ICANN Ombudsman Blog

I regularly receive complaints about cyber squatting. Sometimes this is because someone lets the domain name expire, often not through their own fault, and it is picked up by someone who then buys the domain. At this point the original owner will often complain to me, although unfortunately I do not have jurisdiction to help. What often follows is that when the original owner tries to buy the original name back, the new owner tries to get as much money as they can. In a number of cases, this has caused real hardship to the original owners, although that does not appear to be a concern of the new owner. I regard this as morally repugnant, but recognise that it is legal. As the ombudsman I find it frustrating that I cannot help, because it is an obvious example of unfairness, which I should be able to resolve. In private domestic law, if someone loses an item, then the finder does not acquire title. Obviously many domain names are effectively abandoned, when the original owners decide they will not renew them further, and leaving the name at large for any purchaser. I see nothing wrong with this.

Another form of cyber squatting is of course more well-known, where someone registers a well-known person’s name, or a company name as a domain name, even though they have no actual connection with that name. There has been a considerable amount of litigation about this, and of course the UDRP procedure developed by ICANN can be used to resolve such disputes through organisations such as WIPO. That is of course on a different scale, where it is necessary to protect a company name or trade mark or an individual name.

But a private individual or small business faced with the problem I refer to does not often have a unique name or a trademark, but will often have something which is of either personal value or value to them as a small business. In those cases they fall outside of the jurisdiction of WIPO and others. They are then caught by those who specialise in checking the drop lists from registrars to see if any potentially valuable names can be secured. The new owners then try to either park the names or sell to the old owner. Again this is quite legal under the rules. But again I raise the question as to the fairness of doing so, when it is not the fault of the original owner that they let the registration lapse.

There are also those who just gather names from the web and register names for sale. I have been offered names similar to mine, but declined. Others find that when they want to register a .com name that someone has already done so, and often will bid the price up if they see the person really wants the name. Sometimes though, they just park the name and do not use it. That is very frustrating for the potential user.

It is difficult to imagine what systems can be designed to prevent this, but some country registries have tougher policies, which of course do not apply to the generic top level domains. Australia has at .au Domain Administration (auDA). From Wikipedia “ auDA requires anyone registering a .com.au second-level domain to have a valid entitlement for that domain — i.e. a registered business name with an Australian Business Number (ABN) issued by the Australian Taxation Office. However, this has failed to protect Australia from such cybersquatting acts. Any Australian citizen over the age of 16 can obtain an ABN (which is free) and use it to register as few or as many domain names as they like but they need to have a “close and substantial” connection to the name or it needs to be an “exact match, abbreviation or acronym” of their name.” Other countries have similar policies.

In the end, I have little power to help those who are affected, but it is upsetting to see the unfairness which can result. Perhaps more debate is needed on the issue, as i am sure there some who hold very different views from me.

One of the sessions which I attended at Houston was on the academic study of bullying in the workplace. Bullying of course is wider than just a workplace issue, and regrettably the freedom of speech commonly found across the web has an unpleasant side-effect of bullying, which can be very difficult to control. Part of the job of an ombudsman is to intervene in bullying and to help those who are victims, but also ensure that those who inflict the bullying are aware of the harm they are doing. Mediation is not always the answer, because the difficulty in dealing with the disparity of power between the parties, and the real fear experienced by the victims make mediation an uncertain and possibly unsafe answer. I would like to say that there is a correct way of dealing with this but unfortunately the academic study, and my experience do not provide ready answers. A recent article in New Zealand Lawyer,  http://www.nzlawyermagazine.co.nz/CurrentIssue/Issue183/183F6/tabid/4253/Default.aspx identifies various types of bullying and techniques for dealing with this. I would hope that if anyone in the ICANN community feels that there has been bullying of any of the sorts described, or other methods, can contact me, knowing that their complaint will be confidential and treated impartially.

Since posting this, I read more in a local paper which underlines the need for protection-see this article on Cyber Bullying and a link to suicide http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10803980

My predecessor, Dr Frank Fowlie, has recently been appointed as the ombudsperson for The International Organisation for Migration. This is a most important international agency with many offices around the world and responsible for refugees and migration and settlement of refugees and migrants. Sometimes important appointments like this reflect on the good work in their previous assignment, and certainly in settling into this office, Frank’s assistance and mentoring have been invaluable to me. So my congratulations go to him and best wishes in his exciting new adventure.

This from the public forum, and thanks to Kieren McCarthy of . nxt for the posting:-

CHRIS LAHATTE: Hi. My name is Chris LaHatte. I’m the ICANN ombudsman. I’ve met a lot of you already. Like a previous speaker, I will need a translation but this time to New Zealand English, which is different from Australian English.
During the course of this forum I heard a lot of people express unhappiness about many different aspects of things that are happening. And I just wanted to now take the opportunity to remind people that the ombudsman is here. If you feel there has been some unfairness in the decisions that have been made and that if there is as much unhappiness as speakers seem to indicate, then there should be a line outside my office extending right through to this hallway.

But I think in reality, it’s not quite as extensive as that. But please, if you are upset by a decision that’s been made or you think it’s unfair, then do come and see me.
So I just should really call this a commercial break, and my door is always welcome to see any of you.

Thank you.

STEVE CROCKER: Thank you very much, Chris.

I have just attended the 7th Annual conference of the International Ombudsman Association in Houston, Texas. This is an organisation mainly for organisational ombudsman, or as many prefer to say ombuds, being perceived as gender neutral. The conference ran for three days and has about 300 attendees who come from primarily the United States. Because of the emphasis on organisational ombudsman, most of the attendees are from within corporate organisations and typically universities. There were a few international attendees, and a good contingent from the United Nations.

The first day opened with an address from an international authority, Professor David Yamada, who teaches on the subject of bullying and has written many articles and books on the academic study of bullying. Although this applies primarily to organisational ombudsman, he emphasised the role of the ombudsman in dealing with such behaviour. It is not one of the major sources of complaints to my office, although it is quite possible that groups may feel that actions taken by others do constitute bullying.  But as an academic application of the use of ombudsman techniques he gave a thoughtful and useful presentation. His address is at http://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/workplace-bullying-and-the-ombudsman/

The next session was a discussion on the role of the Association. There is a tension between its role seen as primarily for organisational ombudsman and whether it truly can be called an international organisation, particularly reflecting on the small numbers of overseas members and attendees at the conference. There does seem to be a fairly common view that the association should primarily be for  organisational ombudsman, but an equal number appeared to want to be more inclusive. In the previous year a motion to have classes of membership was defeated, and the board of the Association is continuing to consider appropriate ways to encourage membership but also to balance the classes of members and potential members.

Following the session I attended a number of smaller sessions on issues such as understanding cultural patterns across conflict styles, and increasing the utilisation of ombuds offices across global or multisite operations. This last session is of particular interest to the ICANN ombudsman because of our global reach. There was much to think about.

The keynote address on Tuesday was from Michael Dues on the ombudsman’s role in advancing the organisation towards Better Conflict Management. He was formerly an academic in the area of conflict management, and also an ombudsman. Despite an attempt to retire, he is still studying and lecturing on the role of an ombudsman and conflict management, and reflected on the role within the University. He reminded us of the need to maintain collected wisdom from such experienced ombudsman, who can use the academic knowledge and practical application of skills in such an impressive fashion.

The afternoon sessions on Tuesday included a session on the different sectors including international ombudsman. I attended the session to listen to the discourse and stories from colleagues in many varied roles.

Wednesday had two very impressive speakers. The first of these speakers was Sherry Williams from Halliburton. Her background is of a lawyer practising in the employment relations area and then moving to the role of Compliance Officer with Halliburton. She is a strong advocate for the role of an ombudsman in a large multinational company particularly in relation to some of the more difficult problems experienced by her company in the past. She was quite open about the substantial fines incurred by her company for unethical behaviour, but identified the substantial changes made to ethical guidelines and compliance which have greatly reduced problems across the board at Halliburton. Another good example is the greatly decreased costs of employee litigation which she identifies as a key indicator of success, especially in the eyes of senior management.

The second impressive speaker was Johnston Barkat who is an Assistant Director General at the United Nations where he is in charge of their ombudsman and mediator teams. He began by telling us about 2 current areas where their teams are working, Sudan and the Middle East. He shared the story about an Israeli teacher who became distressed at the rhetoric about war between Israel and Iran, and started a Facebook page where he reached out to the Iranians and sent a message that he did not want war and that he loved Iran. The posts have gone viral and shared by Iranians who have started their own Facebook pages with the same message. So in the middle of all of the sabre rattling people are reaching out to each other for peace. Johnston then developed this to a challenge for ombudsmen to reach out and start their own initiatives within their own practice. He argued that we must reach out rather than be proactive in our search for fairness. Altogether this was inspiring and something of a wake up call.

