Michael Collins Joins ICA as New Executive Director

[MichaelC]

I want to introduce myself to those who don’t know me from my time at Afternic and hi to all of my old friends and colleagues. I have been with Internet Commerce Association (ICA) for two weeks now. I should have introduced myself before now. However, I will try to make up for that with a dependable presence here going forward.

The entire announcement is available here.

http://www.internetcommerce.org/ica/michael_collins_joins_ica_as_new_executive_director

Thank you to all who have already expressed a welcome to me in this new position. It is my goal to serve all domainers. I look forward to hearing from you about what you would like from ICA. I want this to be your association.

 

[Dave_Z]

Welcome. And be ready to be baptized. :D

 

[MichaelC]

Welcome. And be ready to be baptized. :D

Thank you. I expect as much. This isn't the first time that I got involved in something that had some negative public sentiment. When Roger and I acquired Afternic.com in 2002, there were many more complaints about it. I look forward to a change in direction.

The constituency that we represent will never agree on everything, but there are many issues on which we agree and that we agree are important and that need protection. That is where ICA should focus its attention.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Afternic owner shuts down thousands of listings in a week

Hopefully all the rules will be nailed to the floor and funny surprises won't happen with you in your new position.

I remember very well the stick of dynamite thrown to all domainers who were with Afternic before the big "CLEANSING". I also remember the six or seven weeks of every prominent member at Afternic asking daily for some kind of explanation why thousands of our names overnight were being pulled from our accounts.

Not one word from management for weeks about the mess thru the discuss names forum and believe me everyone was pissed and many left Afernic including myself. One simple email to us that those kinds of names were no longer to be approved for sale in, or parked in Afternic is pretty poor management if you ask me.

I also think those who were allowed for years to import certain names should out of respect have a far longer warning period to remove or find a new home for those category names.

I guess I don't share the exitement of your new position.



Good luck

 

[Mark]

Welcome Aboard Michael and Congrats on your new position :tu:

 

[MichaelC]

Hopefully all the rules will be nailed to the floor and funny surprises won't happen with you in your new position.

I remember very well the stick of dynamite thrown to all domainers who were with Afternic before the big "CLEANSING". I also remember the six or seven weeks of every prominent member at Afternic asking daily for some kind of explanation why thousands of our names overnight were being pulled from our accounts.

Not one word from management for weeks about the mess thru the discuss names forum and believe me everyone was pissed and many left Afernic including myself. One simple email to us that those kinds of names were no longer to be approved for sale in, or parked in Afternic is pretty poor management if you ask me.

I also think those who were allowed for years to import certain names should out of respect have a far longer warning period to remove or find a new home for those category names.

I guess I don't share the exitement of your new position.

Good luck

Roderick,

Thank you for taking the time to write to me even tough you are disappointed in me. I am sorry that changes at Afternic after we sold were not acceptable to you. Please remember that the actual sale date was a few weeks before the announcment. During this "quite" period, all Afternic employees were bound by NDA. I hope that I will only be judged about openess and transparency of operations at Afternic during the time that Roger and I controlled the company. Furthermore, I would say that the standards for appropriate levels of transparency differ greatly for private for-profit companies than for non-profit trade associations.

Welcome Aboard Michael and Congrats on your new position :tu:

Thank you!

 

[cybertonic]

Hello Michael,

I read few days ago about your new position, Joshua left SEDO to work for this association and now you. Pobably they pay well.
I think remember our last mail exchange few months ago was not the most friendly, but I guess each one defend his steak.
So I will forget and wish you success in your new adventure.

Please explain what is the main difference between this association and what is try to be done through DNOA.org

...

 

[goodkarmaco]

Its time to make positive changes

Thanks Michael for addressing this, although I feel you owed your loyal members who "made you" a much better response than keeping silent about the new policy until weeks after the sale.

Personally I think the decision was made when you and Roger had the helm.

That being said, we the members should have at least known for a very long time that Afternic was changing their policy.

I certainly hope no other auction house that may want to change policy regarding the importation of gambling or adult names do not follow the way Afternic did it. That is why I take the time to address this. That is a pretty big mistake to do to us domainers as we all want to be kept in the loop so to speak and to have plenty of lead time to make changes.

I am also sure most members of Afternic at the time felt the same as I did.

In my opinion that was a very drastic move to make with no mention of such a clean up, and I feel such a wide sweeping clean up really deserved at least a one year notice to all members who invested much money into names and much, much, time importing and parking them into Afternic.

I am concerned that in some way your influence or agenda may be simalar in trying for a cleansing of names like Afternic has chosen to ban on its site. I do not have a big understanding of what your new position is and it is my hope it will have no possibilty for yourself to push thru bans on gambling names or sex names or porn names. I hope the mere mention of these types of names are not in any way causing you anxiety. I mention them only because of my concern that the same thing does not happen under your watch with your new position.

