ICA Board Members
Board Member – Joshua Armstrong, General Counsel and Vice President of Business Affairs, Oversee.net Throughout his career, Josh has focused on working with technology companies in all stages of development. He has served as outside general counsel to several fast growing technology companies. Josh has advised technology companies in M&A transactions valued in excess of $4 billion and has represented issuers, investors and underwriters or placement agents in securities offerings totaling more than $1 billion. Prior to joining the company, Josh was a corporate attorney practicing at a national law firm. He has a B.A. from the University of Vermont and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
Board Member – Ron Jackson, Editor, DNJournal.com Ron Jackson began his media career as News Director of an Ohio radio station then moved on to TV where he spent 17 years as a news and sports anchor/reporter at ABC and CBS TV stations in Florida. An entrepreneur at heart, Ron started his own business in 1989 when he opened a successful record store with a worldwide music mail order division. During this time he discovered the power of the Internet when he was able to replace expensive magazine ads with a website in 1997. Business exploded while his advertising costs dropped to a fraction of what they had been before.
A few years later, when file sharing and downloading began wiping out independent music retailers, Jackson saw a new opportunity in the medium that was making his business obsolete - the Internet. He entered the domain business in 2002 and as he began acquiring domains he was surprised to find that this fascinating industry did not have its own trade magazine. Ron filled that void by debuting DNJournal.com on New Year’s Day 2003. The unique combination of professional writing with his insider’s perspective resulted in a widely read publication that is now regarded as one of the institutions in the domain industry. When mainstream media outlets want to know what is happening in the domain business, they call DN Journal. The online magazine has been featured in Forbes and Newsweek magazines, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New York Times and many other publications. Ron is also an active domain owner himself. With a portfolio of more than 7,000 domains he is the only professional journalist who has intimate knowledge of how this industry works as well as direct contacts with many of the pioneers who built it.
Board Member – Jeremiah Johnston, Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel, Sedo.com Jeremiah Johnston began his career with Sedo in 2004 as General Counsel, helping the company keep a step ahead of the domain industry's ever-changing legal landscape. Now serving in the joint role of General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer, Johnston oversees a variety of responsibilities for Sedo and helps lead its push into the North American market. Johnston represents Sedo as a founding member of the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) and sits on the Board of Directors, helping to shape the future of domain names in the political space.
With more than seven years of experience leading Internet-related companies and an academic background that focused on international intellectual property, Johnston has helped Sedo identify opportunities and risks while always keeping an eye on the horizon. Johnston holds a BS in Mass Communication from the University of Utah (USA) and a Juris Doctor degree from the Suffolk University School of Law (USA) where he completed a concentration with distinction in international law and intellectual property while taking time to study in Lund, Sweden and serving as the Managing Editor of the Journal of High Technology Law.
Board Member – Rick Schwartz, CEO, President & Co-Founder,
eRealestate.com and T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Rick Schwartz, aka "Domain King" and "Webfather", is the CEO, President and Cofounder of T.R.A.F.F.I.C., the premiere domain conference for the domain industry. It is both the oldest and largest and attracts over 500 of the top professionals in the industry in a by invitation only event. With 9 shows in just 3 years TRAFFIC has established itself as the epicenter of the entire domain industry. It has attracted speakers from Ben Stein to Steve Forbes.
As one of the early domain pioneers dating back to 1995, Rick has a knack for predicting big trends and getting it right. He may have been the first to recognize the value of "Type in" traffic which is now commonly referred to as "direct navigation” - the most potent and targeted traffic on the net. Rick has a prime portfolio of one and two word domains, and is considered by many to be among the leading experts on domain names, traffic, website flow and valuation.
Besides eRealEstate.com and domains like Candy.com, Property.com, Properties.com, Tradeshows.com, ChristmasCarols.com and some 5000 others, Rick is also an accomplished businessman in several other industries including furniture, lighting and advertising. He ran one of the most profitable and efficient home based businesses with no employees back in the early 1990's out of a 10 x 10 bedroom. He sold it for over 7 figures freeing his time to devote exclusively to the Internet in 1998. Rick also sold men.com for $1.3 million in a cash deal that was finalized in May 2004, a domain name that he bought for $15,000 in 1997. Many attribute that sale to jump starting the domain space at a time considered the lowest point the domain business has seen. It also cemented his main theory that "Domains would go up faster in value than any commodity or asset ever known to mankind." Laughed at in 1995 and 1996 it is FACT today. No stock, no land, no gold, no jewel has ever gone up faster and further in value.
He also sold "PartnerCash.com in July 2005 for $110,000 that was purchased in 1998 for $35. In August 2005 he bought Property.com for $750,000 tying him for the highest reported domain purchase at that time in 2005. Rick also runs the premiere domain forum on the net in which the top domainers and sponsors in the world are invited to participate and join. His members read like the Who's who of the domain channel. It is known as the hardest website on the net to get into.
ICA Staff
Counsel – Philip S. Corwin, Partner, Butera & Andrews, a Washington, DC law and lobbying firm With more than thirty years of federal legislative experience, Mr Corwin’s practice is focused on the dynamically evolving law of electronic commerce and intellectual property. His clients have included the Information Technology Association of America, First Virtual Holdings, PenOp, MP3.com, CenterSpan Communications, Sharman Networks Limited (Kazaa), and the Internet Commerce Association. Prior to joining Butera & Andrews, Mr. Corwin was a government relations Director at the American Bankers Association and a member of the United States Senate professional staff.
Mr. Corwin has been a guest on numerous television and radio public affairs and business programs. He has also discussed and debated copyright and other legal issues affecting digital media delivery at law and technology conferences, and has lectured on technology-related legislative and regulatory initiatives at such forums as Glasser Legalworks’ E-Commerce Law School and the Practicing Law Institute’s Internet Law Institute, as well as at programs of the American Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar. In December 2006 he participated as a speaker at a workshop on domain name “tasting” at the Sao Paulo, Brazil meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Mr. Corwin is an active member of several American Bar Association Committees. He serves as Chairman of the Business Law Section’s Committee on Legislation and as the Washington Liaison for the Science and Technology Section, and was Legislative Reporter for the Business Law Section's Cyberspace Law Committee.
Mr. Corwin received his B.A. in Government from Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences and his JD from Boston College Law School. He is a member of the Bar in the District of Columbia and Massachusetts, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Executive Director – Michael Collins cofounded Afternic.com with his brother, Roger Collins. He was introduced to the domain industry when his brother told him about the .us land rush. Together they started NameBuySell.com as a part-time venture. Six months later, no one had heard of the business. It had few domain name listings and almost no sales when the brothers came across an opportunity to buy the number one domain name in our market, Afternic.com. After completing the acquisition of the domain and the associated trademark, the business was moved to Afternic.com. Immediately, our traffic and our business skyrocketed. People who had been in the industry for years were asking who are those Collins brothers and where did they come from. Afternic.com was sold to NameMedia in 2006.
Michael is now using his experience working with domain owners and developers to help ICA to grow in size and prominence. His focus is recruiting new members and listening to the members to better understand their needs and represent their interests.