I'm kind of surprised the Clintons didn't think of this (assuming they didn't . . . maybe they're getting a cut). You might recall that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, has been under the control of the U.S. government since its founding. That appears soon to change, of course, since Barack Obama is not interested in U.S. leadership of anythng. And since ICANN anticipates being set loose to run wild without U.S. supervision, it's already getting interesting ideas for how to take advantage.
This "nonprofit" gets a cut whenever someone registers a domain name. But since you can do that for as little as $9.99 for the first year, those cuts can be pretty paltry. Wait! What if you could get people to pay thousands of dollars by threatening to release a domain name that would allow others to humiliate them on a daily basis? It would be like a protection racket! ICANN could shake down people in the public eye for much more money without really doing anything!
And thus was born the .sucks domain extension. It's actually a Canadian company called Vox Populi that came up with this idea, and ICANN is feigning concern. But when you actually look at what they're doing, it's clear that ICANN sees dollar signs just as much as Vox Populi does. Some pretty high-profile people have apparently coughed up the cash already, and it wasn't cheap. L. Gordon Crovitz explains in the Wall Street Journal:
The .sucks domain was one of hundreds of new top-level domains Icann added beyond the original .com, .org and .gov. Icann, organized as a nonprofit, collects a fee each time it approves a new top-level domain and gets a cut of the registration charge for individual domain names. The corporation’s total take so far from the new domains is more than $300 million.
The Intellectual Property Constituency, an Icann stakeholder group, calls the .sucks domain “predatory, exploitative and coercive.” Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte says trademark holders are “being shaken down”—compelled to buy new addresses defensively to prevent their use.
Apple bought applestore.sucks. Gmail, Sam’s Club, Uber and Yahoo registered .sucks addresses, as did celebrities including Taylor Swift and Kevin Spacey. The standard price: $2,499, versus $10 for unclaimed .com addresses.
Mr. Goodlatte says the approval of .sucks “demonstrates the absurdity and futility of Icann’s own enforcement processes.” Instead of policing itself, Icann asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into whether the .sucks domain is abusive. Philip Corwin, a lawyer for the Internet Commerce Association, wrote on the CircleID website: “This is the equivalent of sending a message stating: ‘Dear Regulator: We have lit a fuse. Can you please tell us whether it is connected to a bomb?’ ”
So let's think about this. Clearly some people don't like us because Herman is a conservative, or because they think Herman is rich, or because they can't stand black Republicans, or because they think Rob and I are idiots, or because in the case of certain dictators we make fun of their bowl cuts . . . so they might be motivated to buy the HermanCain.sucks domain and start a web site that rips on us. Oh dear, how horrid. Should we buy up HermanCain.sucks to prevent this from happening?
I think not. If anyone is stupid enough to spend that kind of money just to rip on another human being, I'd say the resulting lightness in their pockets is well deserved. And we have no interest in rewarding ICANN for its shakedown scheme. If you think we suck, you can tell us that in our comment section for free, or you can spend two-and-a-half large and do your thing. And if you do that, then I guess everyone can decide for themselves who the idiot is.
