of my full submission, which begins as follows: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear ICANN org, In the Harry Potter series of books and films, access to the Marauder’s Map was granted by saying the phrase “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good” after tapping the map. I imagine that the ICANN staff who crafted these proposed changes to the Documentary Information Disclosure Policy (DIDP) had that quote in mind, either explicitly or implicitly, when they sat down to edit the existing version of the DIDP. [read the rest in the following PDF] Submission of Leap of Faith Financial Services Inc. to ICANN Regarding Proposed Revisions to the ICANN Documentary Information Disclosure Policy Author George KirikosPosted on December 13, 2021December 13, 2021Categories domain names, ICANNTags ICANN, Verisign ICANN RESPONDS TO MY OPEN LETTER REGARDING IGO PROTECTIONS In mid-October, I sent an open letter to the ICANN Board regarding IGO protections. Today, they responded with the following letter (which should find its way to the ICANN Correspondence page shortly): Maarten Botterman letter to George Kirikos Dated December 9, 2021 re: PROTECTIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS In response, I wrote the following: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BY EMAIL ONLY December 9, 2021 Dear Mr. Botterman, I have received your letter of today, responding to my prior correspondence. I am encouraged by your statement that “it will not be appropriate to provide greater protection to IGOs than what exists under international law”. However it’s a fact that current policy already provides greater protection to IGOs than what exists under international law. Similarly, the current EPDP’s work threatens to go much further, thereby harming domain name registrants’ rights by providing IGOs with greater rights than exist under international law. If your statement that “it will not be appropriate to provide greater protection to IGOs than what exists under international law” is correct (and it’s a statement I agree with), then ICANN should terminate the EPDP and roll back the policies that exceed the actual rights of IGOs under international law. As for the “Reply Period Public Comments”, it is not correct that their discontinuation in 2014 represented any “improvement” of the process. Furthermore, that change continues to violate the Bylaws, which literally require a reasonable opportunity to reply to the comments of others. If a comment is submitted on the final day, for example, or even in the last 30 minutes of a comment period, it is unreasonable to require the public to respond within that same day or within 30 minutes, as the case may be. Indeed, your own reply to my short correspondence took nearly 2 months, which demonstrates that the public generally needs weeks to read and consider their own responses. Sincerely, George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author George KirikosPosted on December 9, 2021Categories domain names, ICANNTags ICANN, UDRP FINAL CALL TO SUBMIT COMMENTS TO ICANN TO PROTECT DOMAIN NAME OWNERS’ RIGHTS After a Herculean effort, I’ve managed to complete my company’s comment submission to ICANN, to respond to the dangerous proposal from its working group which would have severe negative consequences for domain name owners. My company’s comment can be read below: Comments of Leap of Faith Financial Services Inc. submitted to ICANN on October 23, 2021 The deadline for comments is Sunday, October 24, 2021 at 23:59 UTC, and can be made by going here. That’s less than 24 hours from the time of this blog post. You can read the comments of others (16 at the time of this blog post, including one by the Internet Commerce Association) here. It takes only a few minutes to sign up for an account to endorse/support the comments of others (that’s what some of the IGOs have done, to support the comments of WIPO). Past blog posts on this topic can be read here, here, here, and here. If the proposals are adopted without any changes, there would be great risk for consequence free reverse domain name hijacking. I urge people to take this seriously and to submit comments opposing the changes. Author George KirikosPosted on October 23, 2021Categories domain names, ICANNTags ICANN, UDRP UNBALANCED ICANN WORKING GROUP PARTICIPATION HARMS DOMAIN NAME OWNERS In a blog post last week, I sounded the alarm about a dangerous proposal from an ICANN working group which would have severe negative consequences for domain name owners, allowing IGOs (intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations) to engage in consequence-free reverse domain name hijacking. To understand what led to such a report, I decided to look at the actual participation of working group members, as per the mailing list activities and on the weekly calls (transcripts are available on the GNSO Calendar page). The shocking results [visible on the web via a published Google Spreadsheet, with graphs) clearly demonstrate why such one-sided proposals were arrived at by the working group. In particular, the IGOs (through the GAC) had far greater participation, via Brian Beckham of WIPO and others, with only Jay Chapman of Digimedia (participating