It’s irritated me for ages that whenever you see a reference to ICANN in the British press, it’s always called ‘Icann’. This gets right up my nose, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. The practice of denying us our God-given capital letters just seems a bit cheeky. And I could never understand the logic.
But Seth Finkelstein has solved the mystery. He has written a couple of pieces on ICANN-related issues for the Guardian*, and asked their copy editor why they changed his ICANN to Icann. The Guardian newspaper’s style guide says:
“Use all caps only if the abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters; otherwise spell the word out: the BBC, ICI, VAT, but Isa, Nato.”
Case closed. Except…
… except, I still think it looks funny, and wonder if we should have a style guide of our own. For example, the Guardian always says ‘internet’ instead of ‘Internet’. Now, ‘internet’ would be fine if they were talking about when you and your mates plug a few networks together into a finite little loop. But they’re not, they mean the global internet, the internet of internets, the ur-internet, the motherlode of all things internet; the Internet, in fact.
‘E-mail’ is another one. As far as I remember, the Economist style guide still recommends hyphenating the word. But if they want to be consistent, they should call a pram a perambulator, and a bus an omnibus, since that’s what we called them when they were invented in the nineteenth century. Maybe we called email ‘e-mail’ back in the twentieth century. But today it’s ‘email’, plain and simple.
Since ICANN is forever being accused of mission creep, perhaps the community should embrace this and create a proper Internet style guide to set the Luddites straight.
* Seth’s recent Guardian piece is here, and we got talking about a piece on new gTLDs I wrote here.
{ 19 comments }
Kieren McCarthy 08.23.07 at 3:29 am
You’ve hit a rich seam here Maria. In fact, we (ICANN) have been piecing together a style guide in between other work for a few months. But as far as I am aware we have yet to have the arguments that you outline above and which you need to have to get “buy-in”.
I feel strongly about upper-case “Internet” and also strongly about unhyphenated “email” for the same reasons you give. But what about ICANN or Icann.
Instinctively, it is “ICANN”. But then many of the (wrong) arguments made when it comes to style writing issues are because they argue for what they are used to, not because it is logical or coherent. A rule that if you can pronounce it, it should be lower-case is a good one, for no reason other than the fact that the massive over-acronymising (not a word) of the modern world risks making text unreadable.
The fact is that many acronyms are now chosen to be pronounceable first, and then the full title is jiggled about underneath. This rule recognises that reality. And if you have a style rule, you have to apply it otherwise it’s worthless.
But I have to say on this occasion I disagree with the Guardian style guide (not the first time – I have done a lot of work for the newspaper over the years and occasionally found its style irritating). I tend to defer to the Economist style guide (although it does need an overhaul).
In this case, the Economist has considered the pronounceable aspect and added a second element to making it lower-case.
It says: “Abbreviations that can be pronounced and are composed of bits of words rather than just initials should be spelt out in upper and lower case: Cocom, Frelimo, Kfor, Legco, Mercosur, Nepad, Renamo, Sfor, Unicef, Unisom, Unprofor, Trips.”
I like this distinction. ICANN, it is.
Kieren
Dave 08.23.07 at 8:02 am
Style sheets (style guides) differ from country to country. In Canada most newspapers used to use the CP (Canadian Press) style guidelines. I think the USA uses some guidelines from one of the major newspapers (NYTimes???).
ICANN (or Icann) should research about what some of the major media outlines use as style guidelines and start a small but hopefully effective media training campaign.
Rafik Dammak 08.23.07 at 8:32 am
I think that such matter seems strange or weired for no native-speaker like me.
I think that acronyms or abbreviations must be written in capital letters.
but it isn’t matter!!
let’s go to create “roper Internet style guide”!
seriously this common mistake proof clearly that many jounralists don’t still understand what ICANN does.
cho0b 08.23.07 at 8:35 am
….as long as the letters make words and the words make sentences, we should all be fine. Most details are lost to the average non-”INTERNET” user.
Kevin Murphy 08.23.07 at 10:55 am
Perhaps a new ICANN committee is needed to resolve these important issues.
