He is seeking to have ICANN enforce its own rules against cybersquatting, including the rule against registering a famous personâ(TM)s name and making money off it.

You seem to have missed the part where the panel decided that the current owner had abided by the rules and that Ron Paul was the one guilty of rules violations.

If a party decides to take ownership of something with the sole purpose of ransoming it to an owner who will actually use it, that is not "free market" - it's exploitation.

If I buy some land, build a house on it that I never intend to live in, I should give it away to the first person who wants to live in the house?

What if I see that a city is developing in a certain direction and I make a gamble to buy up some farm land that I do not develop, should I give that up to the first developer who comes along?

In this case, the owner of the domains developed them, gaining users in the process. That doesn't fit your description of "sole purpose of ransoming it ...."

Face facts: the whole WIPO domain name resolution process has mostly been used to allow the rich and powerful to take away domains at minimal cost from people who had the foresight to register them. In a free market, that foresight should have value and the people who exercised it should be rewarded.

So, the government is going to have to write the government a check?

Federal government is going to have to write the state government a check.

Yeas ago, I read of a lawsuit that posed this very question: it concerned who owned the original version of a race car (a Shelby Cobra, IIRC). One of the cars was modified and as part of the modifications, the part of the chassis that had the chassis number stamp (or plate) was discarded. Someone else retrieved the discarded piece of the chassis and built a car around it. Since the value of an original Cobra is much greater than the cost to build a replica, this would be a financially viable project. There were then 2 competing registrations for the "same" car at the DMV. As I recall, the car that was modified was judged to be the original and the registration of the other (the one build around the discarded piece of the chassis) was voided.

I think you are confusing Compaq and Dell. Compaq used to sell insanely expensive and over-engineered PCs. I seem to remember my company paying $30k for a desktop PC from Compaq in the early '90s.

Well, how about a 2nd Amendment solution to the cameras?

who needs guns when you have an old tire and petrol?

And you have the gall to call others posters fanbois!

That's not a fixed price.

No, but it is "price fixing".

1. Apple does not have an app monopoly (required for this to be illegal)

This is something you have made up. Price fixing can be illegal in the absence of a monopoly.

2. App "dominance", even monopoly, has no bearing on book sellers (how is Apple supposed to leverage this against them?).

Again, you failed to RTFA:

When Random House ultimately signed on the dotted line, Eddy Cue sent an email to Jobs stating that one of the reasons Random House agreed to Apple's terms was because "I prevented an app from Random House from going live in the app store."

Looks like a clear example of Apple using its app store to leverage agreements on prices.

3. Even assuming they have a monopoly (they don't, but just for argument's sake), in what way did they exploit this?
4. It's funny how supposedly "Android is winning", but somehow Apple is a monopoly.

Your frequent remarks about monopolies are pure strawman arguments. Probably invented by you because of your blind support for Apple.

5. Publishers could have easily not gone with Apple's offer. Amazon was eBook monopoly at the time (which is exactly why they went with that deal, to leverage against Amazon!), and are still the dominant eBook seller (60% market share).

That claim is refuted by the facts. Publishers were able to do exactly what you claim they could not: "gone with Apple's offer".

This was just a shrewd business deal which gave power back to the publishers and busted the Amazon monopoly (which they were actually abusing against other book sellers, and even the publishers themselves!).

Yeah, great monopoly busting: resulting in increased prices. Yeah, that's the way to go. Don't want those dirty monopolies that result in lower prices.

Honestly, do you realize how stupid your posts are?

Amazon had a monopoly which they used to abuse the publishers. Apple made separate deals with each publisher (which is not collusion or price-fixing) which broke Amazon's monopoly.

Did you not read the article? Prices went up. Sellers agreed to only sell on an agency basis and not a wholesale basis. Please tell me how this is good for consumers? And the reason prices went up? Apple colluded with publishers to remove their books from Amazon if Amazon would not agree to sell at a higher price. How is that not price-fixing?

My sister and her family moved to the land of opportunity a month ago, and are already working out exit options since there's no way in hell they can afford university or health fees for the kids.

While things can be difficult, there are ways.
University fees: firstly, live in a state that offers in-state fees to all residents, not just to Green Card holders (permanent residents) and citizens. Secondly, take the general education part of your degree course at community college, so that only 2 years of full university fees have to be paid. University of California's fees are comparable with the UK (9,000 pounds/year).
Health fees for the kids: should be covered by employer, or, if over 26, some kind of government assistance.

Compare the cost of buying a Nexus 4 from the Google Play Store against the "unsubsidised" price from T-Mobile.

They still have to accept submissions, evaluate them, farm them out for review, decide which to accept, publish them, and then make them available in perpetuity.

But they don't do the evaluation and decisions on which to publish. That is done by unpaid reviewers and editors.

it's likely that "easy, free, open access" to 250,000 articles per year would require them to invest in significant upgrades of their infrastructure,

Much of their infrastructure is related to payment processing and restricted document delivery. None of that would be required in an open-access model. In addition, some of their costs are attributable to printing physical copies of articles, which would not happen in an open-access model (or could be done by a third party for payment).

Your argument make the incorrect assumption that an open-access approach would have the same costs that a closed-access model has. Much of Elsevier's costs are directly attributable to their sales model and would vanish in an open-access world.

Umm...they're pre paid? As in, already paid for?

In pre-paid phones what is pre-paid for is the service: the minutes, data, etc..

Just as printer manufacturers can sell printers at a discount knowing that there is a high likelihood (but no contract) that you will buy ink from them, phone companies can discount a locked phone, knowing that there is a high likelihood that you will buy more minutes from them.