The afternoon brought an introduction to the Culture Bump programme.  This can be seen in full at http://culturebump.com/index.php but is a programme to educate people about cultural differences. At ICANN we have the world talking to us and awareness of different cultural responses is critical to our communication. I hope to introduce this in some fashion, and will consider how to do so.

In between the sessions I met many wonderful colleagues-you know who you are! The networks of friends and colleagues will be of huge advantage for peer support and understanding. All in all this was a most successful conference.

I recently bought the third edition of Judge David Harvey’s text on New Zealand Internet law. It might be thought that such a text is too narrow in the context of an international office such as the ICANN ombudsman, but in fact there is much covered which is international in scope. Without wanting to say that New Zealand is a pioneer in the use of the Internet, it is fair to say that New Zealanders have been heavily involved in Internet issues from very early days and contributed very substantially to development of policy and law in this area. Judge Harvey lectures at the University of Auckland Law School on the topic of IT law, no doubt something of a contrast to the diet of crime which he oversees at the Manukau District Court in South Auckland. He developed the text of the purpose of this course, and has now reached the third edition. He somewhat modestly says that the text covers selected issues, although my study of it shows a somewhat more comprehensive cover, both of immense value to New Zealand lawyers and to international practitioners as well.

He begins by discussing online information and research together with a discussion of evaluation of the value of online materials, issues in relation to freedom of access to legal resources and importantly discusses how to authenticate and evaluate online material. He then goes on to consider the thorny question of jurisdiction, with a useful analysis of the international jurisprudence and the approach taken by United States, Canadian and New Zealand courts.

Perhaps of direct relevance to me this is discussion of Internet governance and the role of ICANN. I suspect due to limitations of space, the role of the ombudsman has only a cursory mention in a diagram. In addition the unique multi-stakeholder structure supporting ICANN is only briefly discussed. In my view the structure would be a valuable addition to the first part where he discusses Internet governance, because the evolving structure of ICANN and supporting bodies is a real live demonstration of a working model of Internet governance. And perhaps because of further limitations of space, institutions such as the IGF –( Internet Governance Forum) and the role of the Internet Society (ISOC) and the ITU are not covered in any detail at all. This is a pity because the opening part of the chapter has a fascinating discussion of the theoretical approaches and the diverse political opinions ranging from the libertarian to the strict control theories. Application of those theories to what is happening in all of the Internet governance bodies would be, I suspect, the subject of a text on its own merits.

Judge Harvey discusses criminal law in the context of computer crime, mostly with a New Zealand emphasis but of course the issues are again international in concept. He does discuss some of the international law, which is unavoidable in the subject. Again, I suspect due to lack of space, issues such as the use of bot nets and phishing, which have complex jurisdictional problems in enforcement, are not discussed. Those forms of international computer crime do reach New Zealand, but are very difficult to prosecute because the offenders are seldom in New Zealand. This is no different from most other countries in the world, where such offending occurs, because of the difficulties of penetrating the anonymity under which these crimes are committed.

A very useful chapter discusses online business relationships. Some might say that the existing law of contract and agency substantially covers this area, but Judge Harvey identifies some important international conventions such as The United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce and the important influence of the United States legal developments on formation of contracts through issues such as shrinkwrap. This chapter is followed by an equally useful discussion of copyright, perhaps being brought home to New Zealand with the attempted extradition of Kim Dotcom, presently a resident of New Zealand until the FBI persuade a New Zealand judge otherwise.

In this discussion of the text I have omitted some of the other useful chapters, not because they are less important, but are perhaps more relevant to indigenous New Zealand law. The analysis and discussion would be of interest to any international IT lawyer however.

The scholarship and analysis on this text are a little unusual, in that he takes the trouble to consider and describe the theory behind the legal principles. Many texts leave this for more academic studies, which makes his discussion valuable to the academic, as well as the practitioner. This significantly adds value to the discussion, particularly in a field where the whole concept of the Internet is still only under 20 years old, and the application of the enormous body of older jurisdiction to such a radical change in the way in which we deliver information does require such an analysis. Just as an example, any lawyer would immediately understand a concept such as offer and acceptance, but unless they are particularly adept at IT skills, may not have any concept of the way in which delivery of an offer or acceptance can be radically changed through use of the Internet.

The text may be bought from LexisNexis in New Zealand and overseas but not through Amazon and because the publishers are not as up to date as their author, it cannot be bought as an e-book, which is a pity.  But even in book form I recommend this text to any IT lawyer.

