I have seen many complaints against ICANN over the years. This is a rather poor one that contains a number of errors or poor assumptions. Firstly there is the factual error that the $185,000 is not refundable; it is partially refundable depending on how far through the application you progress, anywhere from a 80% to 20% discount depending on when you pull out. Only applications that are successful are required to pay the final 20% to secure a contract with ICANN.
Also the ANA complains that it hasn't been listened to. This is obviously false; this process has been ongoing for more than 6 years. Anyone can attend ICANN meetings and become involved in policy making processes. A number of ANA members have been involved in the process for some time, their public comments have been received, they have been on IP working groups. This is all public record and can be found on the ICANN website. Issues with respect to various trademark and copyright issues have been debated multiple times, and almost every time trademark holders are not satisfied with protections that exceed those they normally have in the rest of the business / legal world. And when they don't get these egregious demands they complain that they haven't been listened to and try to hold up the process yet again.
Hopefully several years from now there will be greater competition in the market and 85% of the primary domain name market sales won't go to just one company; Verisign.
Disclaimer: I work for a company that intends to apply.
Also the ANA complains that it hasn't been listened to. This is obviously false; this process has been ongoing for more than 6 years. Anyone can attend ICANN meetings and become involved in policy making processes. A number of ANA members have been involved in the process for some time, their public comments have been received, they have been on IP working groups. This is all public record and can be found on the ICANN website. Issues with respect to various trademark and copyright issues have been debated multiple times, and almost every time trademark holders are not satisfied with protections that exceed those they normally have in the rest of the business / legal world. And when they don't get these egregious demands they complain that they haven't been listened to and try to hold up the process yet again.
Hopefully several years from now there will be greater competition in the market and 85% of the primary domain name market sales won't go to just one company; Verisign.
Disclaimer: I work for a company that intends to apply.