Re: Conflict resolution?

["David R. Conrad" <davidc@apnic.net>]

Christopher,

>> _ALL_ top level domains _MUST_ be shared
>I must disagree in the strongest possible terms. 

Somehow, I am not surprised.

>Our business plan, at the
>least, is based on the commercial viability of the .WEB property, 

I fail to see why the Internet community should grant you a monopoly
simply because you have based a business plan on that monopoly status.

>for which
>IANA accepted an application pending completion of procedure. 

In the context of the creation of iTLDs and the deliberations of the
IAHC, I figure it is irrelevant whether or not the IANA "accepted an
application pending completion of procedure".  At the time you
purportedly submitted an application, the only agreed upon mechanisms
for new domain allocation were those documented in RFC 1591.  Granting
your application some sort of special status because you went to
Marina Del Rey and met with IANA personnel, while the vast majority of
the Internet community labored under the assumption that RFC 1591 was
still in effect is ludicrous.

>1. NSI retains exclusive use of .COM, .NET and .ORG through 1998, and even
>  after that point, has had an unfair trade advantage in having exclusive
>  use of them to date. 

Given you view the NSI exclusive use of domains as an "unfair trade
advantage", your solution to the problem is to give yourself exclusive
use of another domain?  It would seem a better solution would be to
disallow exclusive use.

>2. IANA has accepted applications for TLDs, and has stated publically that
>  prior use should be a deciding factor, as well as making a number of
>  statements and promises that must be kept. This seems to be quite a
>  point of contention, however.

Under conventions established via RFC 1591, the IANA can accept
applications for TLDs and decide to implement them or not.  However,
as RFC 1591 states, it would be extremely unlikely that new TLDs would
be allocated.  Thus, you can probably assume your .WEB application
would be rejected.

However, it was felt that their was a need for new TLDs, so Jon Postel
and a few others wrote a draft that would revise RFC 1591 to make it
easier to get new TLDs.  After a few revisions, the end result of that
draft is the IAHC and presumably that is the organization to which
applicaitons should be made.

>I believe that sharing an iTLD should be OPTIONAL, and not mandated for,
>at least, these two reasons.

You are arguing the solution to a monopoly is the creation of another
monopoly and that because you tried either deliberately or in
ignorance to bypass RFC 1591 procedures that you should be given the
monopolistic rights to .WEB.  Obviously, I do not see these as valid
arguments.

Can you explain why you feel you cannot derive commercial viability
for your domain name registration service by simply providing value at
a reasonable cost in a free market instead of relying on monopolistic
status?

Thanks,
-drc