Office of the Ombudsman

Case 12-00052

In a matter of a Complaint About Inappropriate Advertising

Report dated              8^th April 2012

Introduction

This investigation stemmed from a complaint made by a person attending the ICANN 43 Meeting at Costa Rica. While the names of the parties have been widely circulated, I do not think it is necessary to add them to this report.

Facts

The essence of the complaint is that a display prepared for the Prague ICANN meeting 44 used a postcard sized picture as part of a display in a way which was offensive to women. The display kiosk was a light-hearted approach to advertise the forthcoming meeting, and asked passers-by to select a number of options for what they wanted to see in Prague. People were invited to choose a number of options including culture, museums, food, beer and one card which said “girls”. All of the postcards had stylised drawings. The object of the cards was to assess in a light-hearted way, what participants in the meeting wanted to see at Prague.

Investigation

The investigation began because I was approached by a person who was seriously offended by the objectification of women which he had observed at the kiosk. The investigation therefore was relatively simple because I went to the kiosk and obtained a copy of the postcard.

Issues

The issue which I was required to investigate was whether the postcard and the use were offensive because of the presentation of “girls” as somehow being available as a commodity, and what should be done about the display.

Jurisdiction

This is a matter where I have jurisdiction to consider the complaint and specifically the issue of unfairness. Article V of the ICANN Bylaws state in Section 2 that “The Ombudsman shall serve as an objective advocate for fairness, and shall seek to evaluate and where possible resolve complaints about unfair or inappropriate treatment by ICANN staff, the Board, or ICANN constituent bodies, clarifying the issues and using conflict resolution tools such as negotiation, facilitation, and “shuttle diplomacy” to achieve these results.” And from the standards of expected behavior[1] “Those who take part in ICANN multi-stakeholder process including Board, staff and all those involved in Supporting Organization and Advisory Committee councils undertake to: (among other matters) Treat all members of the ICANN community equally, irrespective of nationality, gender, racial or ethnic origin, religion or beliefs, disability, age, or sexual orientation; members of the ICANN community should treat each other with civility both face to face and online.” The result is that the Ombudsman is the appropriate person to investigate these matters.

Facts

The complainant says the use of the postcard was demeaning to women and an unnecessary objectification of them.

Resolution

As it turned out, when I received the complaint, I approached the organisers who were operating the kiosk and explained why the use of the postcard was thought inappropriate by the complainant. After some discussion, they understood the way in which this was seen, from another perspective, and quickly agreed to remove the postcards as an option in the kiosk display. What they saw as a light-hearted tribute to attractive woman in the Czech Republic, they then were able to see as offensive to others. Because they were so ready to perceive and accept the alternative view, it was not necessary to take any further action. I reported to the complainant and closed the file, as no action was required.

Chris LaHatte

Ombudsman

Office of the Ombudsman

Case 12-00005

In a matter of a Complaint by NW

Report dated              8^th March 2012

Introduction

This investigation stemmed from a complaint made by NW about the lack of publicity for the new gTLD program, in particular for him, as someone who resides in A, in the country B, but more widely as well.

Facts

The essence of the complaint is that (as quoted to me in the complaint, with names deleted):-

“Please investigate the issue of unfairness in ICANN’s global outreach program. Some countries like B and S were not approached by ICANN as the same level ICANN did in England for example. ICANN is doing remarkable work and taking a huge under taking with the new gtld program, the geo tlds can have a real impact on some of our cities in terms of tourism and e commerce that have been valued in the 100s of millions of dollars in some cases a year.  Cities like A are being put at a competitive disadvantage having to come to this process very late. please study this issue and if you find this to be true , please ask ICANN board to grant extension of the application window of 3 to 6 months so some people can complete the work” and further

“Icann never communicated with the (local person) clients or cities or had any media outreach. honestly, i suggest icann should issue press released in the (geographical location) and other places where is effort is not visible and give people time. One thing, i need to congratulate icann on the huge effort and work on the gtld program, but you said fairness is key. so a 3 month extention to allow someone interested to finish his work is fair even if a (local person) was there with you and did a bad job.”

Investigation

To undertake this investigation I have looked at the ICANN publicity campaign, and examined the plans, outreach and reports on outreach for the program. I have also investigated and discussed the aims of the program. In particular, I have looked at the campaign in so far as B is concerned and the likelihood that sufficient notice of the program would have reached B. I have been provided with the relevant documents from the Communication Team as requested by me.

Issues

The issue which I am required to investigate is whether the new gTLD program was unfair because no outreach was held in or near B.

