Re: War of Internet Governance: 1995 - ????

[Robert Shaw <robert.shaw@itu.int>]

Jay@Iperdome.com wrote:
> 
> At 12:49 PM 11/11/97 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:
> >another.  .per, for example, is the 3 letter abbreviation for Peru.
> >If the government of Peru made a claim for that name, perhaps they
> >should get it.  Without any *policy* defined the fact that you have
> >running registries is meaningless.
> 
> At 12:08 PM 10/22/97 -0400, Donald E. Eastlake 3rd wrote:
> >There are a infinite number of hypothetical problems you can dream
> up.  COM is the three letter ISO country code for the Comoros Islands.  So
> what?
> 
> Ditto!
> 

Jay,

Come on - let's demonstrate a little common sense.

I'm sure that you can find all types of justifications why ".per", the
ISO 3166 alpha-3 code for Peru should be allocated to you, Jay Fennello/ 
Iperdome, a United States "entrepreneur" [see www.iperdome.com/investor 
information].

However, I hope you would be able to imagine the sort of outcry if 
".usa", the ISO 3166 alpha-3 code for the United States was allocated to a 
"Peruvian entrepreneur". 

Indeed, names have interesting properties. I'm sure you were there
at this last summer's ITAA/ISA/CDT conference on domain names in Washington, 
D.C. when a Canadian representative listed about 5 or 6 gTLDs that he 
considered to "all be abbreviations of Canada", and therefore "should only 
be available to Canadians". 

Indeed, names have interesting properties...

> A fundamental question is why the IANA, a U.S. Government
> funded contractor, should be allowed to "give" seven new gTLDs
> to its self-selected representatives (especially when it was
> negotiated behind closed doors, sets up a Swiss-based cartel,
> ignores prior Internet precedents, and is generally regarded
> as an inappropriate power grab).  Why should the IANA be
> allowed to *exclude* already operational TLDs and registries.

What a bunch of silly and loaded rhetoric. Let's examine what you're
saying:

"self-selected representatives"

  What in the world does this mean? The IAHC defined a set of financial 
  and objective criteria to become a registrar and handed this part of
  the process off to Arthur Andersen, an independent auditing agency, to 
  assure complete neutrality in evaluating applications. Some 90 companies 
  applied - most were approved (see http://www.gtld-mou.org/docs/reg-results.html). 
  And believe me, there is no shortage of companies asking iPOC to reopen the 
  process as soon as possible.

"negotiated behind closed doors" 

  Excuse me? what was negotiated behind closed doors? We've been in a very 
  public process and spend a tremendous amount of time informing the public 
  of what we're doing, having request for comments, working with industry and
  governmental authorities, etc.

"sets up Swiss-based cartel" 

  Now I know this has a nice inflammatory ring and is a favorite zing of our 
  illustrious detractors but as my father used to say - this is plain hogwash. 
  CORE is a non-profit Swiss Association. The Association is the legal entity for an 
  operational body - CORE. It must be a legal body because it does things like 
  sign contracts for database/repository services, etc. Policy (in contrast to 
  operations) is set by the POC and PAB who with input from the public are there 
  to assure that CORE acts in the best interests of the current and future users 
  of the Internet DNS.

  [As a humorous sidebar and hopefully to put this silly cartel stuff finally to 
  bed, I believe it was Tony Rutkowski that started the "Swiss cartel" propaganda 
  line. This never ceases to raise a laugh with the IAHC/iPOC folks since the original 
  idea to create a Swiss Association *came* from Mr Rutkowski. Now isn't it just 
  remarkable that since then, all previous references to Swiss non-profit associations
  and their advantages have disappeared from Mr Rutkowski's multiple web sites? But 
  not to worry, he seems to have forgotten one: see 
  http://www.agent.org/society/society-index.html, bottom of the page, and 
  http://www.agent.org/society/society-charter.html.]

"ignores prior Internet precedents"

  Excuse me? Who is ignoring prior Internet precedents? Remember what it says
  in RFC 1591 from 1994 (Section 3.2)?

    "...designated authorities are trustees for the delegated domain, and have a 
    duty to serve the community. The designated manager is the trustee of the 
    top-level domain for the .. the global Internet community. "Concerns about 
    "rights" and "ownership" of domains are *inappropriate*.  It is appropriate to 
    be concerned about "responsibilities" and "service" to the community."

  Now the problem is that today, in 1997, people like yourself want to 
  have "rights" and "ownership" of a gTLD - seeing this as a business opportunity 
  instead of a "service" to the global Internet community. Realizing this, the IAHC 
  decided that in a competitive registration business environment, sharing of gTLDs 
  was fundamentally necessary to ensure "responsibilities" and "service" to users.

  The gTLD-MoU, by putting gTLDs in the public trust, codifies more formally what is 
  said in RFC 1591. Sharing wipes away the issues of "ownership" and focuses registrars 
  on service to the community. If you succeed in this business environment, it'll be
  because you are working in a level playing field - providing a good service, at a good
  price - not because you have "ownership" of a valuable string of characters that 
  people want to register under.

Robert
-- 
Robert Shaw (shaw@itu.int)
Advisor, Global Information Infrastructure
International Telecommunication Union (http://www.itu.int)
Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland