A posting today in the Official Google Blog discusses Google's participation in the ICANN gTLD expansion program.

It is signed by Vint Cerf, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts he was "drafted" into signing onto this corporate statement. It is very carefully worded, but still has the effect of implicitly endorsing ICANN's essentially extortionist TLD scheme. It is obvious that Google could not ignore this process, and needed to at least apply for TLDs that represent its various products, services, and trademarks.

Still, I believe this statement went too far into effectively endorsing a corrupt process, after ICANN's outgoing CEO himself declared that the ICANN board of directors was rife with relevant conflict of interests.

This situation is made all the more dangerous since ICANN's abusive behavior in these regards is a driving force pushing many countries to propose UN/ITU control of the Internet, which would be disastrous and that most technology leaders (including Google) have been wisely opposing.

My writings on the problems with ICANN's TLD approach and the need for alternatives go back many years, and can be found most easily through this search.

More later as appropriate.

--Lauren--