Now that I have spoken my word about what I do not like, I want to say what I do like. I actually think Afternic is growing fast and it is my hope it will continue to grow. I had thought the actions would be the downfall of the company. I guess my canceling my Afternic membership and many other members doing so did not alter your goal much as the company is certainly reporting big volumes of domain sales and that is the bottom line in this business. Somebody must be working hard there.

I have no intention of sidetracking your post, only wanting a few clarifications of what powers your new position will bring to the domain business.

I hesitate to ask these questions as I am not wanting the post to be about Afternic and to in any way take away the positives of your new position. Its just my concerns are in relation to management style.

As to my concerns Michael, can you state for us what powers exactly your position will bring to you?. I am interested in knowing if you will have any possibility to influence our current way of parking domains that have content, that your previous company, Afternic banned for all members. That banned content being any gambling, or adult domains.

The reason why I ask this declaration of you is as a industry giant, Afternic has shaped a large part of the industry as all members who had those names were either asked to delete them or the members were banned from Afternic for having them.

What I want to know is since the organization you are now the President of has the stated goals of promoting the domain industry to corporations, business and the government and this includes parking profits, the agenda at Afternic is revelent here.

Please state if your personal agenda of abolishing all adult domain names in Afternic where millions of names are parked or are for sale will be a goal of yours in your new position. Also is it possible that you as the President in charge of the organization can influence members to adopt the same cleansing we saw recently at Afternic.

This worries me greatly.

If you cannot influence or make drastic changes on your own, I am all for supporting your work wholeheartedly.

I wish success in your new job title and not withstanding the above concerns I hope your position will prosper the domain business. Most of all I appreciate your open dialogue and kind way of stating them.

Roderick

 

[MichaelC]

Hi cybertonic,

I am disappointed that you considered me to be unfriendly in our business negotiations. There was a time that I misunderstood you. Maybe you misunderstood me as well. I didn’t mean to be unfriendly, but I had a goal in the negotiations at Afternic. I was trying to work out a deal that enabled us to achieve our goals and for you to achieve your goals. Unfortunately, there were issues on which we could come to agreement. I wish that we could have. However, I am happy that you struck a deal with Sedo. I wish you success.

I also wish success in your new job title and not withstanding the above concerns I hope your position will prosper the domain business. Most of all I appreciate your open dialogue and kind way of stating them.
Roderick

Roderick,

Thank you for such kind words in spite of your dissatisfaction with the way things went at Afternic.

I am sure that the adult name policy changes took place after we sold Afternic. Roger and I required adult names to be identified as such by sellers and we allowed visitors and marketing partners to decide which names they wanted to see/show. Our website would install a cookie in a visitor’s browser to remember their adult name preference. We were quite content with that arrangement.

However, I am not criticizing NameMedia’s decision to remove adult names. They believe that a sacrifice of some (adult) business in order to make the marketplace more acceptable to a mainstream market creates more value for members and NameMedia. The resulting growth since we sold indicates that they could be on to something. I know that 7-11 and some other national retail chains removed adult magazines from their stores for the same reason.

There is no agenda at ICA to influence internet content. In fact, it is part of our mission to stand up to those who would like to dictate content. I personally believe that a free market will provide solutions to consumers to enable them to choose the content that they want to receive. There was an objection to the .xxx TLD from ICA (before I became involved), but it was based upon objectionable items in the contract, not because it was designed for adult content.

 

[James]

i'd like to say congrats on the position, i'm fairly new to domaining but i hope to find out more about you and i welcome you

 

[briman1970]

Welcome Michael.

What exactly is your position on the subject of classifying domains as property? The ICA is obviously pushing for this, but (as NP member Labrocca has mentioned) we have yet to see a clear outline of all the positives and negatives from them. I would love for you to discuss your opinions and discuss why domainers should support the ICA's stance on the matter.

 

[labrocca]

Communication is key. And by communication we don't mean you just telling us what ICA is gonna do...but also the why and how it will benefit us. I have yet to understand the ICAs position on domains as real estate. I really feel distrust for an organizating claiming to represent a large group of people yet unwilling to explain to these same people their actions.

Our mission is to promote the value and benefits of Internet traffic, including the value of buying direct navigation traffic, on behalf of our membership -- to the media, the advertising market, government and regulatory authorities around the world.

We stand for prosperity and entrepreneurship within the Internet and fairness among regulators, the dispute resolution process, the tax code as well as other United States and international laws.

Now that is two good paragraphs imho.

However...

http://www.internetcommerce.org/our_issues

Modification of the tax code to allow for accelerated depreciation of domain names

That's a scary part of your issues page. Not all domainers hold portfolios worth millions and this "modification" could have very negative effects imho. I would love an honest open debate over the issue. For me it's a WHY situation and HOW willl it benefit ME..if at all. If I can be pursuaded that changing the tax code will benefit me...I am all for it. However I have yet to read one statement from ICA explaining this notion in detail. What are the benefits? What are the negatives?

Place these issues on the table please and create a place for open discussion much like ICANN does, although they don't bother to care what we say. My fear is that your organization may be no different and you may be representing .1% of domainers that own massive portfolios.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to your participation here.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Michael,

I am pleased to hear that the Ica has no agenda to influence content. My concern was real. My trust in the many outstanding domain business leaders who obvioulsy elected you is good enough for me.

I am probably like a lot of domainers, not really aware of all that the Ica does and it is in our best interest to learn about its stated mission, its accomplishments and its goals. I am satisfied the Ica has a good leader in you as your answers and comments show your experience and acheivements have been grounded in success. I will add you have shown much patience in this thread, with my straight to the point and blunt questions.

Thanks for stepping up.

Roderick

 

[tricolorro]

Michael Collins Joins ICA as New Executive Director Reply to Thread

"Modification of the tax code to allow for accelerated depreciation of domain names"

Hi,

I am at a loss to understand how domains "depreciate".

Domains are not a physical structure with wear and tear.

Do domains have a pre-determined useful life?

Could they mean "accelerated expensing of domains"?

How are domains expensed now?

Patrick

 

[billinchina]

I'm very excited for you.

 

[labrocca]

"Modification of the tax code to allow for accelerated depreciation of domain names"

Hi,

I am at a loss to understand how domains "depreciate".

Domains are not a physical structure with wear and tear.

Do domains have a pre-determined useful life?

Could they mean "accelerated expensing of domains"?

How are domains expensed now?

Patrick

Glad I am not the only one confused.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Hi Bill,

how very nice to see you posting here. So you moved on? Seems your former boss, (Roger) is up and running again.

 

[Kenny]

Welcome to Namepros.
This time they hired a domainer.. :tu:
Congratulations on your new position.

Cy

 

[briman1970]

MichaelC - Last Activity: Yesterday 08:44 AM

Are you going to address any of the questions currently being asked on this thread?

 

[MichaelC]

Welcome Michael.

What exactly is your position on the subject of classifying domains as property? The ICA is obviously pushing for this, but (as NP member Labrocca has mentioned) we have yet to see a clear outline of all the positives and negatives from them. I would love for you to discuss your opinions and discuss why domainers should support the ICA's stance on the matter.

Sorry, about the slow response. I didn't get an email notice of a post to this thread and I thought that it died.

I personally don't have a position about classifying domains as property. I understand that there is a difference of opinions on the ICA board about this. However, I have not actually been involved in discussions with the board about this issue. I would like to hear more from domainer owners about this issue. What would you like for ICA's position to be, why? How do you think that we can influence policy if we have a unified position? Aren't our rights in regards to domains, defined by the registrant agreements that you have with your registrar?

Whether you prefer domains to be considered property or renewable contract rights, I would like for you to join ICA and help us represent your interests in Washington, ICANN and in the media.

That's a scary part of your issues page. Not all domainers hold portfolios worth millions and this "modification" could have very negative effects imho. I would love an honest open debate over the issue. For me it's a WHY situation and HOW willl it benefit ME..if at all. If I can be pursuaded that changing the tax code will benefit me...I am all for it. However I have yet to read one statement from ICA explaining this notion in detail. What are the benefits? What are the negatives?

Place these issues on the table please and create a place for open discussion much like ICANN does, although they don't bother to care what we say. My fear is that your organization may be no different and you may be representing .1% of domainers that own massive portfolios.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to your participation here.

Thank you for your thoughtful contribution to this discussion. I agree that we should discuss these and other issues. ICA is in its infancy and it should be shaped by input from more of the constituency that it serves.

I am not qualified to answer the questions about depreciation. I have more questions than answers. However, I wonder if tax law that permits depreciation of domains really has a negative impact upon those who don’t have a large need for depreciation. Furthermore, isn’t it possible that many who start with portfolios of modest value will develop revenue through development, sales and growth in PPC income and then be in a position to invest in more expensive names. So even if depreciation of domains isn’t important to you today, might it be at some time in the future? Is there a downside to such changes? Are some domain owners already testing this and depreciating domains in their business?

I'm very excited for you.

Bill,

Great to hear from you again. We have to go fishing together when it cools a little!

Thank you to everyone who has greeted and extended good will to me here.