Re: [ga] ICANN's Game of Chicken with the USG

["Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Karl and all,

  Thanks for the reminder and this post the link.

  It has been true for some time that ICANN has been attempting
to act right up to the edge of real violations of restraint of trade,
amongst other questionable if not nafarious and miscriant business
practices.  I believe I shall cut and paste your remarks below with
my comentary and thoughts from our members to Change.gov for
the Obama administrations consideration as well as forwarding
this to Rham E, for his attention.

Karl Auerbach wrote:

> Danny Younger wrote:
> > The Progress and Freedom Foundation has called for a new GAO study of ICANN:
> >
> > http://blog.pff.org/archives/2009/01/icanns_game_of.html
>
> That would be the third one - but to be precise, they were studies of
> the US Gov't agencies involved with ICANN, not of ICANN, the California
> non-profit/public-benefit corporation.
>
> The first two GAO studies could not find a clear source of authority for
> NTIA or other parts of the Dept of Commerce to do what they were doing.
>
> (In my lawsuit against ICANN for withholding its financial records from
> a sitting member of its Board of Directors, part of my evidence was an
> official copy of one of the GAO reports.  It had blue ribbons and
> embossed seals and everything; everyone, on both sides of the case, and
> the judge, thought that it was pretty cool.)
>
> Remember Sally Rand - she danced around naked and hid (most of the time)
> behind some artful maneuvers with a pair of large feathered fans.  ICANN
> and NTIA have been doing something similar by fending off anti-trust
> questions by playing a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't game in which it is
> never clear whether ICANN is an independent private corporation or an
> arm of the US government.
>
> Given NTIA's recent to letter to ICANN about ICANN's obligations to be
> concerned about creating concentrations of market power through its new
> TLD policies, one has to wonder how much longer ICANN can continue to
> avoid a well focused lawsuit that accuses ICANN of being an unlawful
> combination in restraint of trade.  So far that issue has not been
> clearly, unequivocally, and inescapably raised by one whose lawful
> business has been denied entry into the domain name marketplace by
> virtue of an ICANN denial or ICANN's fee structures.
>
>                 --karl--

 Regards,

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