Kieren McCarthy 08.23.07 at 1:06 pm
Excellent point! An ad hoc working group is what is needed — right now.
Kev, I’m hoping we can rely on your input. We’ll have a conference call every other Tuesday and argue for approximately 45 minutes, with five minutes for despair and 10 minutes for approval of the previous meeting’s minutes.
I think we may have hit upon The Solution.
Kieren
Kevin Murphy 08.23.07 at 6:03 pm
In all seriousness, but on rather tangential points, there are two areas I’d like to see ICANN conduct user outreach with regards spelling.
1. Search engines.
I’d love to be able to google the term “.org”, for example, and have the dot recognized, so I get just results that contain the text “.org” and not “org”. I don’t think this is currently possible.
2. People who give out web development advice.
There are a bunch of web sites out there which advise web developers to validate email addresses using one of these three bogus criteria:
a) TLD needs to be 3 characters or under in length.
b) TLD needs to be a gTLD.
c) TLD needs to be on a list hard-coded into the script.
Okay, it’s only *kinda* related to spelling. Indulge me, the problem will only get worse after the next wave of gTLDs are introduced.
Kieren McCarthy 08.23.07 at 11:39 pm
Hey Kev,
I’m sure what ICANN could practically do on any level over searching for the dot in search engines. Surely that’s down to the search engine.
As for the TLD thing, in March, ICANN put out some “verification code” in order to deal with this very problem.
The explanation given in the announcement was: “The code that ICANN is releasing here eliminates the need for business or other providers to do additional programming when new top-level domains are established.
“The code can easily be inserted into existing programs or applications, and will automatically check the validity of an email address or URL entered against the authoritative DNS data, known as the ‘root-zone’. No additional updates are necessary since any changes to the root-zone will automatically be noted by using the code.”
Does this answer your concern?
Kieren
David Goldstein 08.24.07 at 12:25 am
I’d say it’s The Guardian’s choice! I agree it looks strange to have “Icann”, but they’re not the only British publication to do this from memory. It’s “English” too, it’s their language!
I’d disagree on “internet” though. The Australian newspaper quite a while ago moved to use “internet” instead of Internet. Their argument, from distant memory, was along the lines of it was now a noun… I think! But I don’t see why it deserves to be capitalised.
And I just checked 2 Australian government agencies dealing with internet regulatory issues – one used “internet”, the other “Internet”!
Or as Homer said, “the internet eh!”
Sara Stohl 08.24.07 at 8:43 am
If the Internet to internet devolution is applied to ICANN, in no time at all we’ll be writing icann. People of a certain age, like me, saw RADAR to Radar to radar. To paraphrase the old song, it could happen to us (ICANN, Icann, icann).
Chris Luccaterro 08.27.07 at 3:00 pm
While I do agree with your comments regarding capitalization, I would further that the name undergo a change to ICANNOT
since you folks seem to be at a complete loss for Registrar accountability issues…We have compiled a monsterous database of completely preposterous and fraudulent whois information provided by end-users (end-abusers) in which Joker.com and DNS.COM.CN (BILTS) with Directi (PublicDomainRegistry.com) bringing up the rear are the absolute worst of the worst. These three alone have accounted for a whopping 75% of all domain registrations related to SPAM organizations in the past three months (most of which occurred in a ’subcontractor/reseller mode). This hasn’t occurred by accident. We belong to several underground UCE forums which often suggest the use of these three as primary facilitators to operate their illegal networks upon. SPAM is no laughing matter and should not be ignored – the organizations behind many of these events are hardened criminal organizations that are involved in anything from narcotics and racketeering to much more serious events. While ‘easy answers’ are not available to this growing problem, the one thing that should be employed immediately is that the registrar whois information MUST be identitical to the payment/billing information. Further a Registrar blacklist should be created in which whois information is shared within the registrar community to prevent these folks from continuing operations. You have a responsibility to the community at hand to bring more accountability to the registrars and the resellers involved in these illegal dealings and actual penalty guidelines need to be established. Just an opinion 
Sincerely,
Chris Luccaterro
SearchCOPS
Kieren McCarthy 08.28.07 at 1:01 am
Hi Chris,
Yes. I agree. We agree. And ICANN is working on several fronts to deal with this.
