[ga] Re: [CRIS Info] The PublicRoot rises again - Dutch tech firm wants to rid the Web of the .com

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe and all,

It is good to see that the unified root is moving in a positive direction
and having more success.  This is indicative of a free market system
at it's best.

Joe Baptista wrote:

> UnifedRoot rises from the ashes of the Public-Root - court action pending.
>
> An interesting observation from me is as follows - as private root use
> their commercial leverage to increase the size of the root database - how
> relevant will the WSIS process be in 5 years time?  Or should I be saying
> how irrelevant will it be then?
>
> http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-11-25T161438Z_01_MCC558424_RTRUKOC_0_US-INTERNET-DOMAINS-NODOTCOM.xml
>
> Dutch tech firm wants to rid the Web of the .com
> Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:14 AM ET
>
> By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent
>
> AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch technology company has breathed life into a
> project to rid the Internet of suffixes such as .com, and instead offer
> single names which can be countries, company names or fantasy words.
>
> Such a system, which enables countries, individuals and firms to have a
> Web address which consists of a single name, offers flexibility and is
> language and character independent.
>
> "The plan is to offer names in any character set," said Erik Seeboldt,
> managing director of Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot.
>
> UnifiedRoot offers practically unlimited numbers of suffixes, unlike the
> short list of suffixes currently in use. Its offer is different from other
> "alternative root" providers such as New.net which offers to register
> names in front of a small range of new suffixes, such as .club and .law.
>
> "We've already had thousands of registrations in a single day," said
> Seeboldt after the official opening of his 100-strong company which has
> installed 13 Internet domain name system (DNS) root servers on four
> continents.
>
> Dutch airport Schiphol is one of the early customers. Registering a name
> costs $1,000 plus an annual fee of $240. Companies can then invent
> additional Web site addresses in front of their top-level domain (TLD)
> name, such as flights.schiphol or parking.schiphol.
>
> Critics argue alternative root companies such as UnifiedRoot introduce
> ambiguity because they bring a new set of traffic rules to the Web which
> are, certainly in the beginning, only recognized by a limited number of
> computers around the world.
>
> "Those who claim to be able to add new 'suffixes' or 'TLDs' are generally
> pirates or con-men with something to sell," said Paul Vixie, who sits in
> several committees of the California-based Internet Corporation for
> Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) with day-to-day control of the Web, on
> his CircleID blog.
>
> WELCOME
>
> Others are more welcoming.
>
> "The existence of alternate roots, and the possibility of new ones,
> provides a useful competitive check on ICANN," said Jon Weinberg, a member
> of ICANNwatch which keeps a critical eye on ICANN.
>
> ICANN is overseen by the U.S. Department of Commerce and operates the root
> servers of the Internet which guide all Web traffic. The organization also
> determines which top-level domains are recognized by those root servers.
>
> At the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society earlier this
> month, many countries said they wanted to take part in the governance of
> ICANN. But the United States would not give up control.
>
> UnifiedRoot plans to take advantage of unhappiness about ICANN by offering
> geographic locations for free to countries, regions and cities.
>
> If alternative root companies want their TLDs recognized by computers
> around the world, they need to circumvent ICANN by pointing every single
> Internet computer around the world to their own root servers -- which
> contain a copy of ICANN's root server plus the addition of own-made TLDs.
>
> A quicker way to change the settings in individual computers is by closing
> deals with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which can change the settings
> for all their subscribers.
>
> UnifiedRoot has already clinched deals with most ISPs in Turkey. ISP
> Tiscali is also a UnifiedRoot client.
>
> To avoid conflicts between TLDs from UnifiedRoot and ICANN, the Dutch
> company will not register existing ICANN TLDs.
>
> UnifiedRoot took over from a Dutch company called UNIDT which launched the
> initial plan for TLDs last year, but which relied on a network of root
> servers controlled by individuals. This made the network vulnerable to
> manipulation or even criminal attack directing Internet surfers to fake
> Web sites.
>
> "The network has not been abused, but this was a mistake," said Marty van
> Veluw, the founder and manager of UNIDT who sold his client base and some
> other assets to UnifiedRoot.
>
> "UnifiedRoot has understood that the network needs to be 100 percent
> reliable, and they put a new one in place," he said.
>
> - 33 -
>
> _______________________________________________
> Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS)
> For more information see http://www.crisinfo.org/ act@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> CRIS Info is a public list for information and questions about the campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS).
> CRIS also has a Latin American regional list at: http://comunica.org/mailman/listinfo/crisal_comunica.org
> ________________________________________
>
> Crisinfo mailing list
> Send contributions to Crisinfo@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> CRIS Info archives are at:
> http://comunica.org/mailman/listinfo/crisinfo_comunica.org
> This list is provided courtesy of Comunica - http://comunica.org

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng.  INEG. INC.
ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402
E-Mail jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
 Registered Email addr with the USPS
Contact Number: 214-244-4827