Re: [ga] ICANN, Verisign, and Competition

[Hugh Dierker <hdierker2204@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chris and Jeff,
   
  There is an ancient maxim; Democracy can only flourish when states are of law and not of men.  Remember the inception of this experiment called ICANN. A time of great "liberalism" under dominion of Bill Clinton. Ninety per cent of governmenticians were only just getting up to speed with computers - no way the inter/intra or DARPA  net.
  And along comes Postal. But for him ICANN would not exist. (all pardons to Sr. Gore)
   
  Therefor the ICANN structure was based on faith and the concept and hope of benevolent Philosoper King technocrats. Ergo the language was designed to let men rule instead of a hard and fast rule of law. The lawyers drafting these puppies up had no idea what they were doing. The DOC had no dedicated group to deal with this. ecommerce was in the thousands not billions and the dotCOM bubble, soon to be dotBOMB, was in the future. Fully less than 12 countries were in any meaningful way exploiting their ccTLDs. When I got on board Network Solutions owned all rights to all gTLDs.
   
  I have been lucky enough to travel the great south of the USA. And there are still remnants of the handiwork of the carpetbaggers. The Internet is still in control of the modern day political carpetbaggers. After Postals death and the dotBOMB there is much to profit. We are lucky at this point that keeping the net running reasonably well is in the rotating BoD of ICANNs interest.
   
  e

Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
  Chris and all former DNSO GA members or other interested
stakeholders/users,

On a personal and ethical note here, I for the life of me cannot
understand
or contemplate how DOC/NTIA legal staff could allow such language
to be used in this manner. It's mind boggling!

kidsearch wrote:

> "ICANN does not create or make Internet policy. Rather, policy is
> created through a bottom-up, transparent process involving all
> necessary constituencies and stakeholders in the Internet Community."
>
> As long as they can decide who are the "necessary" constituencies and
> stakeholders, then they can make that claim.
>
> Chris McElroy
>
> http://www.wholettheblogout.com
>
> http://www.newsandmediablog.com
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Richard Henderson
> To: General Assembly of the DNSO
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 5:58 PM
> Subject: [ga] ICANN, Verisign, and Competition
>
>
> I thought one of the remits of ICANN, under the terms of its MoU
> with the DoC, was to promote competition:
>
> "The President directed the Secretary of Commerce to privatize the
> management of the domain name system (DNS) in a manner that increases
> competition" This was to promote what the MoU also called: "the
> development of robust competition in the management of Internet names
> and addresses." The MoU continues: "This competition will lower costs,
> promote innovation, and enhance user choice and satisfaction."
>
> How does it promote competition if you grant a permanent monopoly of
> a TLD to a single entity, and additionally allow it to unilaterally
> raise the cost of its product year-on-year by more than the rate of
> inflation? How does that "lower costs"?
>
> Was the decision to grant these extraordinary rights based on
> strenuous encouragement of competition to see which bidders would
> offer the lowest and most competitive prices to the consumer? What was
> the case for not encouraging multiple parties to "bid" for the
> Registry rights, in order to bring prices down?
>
> Was the decision based on full and "bottom up" discussion with all
> ICANN constituencies, to achieve 'consensus' and acceptance of the
> ICANN community as a whole that this process and decision were the
> right ones, the ones which would best open up the market, the ones
> which would best achieve competition and lower costs for consumers and
> other businesses? Were all parties and constituencies involved in the
> bottom up generation of this "deal" or was the deal a "top-down" fait
> accomplis, foisted upon people? Why are so many parties protesting?
> Where is the "consensus"? Is "bottom up" just a meaningless facade?
>
> The MoU says ICANN "shall not apply standards, policies, procedures
> or practices inequitably or single out any particular party for
> disparate treatment unless justified by substantial and reasonable
> cause and will ensure sufficient appeal procedures for adversely
> affected members of the Internet community." Are all TLDs to be
> administered on the same basis of perpetual rights being given to each
> Registry? Was Verisign in any way "singled out" for special treatment,
> as part of a deal to avoid legal conflict, or for any other reason?
>
> In what sense is this "deal" obviously and openly 'competitive'?
>
> In what sense is this deal endorsed by the various ICANN
> constituencies that are supposed to play a full part in a "bottom up"
> development of policy? Quote from the ICANN fact sheet at:
> http://www.icann.org/general/fact-sheet.html
>
> "ICANN does not create or make Internet policy. Rather, policy is
> created through a bottom-up, transparent process involving all
> necessary constituencies and stakeholders in the Internet Community."
>
> In what sense is this deal reasonable and acceptable and in the best
> interests of all parties, rather than just the best interests of
> Verisign?
>
> Yrs,
>
> Richard Henderson
>
>

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]
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