The Whois discussions have been going on for no less than seven years. The most recent report came out last week (you can download it here). That will go to the GNSO Council this week where they will most likely find that there continues to be a lack of agreement in the Internet community over how to deal with the issue.
The arguments are far too lengthy and complex to even start to go into here. But fundamentally ICANN works as a co-ordination body because that is the best way to progress for the whole Internet, and so we form policy by getting people to arrive at consensus. Were it otherwise and ICANN decided itself what should happen, the Internet would cease to be what it is now.
A related issue is that of domain name tasting. As we speak a working group is reviewing the problem in depth, and ICANN staff are also compiling and analysing alot of information about this, including how different registries across the world deal with the issue of domains. That may provide some useful patterns and lessons.
A further important aspect, as you raise, is making sure that registrars and registries are kept in check. All those involved with gTLDs have contracts with ICANN and ICANN’s compliance team has already been making sure those contracts are followed for several months, if perhaps we haven’t been shouting about it from the rooftops.
But all the information is there is you want to review it. You can see it at: http://www.icann.org/compliance/
And one other aspects which you don’t explicitly raise but which is a part of the larger jigsaw is the issue of registrants’ rights and the RegisterFly issue. There are changes going through into the Registrar Accreditation Agreement – you can see the suggested amendments in full here – that will improve the situation. Added to which, ICANN has just hired a specialist data storage company to act as a data escrow provider for domain details, so the details of domain ownership can be safely retained and restored where needs be.
But despite all of this, it would have only a very limited impact on spam, as you well know. The big problem – the biggest problem – with spam is that is requires concerted effort by a very large numbers of very different organisations to tackle it.
There have been alot of governments passing anti-spam laws – with little lasting effect. There have been countless technical efforts with limited effect. There are numerous commercial products aimed at dealing with it, which are partially effective.
The truth is that it requires global understanding and co-operative action to deal with spam. It only takes one compromised server, or one country with weaker efforts in law or by its ISPs and spammers will locate it and exploit it.
The best answer at the moment is the Internet Governance Forum, set up by the United Nations to deal with exactly these issue. Last November, the OECD used the IGF’s inaugural meeting to launch its Anti-Spam toolkit – you can find all you need to know about that here.
The hope is that this November in Rio, more people will have signed up to this effort, plus learnt more about spam, plus be willing to help others. Unfortunately, a chunk of that valuable time looks as if it will be taken up with people discussing ICANN rather than dealing with the wider problems out there.
If you want to get annoyed with someone, if you want to make a difference, my advice would be to go to the IGF and keep asking people what they are doing to combat spam – and then provide them with practical measures for doing so.
But in the meantime, please do review what ICANN is doing in the areas where it can do something and interact with us. A good place to start is the public comment page which outlines what is currently out for public review and the background behind it. You can find that at http://www.icann.org/public_comment/.
I hope this helps answer your queries.
Kieren McCarthy
General manager of public participation, ICANN
Chris Luccaterro 08.28.07 at 2:41 pm
I must tell you that our group takes exception to several items noted above, none more than the following two:
“But despite all of this, it would have only a very limited impact on spam, as you well know. The big problem – the biggest problem – with spam is that is requires concerted effort by a very large numbers of very different organisations to tackle it”
We wholehartedly disagree with this notion. The registrars have all of the power to quell this raging pandemic. These spammers are not mystics, they still need to follow the rules of DNS propogation which begins and ends at the registrar. If you have an effective method of prescreening and immediate termination of those found to be spammers, this would effectively close these businesses down. Right now, for instance, we are at full alert against a three groups currently running roughshot in our ‘honeypots’; they are: ettyproductionslimited.com (Gino Roberts), pumpitproductions.com, liquidventuresinc.com (Sammy Lee), which all show very similar name server activity (met-dns.com/chong67.com/jdns67.com) – we are currently engaging in counter-spam activities to limit there abilities. We are extremely disappointed in BILTS (com.cn) and joker.com for the fact that over 75% of SPAM we have captured over the past couple of months are being registered through one of those two or a reseller under their umbrella. In this age of technology, you simply cannot tell me that there aren’t better methods that could be employed to solidify the whois database. Finally, your mention of an ‘Anti-spam’ toolkit simply demonstrates (in my eyes) how you folks have simply ‘thrown in the towel’ on this effort. Blocking SPAM or some sort of software is simply not the answer by any stretch of the imagination…in fact, the blocking of SPAM has simply caused SPAM to grow because it actually lessens the chances that these thugs will be caught because those that don’t block the spam are actually the people that the spammers are targeting in the first place. When was the last time that ‘ignoring a problem’ has resulted in a successful solution? All government entities aside, the simple act of banning certain individuals (follow the money) from registration activities would result in a major reduction of spam. If you care to, I would be willing to share our research with you folks so that you can see some of the vile activities that we have been tracing.
