I have heard *a LOT* rumors which may or may not be credible. Perhaps some of the parties involved would be willing to confirm or deny them> The general situation is that in addition to selling the internet out to IBM and the GIP, Bill Clinton and al gore have sold it out to the European commission. The ICANN policies that we have seen over the past 6 months, according to knowledgable insiders, are a result of Clinton/Gore/Magaziner promises to the Europeans that: 1. what happens to dot com will not be an American decision 2. that dot com net and org would be opened to registrar "competition" ASAP 3. that for-profit, proprietary registries would not be allowed in order to keep the europeans happy; 4. that new TLDs were also out of the question; 5. new TLDs could only be authorized as part of an international process with the GAC in control 6.. that WIPO had to be enshrined as the sole means of dns trademark dispute resolution, 7. and that there could be no competition among domain name dispute resolution policies as the Green Paper contemplated. This sellout of american interests by clinton, gore, magaziner and beckwith burr is very likely to be accompanied by an insistence by NTIA this week that NSI sign the ICANN registrar requirements. unfortunately it doesn't appear to have dawned on Beckwith that were NSI officers to sign such a document, they would become subject to lawsuits by NSI share holders. that faced with the hostility on the part of esther dyson and ICANNN, that NSI's only reasonable response will be to withdraw from the cooperative agreement. that the ICANN root server committee just happens to have a meeting scheduled for san jose california at Vint Cerf's ISOC fest this coming weekend. that if NSI doesn't agree to be put out of business at the behest of the clinton administration socialists, it will be put out of business at the demand of the european socialists by an order from Beckwith to paul vixie to make the f root server at the palo alto exchange the "a" server on an interim basis while IBM and NTIA put the finishing touches on an replacement site for an ICANN -run non profit dot com, org, and net registry with equipment telephones and leased lines already installed and ready to start taking new dot com registrations. (Last fall becky ordered NSI to provide her with a manual on how to run the "a" server.) what is not clear is how the commerce department will close down NSI's current operation (which they must do in order to satify the europeans). Remember these people are not supposed to destabilize the Internet. But if they don't close NSI down by the time Becky executes her saturday night massacre, we may see $500 billion taken off the value of internet stocks. that NSI, under such circumstances, would find itself forced to operate its A root as an alternative to the ICANN A root. that NSI, under such circumstances, would invite .web .per and other new tlds into its root that NSI's alternative root might gain some very significant support by other commercial internet service providers that we'd soon see the internmet could run just fine with multiple roots and that hopefully the NSI root would quickly begin to garner support over the ICANN/IBM?/NTIA/US gov't pirated root that hopefully by this weekend bliley and mcCain will have realized the gravity of the situation and sent out subpeonas for testimony by the people involved. **************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to seven years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA Exec summaries, glossary etc (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) http://cookreport.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] What's Behind Ican and How it Will Impact the Future of the Internet http://cookreport.com/icannregulate.shtml ****************************************************************
