The domain names ICANN Labs is using? — Who owns
ICANN Labs is rolling out experimental websites, but it isn’t the registrant of the domain names it’s using.
ICANN Labs is ICANN’s attempt to introduce innovation in four areas: discovery, conversation, communication, and education. ICANN has partnered with web developer/product designer Neo on the venture.
Regardless of whether this ends up being a fruitful venture, you can be sure that any domain names used for ICANN Labs will be registered with best practices.
Or maybe not.
Labs right now has two experimental products out there, each with their own web address. Apparently no one set up guidelines for how the domains ought to be registered.
It’s the classic web-design-firm-owns-the-domain case, but even worse. It’s more like the employees-own-the-domains. I sure hope ICANN doesn’t stiff Neo on its bills!
Let’s take a look at Peer Advising Network. This application will help people in the community advise others and find advisors. It sounds like it could be useful.
The Peer Advising Network is set up at ICANNPeerLearning.org. Let’s take a look at the whois for this domain to see how ICANN someone registered it:
The domain is registered to Timothy Lombardo, who’s listed as a product manager on ICANN Labs’ website. It’s not registered to ICANN or even Neo. I’ll give him kudos for registering the matching .com domain name, although it doesn’t have a “registrant organization” that would indicate ICANN or Neo is the owner..
I’ve blocked out the phone number and address, although you can look them up. Here’s why: both the address and phone number appear to be Lombardo’s personal ones.
Yikes!
At least he used his corporate email address.
The other site is ICANN Roundtable, hosted at ICANNRoundtable.org. Here’s the whois:
This domain is registered by Bruno Aguirre, who’s listed as a developer on the ICANN Labs team, and presumably works with Neo. But you can’t tell that from the domain name registration. Not only is it registered by Aguirre, but it appears the email address is Aguirre’s personal one. Neo lists a Uruguay office on its website, but it’s not the same address you’ll find on the whois for this domain. Aguirre also registered the matching .com, although it also has a blank field for “registrant organization”.
Am I being too harsh? Is it just a slight oversight? Maybe if the group behind the sites was someone other than ICANN.
Oh well, at least they didn’t use bogus information for the whois.
[Update: the domains have been updated to show ICANN as the registrant.]