Respectably,
Chris Luccaterro
SearchCOPS
Kieren McCarthy 08.29.07 at 1:32 am
Hi Chris,
Yes, please *do* share your research, and if you have solid changes to the contracts ICANN has with registrars or registries that you will think will help combat spam, please do draw them up and put them into the ICANN system.
The best place to raise it would probably be with the Non-Commercial Users (NCUC) constituency within the GNSO. Either that, or approach the At Large Advisory Committee – or better, approach both.
Believe me, if you can come up with a workable solution to help limit spam, you will find support from every quarter.
However, I do need to point out some inaccuracies in your response. While ICANN does indeed having contracts with many registrars, it does not have contracts with all of them – and, predictably enough, it doesn’t have a contract with the two registrars you mention (you can see the full accredited list here).
Now, there is an issue under discussion at the moment where companies are able to act as registrars without a registrar agreement by striking a reseller deal with an accredited registrar. Through changes in the RAA, ICANN is seeking to tighten these rules up. You can see the issue outlined in clear language here.
I am not kidding when I say if you want to change this *all you have to do* is put together your arguments, preferably with as much evidence as possible, to explain what changes should be made and why.
All the details you need are here, and the email address to send your comments to is raa-consultation@icann.org.
Alot of people misunderstand that this is what ICANN does – we help co-ordinate between the Net’s different groups. Someone raises a point, it is put through the consultative process, in which *anyone* can comment. And then ICANN works as hard as it can to produce a consensus on changes.
If you want to see changes, you have to get involved. Complaining on this blog will get my attention, and will get you the information above, but it is up to you to make the difference.
The second point where you are very unfair is the OECD’s anti-spam toolkit. In fact, it is quite comprehensive and far, far more than simply blocking spam as you appear to imply.
But my main point is: get involved. If you want any information on how to do that, or you want to know more about how ICANN works, or you want contact details for people, just ask. Either here or feel free to email me at kieren [dot] mccarthy [at] icann {dot} org.
Kieren
Chris Luccaterro 08.30.07 at 9:10 am
Kieren,
I have forwarded a message to you as well on this subject which will hopefully more fully explain our points on this matter. However, the mere fact that you, as a representative of ICANN, incorrectly stated that Joker (aka CSL Computer Service Langenbach GmbH d/b/a joker.com) and the BILTS (aka Beijing Innovative Linkage Technology Ltd. dba dns.com.cn) group did not have a contract with ICANN is simply wrong. Please review the accredation list yourself: http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html
This fact has me deeply concerned and simply demonstrates how out of touch ICANN has become with this issue. The mere fact that ICANN has been ‘working’ on this problem for the better half of 7 years now, does not inspire alot of confidence in me. The technology already exists to correct huge holes in the current strategies – and while there isnt a 100% cure, suring up the registry would definitely be a huge step in the right direction. This would allow us to more definitively engage these criminals in a place that some have been drove into (utilization of Zombie Networks) which carry very serious international criminal penalties and would allow us to expedite these folks into the penal system. Both of the registrars listed above need to sure up their registration systems. The fact that over 75% of recent spamming activities in our honeypots over the past 3 months have initiated with registrations on Joker and BILT is all that is needed to know. During this same period, we have not even had one occassion to inquire as to the whois status of a GoDaddy registered domain (and this includes their Wild West reseller group) and one of the reasons for this is GoDaddy IMMEDIATELY takes action upon those who violate their “TOU” resulting in immediate suspension of those domain activities, which is one of the reasons why spammers have run like wildfire away from GoDaddy as their registrar. There are many other Registrars within your ICANN wing that do a wonderful job at policing their own registries, the mere fact that over the past 6 months, only Joker, BILT, Xin Net Technology Corporation, Directi Internet Solutions (d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.Com), and ENOM have come upon our radar is a service to the other 795+ Registrars who seem to be doing a far better job in monitoring and overall enforcement. As I have stated, this problem begins and ENDS with the Registrars….without a domain name for the spammers to resolve to, it makes the spammers jobs’ incredibly more difficult and far more dangerous for them to attempt in the first place. With your help, we could probably dwindle the ROKSO 200 down to about 10 and really concentrate our efforts at that point. Btw, as a side note to any registrars who may be reading this blog, the following group is in our crosshairs at this moment:
Domain Name………. thoughpose.com
Creation Date…….. 2007-08-25 12:51:42
Registration Date…. 2007-08-25 12:51:42
Expiry Date………. 2008-08-25 12:51:42
Organisation Name…. happyinternational.inc
Organisation Address. chaoyang avenue 468
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. beijing
Organisation Address. 100438
Organisation Address. BJ
Organisation Address. CN
Admin Name……….. huan huan
Admin Address…….. chaoyang avenue 468
Admin Address……..
Admin Address…….. beijing
Admin Address…….. 100438
Admin Address…….. BJ
Admin Address…….. CN
Admin Email………. dfeendloonesegou@hotmail.com
Admin Phone………. +86.1045875892
Admin Fax………… +86.1093859833
Tech Name………… he sir
Tech Address……… shennanzhong rd
Tech Address………
Tech Address……… Shenzhen
Tech Address……… 518031
Tech Address……… GD
Tech Address……… CN
Tech Email……….. adminspeed123@126.com
Tech Phone……….. +86.75583233325
Tech Fax…………. +86.75583233325
Bill Name………… he sir
Bill Address……… shennanzhong rd
Bill Address………
Bill Address……… Shenzhen
Bill Address……… 518031
Bill Address……… GD
Bill Address……… CN
Bill Email……….. adminspeed123@126.com
Bill Phone……….. +86.75583233325
Bill Fax…………. +86.75583233325
Name Server………. ns0.nuspharkosa.com
Name Server………. ns0.pharokufuma.com
Name Server………. ns0.kopepharas.com
Name Server………. ns0.mukopkufude.com
AND
Domain Name………. topmedslay.com
Creation Date…….. 2007-08-25 12:41:01
Registration Date…. 2007-08-25 12:41:01
Expiry Date………. 2008-08-25 12:41:01
Organisation Name…. happyinternational.inc
Organisation Address. chaoyang avenue 468
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. beijing
Organisation Address. 100438
Organisation Address. BJ
Organisation Address. CN
Admin Name……….. huan huan
Admin Address…….. chaoyang avenue 468
Admin Address……..
Admin Address…….. beijing
Admin Address…….. 100438
Admin Address…….. BJ
Admin Address…….. CN
Admin Email………. dfeendloonesegou@hotmail.com
Admin Phone………. +86.1045875892
Admin Fax………… +86.1093859833
Tech Name………… he sir
Tech Address……… shennanzhong rd
Tech Address………
Tech Address……… Shenzhen
Tech Address……… 518031
Tech Address……… GD
Tech Address……… CN
Tech Email……….. adminspeed123@126.com
Tech Phone……….. +86.75583233325
Tech Fax…………. +86.75583233325
Bill Name………… he sir
Bill Address……… shennanzhong rd
Bill Address………
Bill Address……… Shenzhen
Bill Address……… 518031
Bill Address……… GD
Bill Address……… CN
Bill Email……….. adminspeed123@126.com
Bill Phone……….. +86.75583233325
Bill Fax…………. +86.75583233325
Name Server………. ns0.nuspharkosa.com
Name Server………. ns0.pharokufuma.com
Name Server………. ns0.kopepharas.com
Name Server………. ns0.mukopkufude.com
These folks known as the “Canadian Pharmacy” have been spamming ever since i can remember and they can show us some of the immediate warning signs which should trigger an audit:
1. Admin name/Tech name: huan huan/he sir….I mean come on common sense people.
2. Phone numbers: as you can see only the Admin phone number could even be possible, because Bejing, China’s country code is 86 and the area code is 10….75 is not even a valid area code in China.