on behalf of the Business Constituency) as a voice for domain name owners. It is clear that the output of the working group reflects capture. Continue reading “Unbalanced ICANN Working Group Participation Harms Domain Name Owners” Author George KirikosPosted on October 20, 2021October 22, 2021Categories domain names, ICANNTags ICANN, UDRP IF ICANN CREATES AN ARBITRATION SYSTEM, IT COULD NOT BE LIMITED TO JUST DOMAIN NAME DISPUTES In a blog post last week, I sounded the alarm about a dangerous proposal from an ICANN working group which would have severe negative consequences for domain name owners, allowing IGOs (intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations) to engage in consequence-free reverse domain name hijacking. After additional research and contemplation, it’s actually even worse than I imagined, and not just for domain name owners. It could create a system whereby an ICANN-developed arbitration system would handle employment disputes, trademark cancellation disputes, environmental disputes, sexual misconduct disputes, defamation actions, whistle-blower retaliation cases, copyright cases, and any other potential court actions, as long as an element of the overall dispute related to domain names and alleged cybersquatting. Continue reading “If ICANN Creates An Arbitration System, It Could Not Be Limited To Just Domain Name Disputes” Author George KirikosPosted on October 19, 2021October 20, 2021Categories domain names, ICANNTags ICANN, UDRP AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ICANN BOARD REGARDING IGO PROTECTIONS Earlier this week, I sounded the alarm about a dangerous proposal from an ICANN working group which would have severe negative consequences for domain name owners, allowing IGOs (intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations) to engage in consequence-free reverse domain name hijacking. I noticed that the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN wrote a letter to the Board that was published earlier this week which is highly misleading as to the nature of IGOs’ rights, and wrote a letter to the ICANN Board in response. I’ve published it below to show how ICANN policymaking has been held hostage via misinformation from the GAC and IGOs. [Edited on October 15, 2021: I made 3 changes: (a) changed the date to October 15, (b) added a section on page 2 about Louis Touton’s similar analysis from 2001, which came to light after some Twitter discussions in the past day; (c) amended to note that they’ve not agreed to extend the deadline; it’s now a PDF] Letter to ICANN Author George KirikosPosted on October 14, 2021October 15, 2021Categories domain names, ICANN, UncategorizedTags ICANN, UDRP DUPLICITOUS ICANN WORKING GROUP JEOPARDIZES DOMAIN OWNERS’ RIGHTS A duplicitous ICANN Working Group has issued a report that is open for public comments that would have severe negative consequences for domain name owners. In particular, it would tilt the playing field in a domain name dispute (i.e. a UDRP or the URS) involving IGOs (intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations) in such a manner that it would be nearly impossible for domain owners to have their dispute decided on the merits by the courts. This would encourage consequence-free reverse domain name hijacking. Rather than accept the findings and recommendations of the prior working group, which reached a consensus, this new working group instead had tunnel vision and focused instead on ramming through an alternative recommendation (involving arbitration) for which there was an express consensus against in the prior working group! Continue reading “Duplicitous ICANN Working Group Jeopardizes Domain Owners’ Rights” Author George KirikosPosted on October 12, 2021October 12, 2021Categories domain names, ICANN, UncategorizedTags ICANN, UDRP NFT.COM DOMAIN NAME ACQUIRED FOR USD $2 MILLION According to a Canadian securities filing, the NFT.com domain name was acquired for USD $2 million. Continue reading “NFT.com domain name acquired for USD $2 million” Author George KirikosPosted on September 29, 2021Categories domain namesTags domain transactions POSTS NAVIGATION Page 1 Page 2 … Page 7 Next page Search for: Search PAGES * About Us * Contact Us * FAQ RECENT POSTS * Did Galaxy Digital acquire the Galaxy.com domain name for $1.8 million? * Forge.com domain name acquired for $2.2 million by Forge Global * I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good * ICANN Responds To My Open Letter Regarding IGO Protections * Final Call To Submit Comments to ICANN To Protect Domain Name Owners’ Rights RECENT COMMENTS ARCHIVES * January 2022 * December 2021 * October 2021 * September 2021 * August 2021 * July 2021 * June 2021 * May 2021 * April 2021 * October 2020 * August 2020 * July 2020 * June 2020 * May 2020 * April 2020 * March 2020 * February 2020 * December 2019 * November 2019 * October 2019 * August 2019 * May 2019 * April 2019 CATEGORIES * domain names * ICANN * Uncategorized LINKS META * Log in * Entries feed * Comments feed * WordPress.org * About Us * Contact Us * Twitter FreeSpeech.com Proudly powered by WordPress Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment. Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy