DotConnectAfrica Responds to Kevin Murphy’s ‘Nutty’ commentaries – 2 Rejoinders in 48 hours!
A flurry of response exchanges were featured in last week between the Domain on industry columnist Kevin Murphy of DomainIncite and DotConnectAfrica (DCA), one of gTLD applicants for .africa. DCA sent two rejoinders in 24 hours responding to his comments and to provide detailed answers with an aim to clarify what it has termed “the use of the pejorative ‘nutty’ is uncalled for and shows your disrespect and disdain for our organization and we believe you owe us an apology.”
The genesis of the rejoinders argue on the Letter DotConnectAfrica wrote to US Senate on 21st February 2013, titled “New generic Top Level Domain Program (gTLD) for Global Internet Expansion Need for Direct Congressional Oversight & Recommendation for the Appointment of an Independent Counsel as Congressional new gTLD Ombudsman to Investigate & Report to Congress on Matters of Illegality and Irregularities in new gTLD Program of ICANN” where DotConnectAfrica was seeking intervention concerning the new gTLD program in benefit for the global internet public and for the industry to use .africa, as a case and point for an improved governance of teh new gTLD program to investigate on illegalities and issue of transparency that could be sought by applicants. Good point, as it were.
However, the sight of this letter irked the DomainIncite blogger who has been accused repeatedly, of being biased in his reportage of the .africa issues to favor Uniforum. The blogger had stated in his analysis of the letter that he titled “Nutty DCA Complains to US Congress about .Africa” Where he has been told off by DCA for being “rather disingenuous in {his} attempts to down-play the reason for DCA’s request for the intervention of the U.S. Congress.” DotConnectAfrica had among other issues, requested in their letter to Congress for “a new gTLD Ombudsman that would report directly to Congress”.
DotConnectAfrica wrote its initial rejoinder accusing him of “Deliberately Obfuscating to confuse your readers: After reading your report, we believe that you have deliberately tried to obfuscate the matter to either confuse your readers or intentionally divert the attention of the global public from understanding the full import and main implications of our letter to the U.S. Congress.”
The letter also corrected his “attempt to define ‘Big-C’ and ‘small-c’” saying that it was “quite irrelevant and an unnecessary exercise in frivolity at a time that analytical and professional seriousness are called for”, nothing “even ICANN will not agree with you on this matter”
The blogger however responded to DCA’s detailed rejoinder in his blog “Nutty DotConnectAfrica gives DI a Good Kicking” to which DotConnectAfrica responded again in less than 24 hours warning him that “We believe that there is no need for you to take an antagonistic posture towards DCA Trust….You are not the spokesperson for UniForum and you should not be partisan.” since “DCA Trust and UniForum have both applied for the same .Africa name string.”
The second rejoinder by DCA also gave emphasis to the bloggers assertion that “if UniForum did lie to the AU and other governments about submitting a Community application, it’s within the governments’ power to withdraw their endorsements…” this is especially key owing to the fact that Uniforum did not apply for the community as they should have owing to their endorsement and campaign commitment.
The response from DCA ends by saying that “You cannot kill DCA’s .Africa bid and we shall have the last laugh! Please note that DCA’s application for .Africa gTLD is alive and cannot be killed off by anybody. Such conspiracies that are being contrived and hatched by the opponents of DCA Trust with the active connivance of DomainIncite will fail.”