Jurisdiction

This is a matter where I clearly have jurisdiction to consider the complaint under the bylaws and in particular Section 3(2), and under the Ombudsman framework as approved by the Board of Directors[1], as this is a matter relating to decisions, actions, or inactions by the Board and Staff of ICANN. Specifically the issue of unfairness in the outreach affects ICANN and supporting organisations

Facts

The complainant says that the publicity campaign was not adequate because he did not become aware of the window to apply for new GTLDs. The concept of new GTLDs has been discussed over a number of years at ICANN meetings and through supporting organisation meetings. After the initial GLDs were set up, a few more were added, most notably being the very recent .xxx TLD. The current round was finally confirmed at the June 2011 ICANN 41 meeting in Singapore. The board decision to proceed was based on a considerable amount of discussion throughout the ICANN community, and was widely discussed at Singapore. The decision itself was covered on mainstream media such as CNN, BBC and other international news media.

This was followed by a campaign put into place by the ICANN communications team. It is important to note that the stated purpose of the ICANN communication team was not to solicit applications, but to communicate that ICANN had put into place a process for making applications.

The campaign has been outlined in a number of reports to the ICANN board, which have explained the basis of the publicity campaign and also recorded metrics for measurement of the impact of the campaign. In particular, there is a report “Initial report on new gTLD communications program” which outlines what has been done and the measurements.

Specifically there has been outreach to the (geographical location)[2], and the materials have been published in multiple languages.

Reasoning

The complainant’s issue is that because he did not become aware of the campaign that the campaign was inadequate. I note however that his complaint was made before the application window opened, and that the window for making the applications closes on 29 March 2012. It is also well known that many of the leading players in this area have offered services to potential applicants and are making multiple applications for their customers.

In the course of this investigation I read as much as I could find about the new gTLD program and the history and development. The ICANN gTLD[3] site is valuable for that purpose, although I have also looked at News Media reports as being outside of and independent of ICANN[4]. I have also specifically requested the material produced by the ICANN communications team for the purpose of publicity, which included plans, reports to the ICANN board and measurement of the impact. I have extracted part of that history, as it is a valuable reminder that the program has had a very long gestation.

It is important to note that the particular country where the complaint stems from, has a member appointed to the GAC and who presumably would be aware of the new gTLD program from the GAC communications. It is of course not the function of GAC to provide such publicity, but I am aware from the material which I have read, that GAC has taken a role in the program and in particular was interested in the use of country names and geographical names. That is important because this complaint was that the campaign was insufficient to let the complainant to know within sufficient time to apply for the city name which is the capital of the country where he resides.

Part of the problem may be that the GAC representative from this country appears not to have been active. Again however, I emphasise that it was not his function to publicise the program in his country.

It would not have been possible for ICANN representatives to travel to every country around the world to present the program. There has in fact been criticism from some quarters about the extent of the travel saying that it was excessive. Indeed the very basis of a company based on the Internet, is that online publicity would appear to be appropriate in any event.

Specifically I note that the program has been in development for many years. The whole decision took some years and was thoroughly discussed and debated. There were very strong advocates both for and against the program, and reading through the various websites which provide a contemporary commentary on ICANN, often in a robust fashion, the program is certainly controversial in the eyes of some. It seems logical therefore that anyone who had an interest in the domain name industry, would have been aware of the possibility that the program would come into force, and certainly the ICANN meeting in Singapore in June 2011 received international news coverage.

One matter which did trouble me was the possibility that information about the program could have been caught up in media censorship in B. The International Organisation, Reporters without Frontiers,[5] does express concern about press censorship in B. It is difficult for me to determine whether this would have affected publicity about the program. It is equally difficult for ICANN to become involved in an issue such as this in the context of a publicity campaign. But the fact of the matter is that the complainant had become aware of the program.

Result

As a result of this investigation, I consider that there are a number of matters which are clear. The long period of time during which the concept of new gTLDs was discussed before approved, and the subsequent publicity campaign undertaken by ICANN, make it clear that ICANN has undertaken a thorough and professional approach to the publicity campaign. The metrics support the very wide reach of the campaign. The issue is whether the publicity campaign for the program was unfair to the complainant. His complaint is specifically that the publicity did not reach him in B and that this was unreasonable, and therefore unfair. The outreach which I have cited, and the report made to the board on the effectiveness of the campaign [6] make it clear that the campaign was thorough and adequate having regard to the resources available. It is unlikely that he was not aware of the campaign especially if he has an interest in Domain Name issues. His first contact was made before the window for applications opened. Since there are a number of players who have extensively advertised their ability to help applicants, this is not something he would have had to stuggle with on his own. It is my determination that the campaign was indeed adequate, and that the complainant has had the ability to apply, and can still apply, and that there was therefore no unfairness. I therefore do not uphold his complaint.

