Privacy Breach Discovered In Internet Address Bids

Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:20:50 -0700

AP: Privacy Breach Discovered In Internet Address Bids via NNSquad http://j.mp/MvHLMa (AP / NPR)

"This spring, ICANN had to suspend access to its system for letting
bidders submit proposals after it discovered technical glitches that
exposed some private data. That took more than a month to fix and
restore. ICANN also goofed during Wednesday's announcement. It displayed
Arabic names left to right rather than right to left, as the language is
written. The latest breach provided more fodder for critics of ICANN and
the name expansion. Skeptics have questioned ICANN's ability to run the
program smoothly in the long run, given that technical problems have
cropped up early on. "If this weren't all so incredibly serious, one
could get quite a laugh over the concept of The Gang That Couldn't Shoot
Straight being in charge of this process," Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of
People For Internet Responsibility, said on his Privacy Forum mailing
list."

One might have hoped that a few hundred million dollars in gTLD application fees might have helped to enable at least basic technical competency. Obviously not.

!