Things That Just Piss Me Off

I advise clients on getting their new web business started and how to improve their existing web business. ICANN, (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is in charge of the Domain Name System makes my job more difficult and makes it more difficult for the businesses I work with to be successful.

They hurt all new businessess and existing businesses by creating a false shortage of commerically viable domain names.

When I have to use ccTLDs for clients to get them a relevant domain name rather than having dot coms available for them then I know that there is a serious problem. The problem is created by ICANN in more ways than one.

1. Domain tasting is holding thousands, if not millions of domain names off the market and unavailable for clients to register. ICANN could solve this by eliminating the AGP, (the 5 day grace period in which anyone can return a domain name to the registrar without having to pay for it), but ICANN chooses not to solve the problem.

This is collusion with the domain tasting and domain kiting industry. And yes it is an industry. Companies are in the “business” of domain kiting and domain tasting. This is not a few speculators using a loophole in the system. This is a business that is being helped by registrars, registries and ultimately ICANN.

Part of it is actually illegal when tasters and kiters are registering trademarked names. That ICANN, registrars and registries are facilitating this illegal activity may not be provable as racketeering, but it is.

Again, it is not likely to result in racketeering charges because the facilitation would be difficult to prove, but everyone knows that there are registries and registrars who profit from this and that want it to continue and ICANN does not wish to stop the practice even though it is their job to do so.

2. Limiting the number of TLDs that are created. ICANN helps registrars like Network Solutions to create a false shortage of domain names by not approving more TLDs. They say that internet stability could be compromised by the creation of more TLDs which is total BS. The creation of more TLDs will in no way threaten the stability of the Internet. This has been proven.

ICANN has purposely complicated the process of someone managing a new TLD to make sure that Verisign, NetSol and others continue to maintain this false shortage of domain names.

ICANN wants to approve your business plan before alloowing you to create a new TLD. It is none of ICANN’s business what my business plan is for the new TLD I want to create no more than it is the city’s business why I want a business license. The city does not ask me for my business plan. I pay the fee and they give me the license.

Why? Free enterprise. I can implement any business plan I want. I not only have the freedom to succeed at business, I also have the freedom to fail. ICANN’s staff or BoD is not qualified to speculate about my business plan and whether it is viable or not. They have no crystal ball.

Furthermore, I believe that since approving the business plan is part of the process, if one of these companies managing a TLD does fail, ICANN is liable right along with them because they approved the business plan.

ICANN threatens the stability of the Internet by making the organization that is supposed to be focused on running the DNS liable by making themselves appear to be business experts and approving or disapproving business plans.

ICANN wants to review your financial records before letting you manage a new TLD. It is not ICANN’s job to review my financial capablities before granting me a TLD to manage. They are not business finance experts and ICANN is not in the business of advising on such matters.

Again, ICANN is there to manage the DNS, not to be a financial advisor or a consumer protection agency. They should be focused on making sure that enough domain names, viable domain names, are available to users who want one.

What about Free Enterprise and Free Trade? This practice of not allowing more TLDs to be created is anti-competitve.

ICANN has helped to ensure that Verisign and others do not have more competition which is in DIRECT violation of their bylaws and mission statement. By keeping this false shortage alive they ensure these companies no viable competition will make it into the marketplace.

They know they can approve a few like dot aero, dot museum and dot mobi and appear to be creating new TLDs when they also know these are not TLDs that will ever compete with dot com for commercial use.

They refuse to consider commercially viable TLDs like dot lawyer, dot medical, dot cpa, dot cars, etc. because they know that many businesses would much prefer these TLDs over dot com. And if ICANN is ever pushed to create these, they will attempt to find a way to give them to the same companies that already manage dot com, net, org, biz, etc., again assuring these companies they will have no competition.

ICANN violates free trade and the tenets of Free Enterprise by refusing to allow me or anyone else to manage a TLD. It is not their right to tell me I cannot start a new TLD in the main root.

It is only their right to be sure that I am technically capable of doing so. Give me dot lawyer and I can go to a bank and get the financing once assured I have the contract to manage that TLD, so they have no need to review my finances beforehand.

As far as business plan, I could have a business plan to give the domain names away and make no money from them at all. That may still be a viable business plan for me. They do not have the right to determine whether THEY think my business plan is viable or not.

When you couple the fact that ICANN purposely holds up the creation of new commercially viable TLDs with the fact that they also facilitate domain tasting and domain kiting that further the false shortage of domain names, even in the TLDs that do exist, then you get the picture of what ICANN is truly doing here.

LOL. I love it. Hillary Clinton is always trying to make it appear as if she has real experience and doesn’t mind embellishing or making it up either.

Hillary Clinton has finally admitted that she “misspoke” when claiming that she came “under sniper fire” in Bosnia during a March 1996 visit to U.S. troops enforcing the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. At first, the Clinton campaign maintained that the “misstatement” was limited to one occasion on March 17 when she talked about running across the tarmac “with our heads down.” In an interview yesterday with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the senator from New York attributed the mistake to her “sleep-deprived” condition.

Misspoke. LOL. Lied.

A review of the record shows that she provided embellished stories of her visit to Bosnia on at least two previous occasions, while campaigning in Iowa in December and in Texas in February.

Ooops! You mean they record that stuff?

After CBS News video showed what really happened when she landed and greeted officials, Senator Clinton maintained there were risks but explained to the Philadelphia Daily News why she was seen on the Bosnia tarmac greeting a young child if it was really so dangerous.

“I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this eight-year-old girl and I said, ‘Well, I, I can’t, I can’t rush by her, I’ve got to at least greet her,” Clinton said. “So I greeted her, I took her stuff and I left. Now that’s my memory of it.”

Aww, so sweet that she remembers stopping on the tarmac just for a minute to greet a little girl while she was under sniper fire!

Once again her memory doesn’t match CBS News videotape, Attkisson reports. She and her daughter Chelsea lingered on the tarmac to greet U.S. military officials, took photos, and then walked to the armored vehicle where she did, eventually, duck and enter…. - CBS News

OOPS! Damn don’t you just hate it when you are proven once again to be lying about your actual experience Hillary? But after all, you are Hillary Clinton. Who are these people to dispute what you say even if they have proof.

Your insurance company can cancel your policy at any time. They don’t even need a reason. Thyey may give you some bs reason just to hide what they are really doing, but it is you who gets the shaft.

In insurance, rescission is the termination of a contract from the beginning (as if it never existed). The insurer has the right to rescind a policy due to concealment, material misrepresentation, or material breach of warranty.

That can be anything at all that was omitted from your application, even if it’s an ommission that was not asked for by the person who sold you the insurance policy. Their lawyers have all kinds of ways to rescind your contract and they can get away with it by law.

So let’s say that an insurance company has statistics that prove that most people do not make a claim on a specific thing until about 10 years into the policy.

They can start finding ways to rescind all 98 year old policies or as many as possible, knowing that during those first 9 years they collect a lot more than they pay out. Also knowing that they do not make as much after that 10 years.

So, you as a consumer pays into that policy for 9 years faithfully, then they drop you. They got their money. Now you are on your own.

Insurance companies are all about theiur bottom line and are not here to help you. Anyone that has had to file a claim and learned how the insurance companies try to deny or hold up payment of the claim knows this.

It is way past time for insurance reform in this country. Insurance companies are no longer the beneficial giants that help us in a crisis. They are mega corporations only concerned with how much money they can make and how they can profit from fear and misery.

Blue Cross Blue Shield wants you to believe they are going to stop doing this;

Blue Cross of California Responds to Recent Media Coverage of Rescission

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif., Feb 23, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ — Blue Cross of California is committed to being the industry leader when it comes to protecting those seeking health insurance. That’s why in September of 2006, Blue Cross was the first health care insurer in California to implement a series of steps to strengthen and make more transparent our process for rescinding policies in order to further minimize the possibility of errors.

These initiatives included:
— Creating a new simplified application for individual benefits policies
— Revising policies to clarify the initial underwriting process
— Forming a new committee structure for the rescission review process
— Adding dedicated liaisons for members undergoing retrospective review
or who have had their policies rescinded
— Revising documentation to improve the accuracy and consistency of
review processes
— Enhancing training programs for the underwriting and the retrospective
review processIn addition to these steps, for the past several weeks Blue Cross has been in the process of developing an outside third-party review process for all rescission cases. This means an independent, outside agent will help us validate whether rescission of a member’s benefits is warranted. Blue Cross will be bound by the decision of the third-party reviewer. As the market leader in California, this practice is intended to further our efforts to protect all health care consumers.

Rescission, a tool designed to protect the system from abuse, affects a very small percentage of new enrollments — roughly one-half of one-percent out of 300,000 new applicants a year. Blue Cross takes the issue of rescission very seriously, and we are leading the industry in working with legislators, regulators, providers and our members to help improve the access to health care for all Californians.

Leslie Margolin

President

Blue Cross of California

SOURCE Blue Cross of California

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