The owners of the .travel gTLD, The Globe, announced they will sell the Tralliance registry to The Registry Management Company LLC, a privately held entity controlled by Michael S. Egan, theglobe.com’s Chairman, CEO and controlling investor.

However Edward Hasbrouck has been digging around, and reports on his blog on the impending sale and says the pending sale raises “renewed questions about Tralliance’s compliance with its contractual commitments to ICANN as well as about the lack of transparency of ICANN’s decision making and ICANN’s compliance with its own bylaws.”

Hasbrouck goes on to note “ICANN delegated .travel to Tralliance only on condition that the TTPC would have actual authority over .travel policies. If it’s been reduced to a purely advisory role, that’s a violation of the agreement between Tralliance and ICANN.

“The sale of the .travel registry business may also be a violation of the contract by which ICANN delegated .travel to Tralliance.”

However Bret Fausett does not agree, saying he does not “think this poses any overarching ICANN policy issues — you can sell a company and keep its current bundle of contractual relationships intact — but I do wonder about the business decision.”

Bret is also intrigued as to why the business is not a good one. He cannot understand why they do not make money with 28,529 names under management, with 26 different registrars that they resell for about $99 Bret notes from the the October 2007 Registry Report to ICANN.

Source DomainNews