customers "belonging" to NSI

[Carl Oppedahl <carl@oppedahl.com>]

At 09:33 AM 12/24/96 +0000, Marty Modell wrote:

>>   Sure, and NSI customers who find that **their** customers
>> are being misidirected to some bogus .com domain that a ``pirate''
>> dns operator has set up will sue. 
>
>The customers don't "belong" to NSI  

Yes, that's right.  Many of them registered domain names prior to the start
of NSI's five-year administrative term, and they, in particular, don't
"belong" to NSI.  When I signed up for oppedahl.com in 1994, I trusted and
assumed that the *only* reason I was dealing with NSI was that they were
the *temporary* administrator of the COM TLD.

>NSI becomes just another 
>contender for a registry when their contract ends.  Their files 
>should be turned back to NSF which gave them the contract in the 
>first place.

Yes, that is what should happen.

>A basic flaw in the draft is the assumption that NSI will continue to 
>be a registry and will be outside of the rules and agreements for all 
>other registries.  NSF can if it wishes unilaterally (most government 
>issued contracts have such a clause) revoke or modify the contract.  
>The contract (OK agreement) is for one year with four optional 
>renewals  Each renewal is negotiated whith NSI reuestng changes it 
>wants and NSF doing the same.  The renewal #3 was the one that 
>negotiated the charges for registration.  No reason why renewal #4 
>can negotiate that NSI agree to the CORE-MoU

Have you ever looked on the back of your $100 or $50 canceled check that
was payable to NSI?  It says "a division of SAIC".  

SAIC is a Big Well-Connected Company.  Its revenues are $2 billion
annually.  It has its fingers into Congress, the Defense Department, and
probably other places that don't have names.  I am frankly amazed and proud
that IAHC has the backbone to stand up to NSI at all, especially given past
instances of various parties not really standing up to NSI in any
meaningful way.

Between now and the expiry date of the NSI/NSF contract, it is difficult to
imagine IAHC canceling NSI's contract.  And, unfortunately, it is difficult
to imagine getting NSI's horrible trademark domain policy undone, or
somehow cutting back on the excessive annual fee, between now and then.
NSF has shown no signs of doing the right thing as to either of these areas.

But NSI knows or should know that there is a contract expiration date
coming, and by now the Internet community and all of the major players are
watching closely.  NSI had better promise to be a better member of the
community or it might get shut out completely.