The complainant also sought an extension of the program. I have no jurisdiction over this aspect, and if I considered this was an issue with fairness, then all I could do, would be to recommend such an extension. Because I find that the publicity campaign was adequate, then it is not necessary to consider whether I should make such a recommendation.

Chris LaHatte

Ombudsman

Appendix 1

History of new gTLDs

This is an extract from the ICANN Site

In 2005, ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) began a policy development process to consider the introduction of new gTLDs, based on the results of trial rounds conducted in 2000 and 2003. The GNSO is the main policy-making body for generic top-level domains, and encourages global participation in the technical management of the Internet.

The two-year policy development process included detailed and lengthy consultations with the many constituencies of ICANN’s global Internet community, including governments, civil society, business and intellectual property stakeholders, and technologists.

In 2008, the ICANN Board adopted 19 specific GNSO policy recommendations for implementing new gTLDs, with certain allocation criteria and contractual conditions.

After approval of the policy, ICANN undertook an open, inclusive, and transparent implementation process to address stakeholder concerns, such as the protection of intellectual property and community interests, consumer protection, and DNS stability. This work included public consultations, review, and input on multiple draft versions of the Applicant Guidebook.

I had intended to keep a regular entry to my blog, but unfortunately there has been a software bug and so, on Sunday following the meeting I will highlight the main events.

Sunday was for meeting the new participants at ICANN at the Newcomers session, where I presented the Ombudsman 101 presentation. It is important for all ICANN supporting people to be aware of my role, from an early stage in their participation. I have Filiz Yilmaz to thank for this introduction, as she works tirelessly with the newcomers, to make them welcome and help them grow to understand the strange entity which is ICANN.

I set up my office and was able to start seeing visitors and customers from Monday morning on. One of the first was a visitor to complain about the postcard on the Prague stand for ICANN 44. This displayed “Girls” as an option for things to do in Prague. I went down to have a chat with the organisers and they very quickly removed the cards. Although I did not discuss this with anyone, the news spread very fast indeed, and became the subject of several different blogs such as Cooled Timber at  http://crookedtimber.org/2012/03/14/sisters-under-the-skin/ and mentioned in Kevin Murphy’s page at http://domainincite.com/hot-girls-land-cz-nic-in-hot-water/

So the problem was fixed quickly although the debate went on for some time after. Perhaps not something I would encounter, but I have learned that we cannot take things like this lightly and that the depth of feelings run deep on this type of unfairness.

So the rest of Costa Rica 43 then took some interesting twists. There was a considerable discussion about the conflict of interest issues and the new procedure and panels set up to establish new guidelines. I also put out a challenge to participants, that if they felt so deeply then they should be making a complaint to my office. I will also ensure that I have input into such policies, to ensure the ideals of fairness in my Framework, are met.

I also spoke at the GAC and made it known that there are many complaints made to my office that i cannot help. I raised the issue of whether there is some unfairness resulting, in that ICANN does not have the power to help the very many instances of unfair play in the domain industry. Perhaps there will more on this issue!

There was then a need for a mediation between some groups which needed my help. I think progress was made on the issue after a useful meeting on Friday. Again, this is a work in progress.

Overall, this appeared to be a positive meeting, and the beautiful surroundings certainly helped. A tribute again to the tireless ICANN staff who organised this meeting, again with high efficiency, grace and patience. Well done!

Well, here I am in the tropical wonderland of Costa Rica. My Ombudsman Office is getting freshly painted for me to start work, and already the air is humming with the newcomers and the regulars registering and filling the air ideas and enthusiasm. There are some big issues to be debated, and perhaps some calls on my office for when there some sticking points. I hope the warm air and sunshine help to put people in a good frame of mind for peaceful discussions however.

My hotel room looks out over a building which looks like a monastery, with a very Spanish style, terracotta tiles on the roof and a tower.  It is in fact the hotel spa, perhaps the 21st century equivalent, as certainly people go there for relaxation and healing. The Ombudsman needs to go there however for the more mundane purpose of the constant battle of an expanding waist, and the treadmill. Not perhaps so spiritual but, in my own way limbering up for the week ahead.

To those at Costa Rica my office will be open I think (depending on the painter) some time on Sunday so you are welcome to visit.