Ken,
>rules,standards, codes ... call them what you will but i feel that they are
>essential components for insuring confidence in the growth in the registry
>system.
>
>ken
>p.s. i feel advocating business standards or codes of ethics only enhances
>public confidence. as a CPA it has worked quite well for the profession as a
>whole. as far as other internet -related activities are concerned. i leave
>it up to them to determine what is in their best self-interest, although i
>would assume that many internet industry trade associations currenty have
>"codes" to help instill confidence in doing business with their members..
>(the bar association also comes into mind here as well..)
This is an important, indeed fundamental, set of considerations.
The Internet and those who provide Internet resources have
done rather well over the years without codes. Applicable law,
the marketplace, and customary practice has been sufficient.
Your thoughtful response raises the issue of whether it's now
necessary through some means of intervention to promulgate
and enforce codes for the providers of Internet services.
I'd suggest great caution here. The codes of professional
groups are generally predicated on some color of government
licensing authority. The codes of trade associations generally
emerge out of consensus among the members of those associations.
In both of these cases, the codes are very minimalist, general,
and usually voluntary.
It also begs the question, why tld dns registry service providers?
How about lower level registries? What's so important about DNS
directory services? There are other components of the Internet
and its resources that are more important. Shouldn't there be
codes for ISP? For public key authenticators? Web hosters?
Search services? How about ECommerce providers?
This is a long slippery slope without end, and under whose aegis
is it to occur?
--tony
