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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/l/FAQFQRXz_/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.centr.org%2Farticle%2Freputation"><span style="color:#3B5998;text-decoration:none">https://www.centr.org/article/reputation</span></a>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#555555">Reputation is an idle and most false imposition oft got without merit, and lost without
deserving. (*)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Created:
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Monday, March 25, 2013 - 10:45<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Author:
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Peter Van Roste<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Since a few weeks, ICANN’s CEO Fadi Chehadé has been travelling the world even more intensely than he did
before. Participation in APNIC, APTLD, IG meetings in Paris, CEO roundtables across the world…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">At every single one of those occasions he underlines that he is serious about his commitment to implement
much needed changes at ICANN. And he walks the talk.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">To turn ICANN into a truly international organisation he plans operational hubs across the regions and
relocation of his exec team. To improve end-user experience the registrants will benefit from a charter outlining their rights and obligations. To understand better the perception issues his organisation faces, the ICANN community will be asked for its opinion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The trigger for more than a few of these changes is a reputational study that ICANN commissioned with Echo
Research. The study isn’t publicly available yet and therefore this might seem like taking a blindfolded swing at a piñata.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">But it isn’t really.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Comments from Fadi and ICANN staff and information that was circulated by participants of the roundtables
give a pretty good idea of what to expect in Beijing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The study looked into the media reporting about ‘DNS industry as a whole’ and evaluated how favorable those
reports were. The study looked into the industry’s reputation across the different regions, the volume of the coverage and how that reputation changes – i.e. declines over time. And it also looked into the factors that drive that trend.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">So far for what is in the study. But what isn’t in it is equally important.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">What it doesn’t do – at least from the reports I received – is make a distinction between gTLDs and ccTLDs,
between registrars and registries, between policy and implementation, between ICANN and its thousand community members.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The image that results from it (“The Domain Name Industry has a bad reputation”) has been painted with
a very thick brush. And that doesn’t allow for much needed detail.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The comments made by Fadi and the reporting that followed (<a href="http://domainincite.com/11717-its-official-people-hate-the-domain-name-industry"><span style="color:#CB401D;text-decoration:none">http://domainincite.com/11717-its-official-people-hate-the-domain-name-industry</span></a>)
trigger questions and raise eyebrows in government (and other) offices around Europe.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">In particular as this doesn’t match with what studies on country code TLDs have been showing for the last
few years: registrants have in general a very positive opinion of their ccTLD and local registrars.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Actually, studies on the Dutch, Swedish and Italian (<a href="http://www.nic.it/everything-on.it/domini-.it-e-imprese"><span style="color:#CB401D;text-decoration:none">http://www.nic.it/everything-on.it/domini-.it-e-imprese</span></a>)
domains have shown exactly the opposite from the Echo Research findings. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">It is undoubtedly a positive thing that ICANN is serious about understanding the industry’s reputation,
fixing what is wrong and share the positive stories with the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">But messages should be delivered with caution and nuance otherwise they are bound to be counterproductive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">(UPDATE: Last week it emerged that ICANN commissioned an additional study which does look into the reputation
of ccTLDs. The results seem to be much better than the overall numbers. Where the overall study shows that 12% of the coverage of the industry qualifies as negative, this number would be as low as 3% in the ccTLD specific study. I am looking forward to a full
update on both studies at the ICANN meeting in Beijing.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">(*) Quote attributed to William Shakespeare, but the ‘oft’ probably gave that away already.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:navy">Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:navy">Virtualaw LLC</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:navy">Twitter: @VlawDC</span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:navy">"Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey</span></i></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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