3. Addresses: simple usage of some of google’s backend tools (APIs) could automatically red flag domains in question.
4. Name Server(s): Last but certainly not least, anytime a domain is registerd that has a number (2 or more) of DNS names that are completely different should be a complete no-brainer red flag. This is due to the fact that their name servers are suspended quite often and they need back up name servers in those events.
Finally, there are soo many groups out there that already exist that have the data necessary to blacklist these folks prior to them even getting off of the ground. I apologize, Kieren, however, I think I have made my point and we will not settle for further excuses. I do appreciate your open dialogue with us
Sincerely,
Chris
SearchCOPS
Maria Farrell 08.30.07 at 9:28 am
Chris,
I appreciate that you are concerned about issues unrelated to this post, and that Kieren has kindly responded to you about them.
But you should take a look at our comment policy. The ICANN blog is no different from other blogs, and relevance of comments is important;
“Relevance
We would also like to stress that comments covering an entirely different topic to the actual blog post they are attached to are also frowned upon. If it is a mistake, we have no problem, but the ICANN blog is there to be a reasonable and helpful communication and interaction tool – not to lobby by the backdoor, or harangue staff over the same issue out of context.”
The rhetorical feint of ‘name-check the issue under discussion, but claim it can’t possibly be dealt with unless your pet issue is finally resolved’ does not count as relevant. If you really do appreciate open dialogue, then you need to follow accepted blogging norms.
We can’t encourage other ICANN staff to blog about topics if they think their threads will be hijacked by the cause du jour. And Kieren already does a fine job of creating threads on burning issues.
Chris Luccaterro 08.30.07 at 10:08 am
Maria,
We did not intend to for this issue to evolve as it did, our initial response was clear and to the point and in the framework of the ’spelling of ICANN’ which is what this thread was originally about. We simply asserted that in today’s framework, those in our community commonly refer to ICANN in the terms of ICANNOT due to what appears to be an overrun of issues that have occurred during ICANN’s watch. That was our intial response, than we simply responded to comments to us at that point (which is more than acceptable amongst most familiar with the blogging culture). I will forward comments to Kiernen directly from this point on.
Chris
SearchCOPS
Maria Farrell 08.30.07 at 10:19 am
Thanks, Chris. On this blog we seem to be more tolerant of irrelevant posts than others – on the high traffic blog I normally post to, we simply delete them.
Kieren McCarthy 08.30.07 at 11:39 am
Chris,
If you have a solution that you think will work, then you need to structure it rather than post long tracts like this.
The one area where ICANN can impact the registrars is with the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. As I point out, this contract is actually undergoing review at this very moment.
And you are able to put forward suggested changes to that contract now by simply sending an email.
I can’t stress enough that I have no power or even ability to make the changes you ask for. Nor do ICANN staff. You have to persuade the Internet community – who are also the experts on the Internet.
I am simply the person that tries to get people with passion like you to get in there, and try to persuade people that the system will work better with a change here and a change there.
So don’t tell me any more. Read the contracts that define ICANN’s relationship to registrars. Then devise a way of adjusting those agreements. And then try to persuade the rest of community why those changes are a good idea.
Incidentally, if you think that registrars are already breaking the RAA, you can report that to ICANN’s compliance team (I have already linked to them above) and they will look into it.
Incidentally, I do agree with Maria’s point below about relevance. This discussion shouldn’t be happening in this post. It only confuses and irritates people if they click on one post to find a discussion of something totally unrelated.
I would however like to see your organisation’s name appear in the comment forum on changes to the RAA all the details you need ae here: http://www.icann.org/public_comment/#raa-consultation.
Kieren
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