At 11:03 AM 3/29/99 -0800, you wrote:
>At 08:10 AM 3/29/99 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:
>>On Sun, Mar 28, 1999 at 11:48:19PM -0800, Bill Lovell wrote:
>>[...]
>>>
>>> In short, the letter code that defines some subset
>>> of the nearly infinite domain name space, whether
>>> that letter code be "per" or anything else, should be
>>> set by international agreement and freely available
>>> to every prospective domain name holder to use,
>>> through whatever registrar that prospective registrant
>>> may choose.
>>
>>That was *precisely* what the gTLD-MoU proposed.
>
>... and is precisely what was wrong with it. It left NO room for privately
>controlled TLDs. In fact this presumes to have ownership control in
>gTLD-MoU hands. A chartered TLD that limits membership can not operate
>under such a mode. Registrars *must* be qualified to register within such a
>TLD and denial of registrar capability/privileges are a requirement for the
>enforcement of this. Otherwise, gTLDs are useless. This removes a primary
>control mechanism from a trademarked gTLD and may, in fact, be an illegal
>restriction.
Well, good for it. By what stretch of the imagination does it become a "good
thing" that private entities can somehow loom in over the horizon and claim
ownership and control of any segment of the internet? Under what legal
theory does company CAT get the right to define and control a TLD ".cat"
and arrogantly tell the rest of the world "hands off?" How is that any better
than NSI claiming to own .com, etc., or ICANN (whether or not it makes this
claim I will find determine from its own publications -- it seems that this
list is populated with an ample sampling of both liars and damn liars!)
claiming
to "own" every imaginable TLD? This "rush for ownership," it seems to me,
is (a) a symptom of the spreading NSI fungus; and (b) a detriment to the free
development of an egalitarian internet in which survival will rest not on legal
trickery and stunts but rather -- um, reliable service, reasonable rates, etc.,
you know, all those old fashioned conservative values?
Bill Lovell
