Jay -
What made you stop consulting for NSI?
Curiously,
Esther Dyson
At 06:25 PM 13/06/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>Hi Antony,
>
>For the most part, we agree.
>
>There are, however, a couple of points
>I would like to comment on.
>
>Since you have addressed this email to me,
>you seem to be implying that I am no longer
>an independent voice. Nothing could be further
>from the truth.
>
>Even when I was consulting for NSI (which ended
>with the Berlin meeting), I was not paid to be a
>"NSI Supporter." My role was to give NSI my views
>on this fiasco, not the other way around!
>
>And while we agree that NSI has done some things
>wrong, I don't persecute them for any original sin
>(i.e. wild success with a competitive .com registry).
>
>Where we strongly disagree, however, is with the
>cure. The real solution to this dilemma is a healthy
>dose of competition for NSI, not top-heavy regulation.
>For if you choose the latter, you subject everyone to
>those powerful forces who would love to control this
>wonderful thing we call the Internet.
>
>Respectfully,
>
>Jay Fenello
>President, Iperdome, Inc. 404-943-0524
>-----------------------------------------------
>What's your .per(sm)? http://www.iperdome.com
>
>P.S. Please forward this to the DNSO list. I
>believe that I have been involuntarily removed!
>
>
>At 04:16 PM 6/13/99 , Antony Van Couvering wrote:
>>Don, Jay,
>>
>>Given the breathtakingly brazen stunts that NSI has pulled at the expense of
>>the Internet community, I never thought it would be possible for ICANN to
>>make them look like the aggrieved party. But lo, it has come to pass.
>>
>>This is getting sickening. I've never seen so many people who were
>>completely right and never wrong as I've seen on these lists. Are there any
>>independent voices out there?
>>
>>Who can really feel sorry for NSI after all the crap they've pulled?
>>Practically no-one, I should think, except their employees. But who can
>>support ICANN when they start censoring people? Even fewer (since they have
>>fewer employees).
>>
>>Will the people from the IAHC/gTLD-MoU (and remember, I was founding Chair
>>of PAB and spent a lot of time and effort to make that effort succeed), who
>>now seem to all think that ICANN is a conclave of the purest wisest Solomons
>>ever assembled, presumably because they are at present bashing NSI, never
>>realize that:
>>
>>*The POC was a closed shop, a black box, unreadable and unknowable from the
>>outside, intransigent against efforts to open it up and see the
>>decision-making process
>>
>>*Making everyone sign the gTLD-MoU before they got to play was an horrific
>>miscue and an affront to Internet stakeholders (hence my attempt to
>>introduce a very watered-down "gTLD-MoU lite", consisting of a few
>>unobjectionable principles - alas, to no effect).
>>
>>*If the POC hadn't forced CORE to charge $10K to anyone who wanted to become
>>a registrar, which was done just to make sure that "unstable" people didn't
>>join, but instead had charged, say, $500, like Nominet does in the UK, we
>>wouldn't have had the Green Paper, the White Paper, or the ICANN, which is
>>starting to act just like POC, but with less excuse since they have already
>>seen that kind of thing fail.
>>
>>*Basically, NSI did try to torpedo the gTLD-MoU, but that's not why it
>>failed. It failed because it was so bloody-mindedly stupid, and so paranoid
>>about NSI that it started to act like NSI: paranoid, unaccountable,
>
>>mealy-mouthed.
>>
>>*That it's just possible that NSI doesn't realize how horribly they've
>>treated everyone, that they actually think they're the good guys, and that
>>therefore they should be encouraged to become part of the community and stop
>>playing the spoiler.
>>
>>*That the POC has mostly itself to blame for the Green Paper and the White
>>Paper and the plodding interference of the U.S. Government. Do you think
>>Magaziner *wanted* to step into this minefield? All you had to do was let a
>>few other people play with the ball, but you couldn't let yourself do it.
>>
>>AND ON THE OTHER SIDE
>>
>>Will the people who are NSI supporters - and most of them now admit they are
>>paid - stop acting the fool and admit that:
>>
>>*Of course NSI did all it could to torpedo the gTLD-MoU, just as it is now
>>dragging its heels to fullest possible extent with ICANN.
>>
>>*The only reason NSI plays at all in this sandbox is because the only
>>gorilla larger than it, the US Govt., is standing over it with a big stick.
>>
>>*That having secret lists of names they won't register, that not following
>>the RFCs, that greeting every domain-name dispute with an army of lawyers,
>>that charging the equivalent of a new registration to transfer a name to new
>>registrar, that attempting to claim the whois database as their property,
>>that replacing the InterNIC site without any warning, that crippling whois
>>listings without any warning, and so on ad nauseum until we're all so sick
>>of it we can hardly breathe, IS NOT ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR.
>>
>>*That NSI has mostly itself to blame for the Green Paper and the White Paper
>>and the plodding interference of the U.S. Govt. Again, do you think that
>>Magaziner wanted to get in the middle of this thing? I know, because I was
>>there, that almost any movement toward an accommodation with the gTLD-MoU
>>would have led to negotiations that might have got us somewhere. But no.
>>Given .com years ago, in a different universe far far away, NSI has latched
>>on to it as if they actually earned it, which is truly laughable.
>>
>>And so Adult Supervision was definitely indicated. Hence the involvement of
>>the U.S. Government. Unfortunately for all of us, the supervision, in the
>>form of ICANN, is proving to be as puerile and short-sighted as their
>>charges.
>>
>>This was the Internet, this beautiful gift to us all, and just look at the
>>preposterous games these fools are playing with it, all these fools who are
>>always right, all the time.
>>
>>PASS THE SICK BAG.
>>
>
>Respectfully,
>
>Jay Fenello
>President, Iperdome, Inc.� 404-943-0524
>-----------------------------------------------
>What's your .per(sm)? http://www.iperdome.com
>
Esther Dyson Always make new mistakes!
chairman, EDventure Holdings
interim chairman, Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers
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