Brock wrote, some two years ago:
> As part of that control, the cabal has set up what it calls the
> Council of Registrars, which will operate under Swiss law.
>
(Blatant appeal to nationalism: ..."The moves by this cabal are
set on a train wreck course with the *U.S. government*." -- not the
net as a whole. )
> Companies are encouraged to submit applications to become an
> official registrar of domain names under the council. Only
> companies accepted by the council will be allowed to compete in the
> open market to register new domain names, as approved by the memo.
> Small catch: In order to be "approved" companies must first sign
> onto the memo and pony up $10,000.
(Ooh, money!)
> To take care of trademark disputes, the council will have an appeals
> tribunal known as the "administrative domain name challenge panel."
>
...
> "The panels conduct their work in Geneva or via online discussions,"
> Sernovitz says in a document on his group's web site. "You will have no
> right to a face-to-face defense against your challenger," he says.
>
(Not like those real courts, which we love so well!)
...
> I do know that setting up a global body that operates on the U.N.
> model will sound the death knell for an open and thriving spirit of
> innovation and cooperation that has driven the Internet to date.
Now we have a global body whose funding will not come from
memberships, does *not conduct its business openly on the net,
bids fair to *require face-to-face court adjudication, has the tacit
approval of USG -- and we're still just as befuddled by what is going
on as we were in 1997.
I think Jay has it right: the names have changed, and some of the
details, but the game's the same.
=============
Ronda disagrees:
> Meeks seemed to believe that there were those outside the U.S.
> government who were acting to steal the owership and control of
> these vital Internet functions.
It is certainly unfortunate that Meeks thought government(s) still
represented the 'vox populi.' If he'd been a little less chauvinistic
(or less infatuated with the idea that the net-public was all that
counted), by now we might have been able to comprehend that
governance is something we could be doing for ourselves, instead
of indulging in another 730 days of non-stop, small-minded and
futile bickering.
kerry
"The governance models that we choose today for the Internet will
be the ones that are placed on society in the next century.
Sometimes this thought keeps me up at night." -- one of the last
thoughtful US govt officials
