http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,0-38955,00.html
ICANN defensive in letter to Commerce**
By Courtney Macavinta
[...]
Countering NSI's complaints that ICANN is trying
to regulate its business as well as those of the
new registrars through operating agreements, the
nonprofit insisted today that it is a grassroots
organization, not a policy-setting body.
"If they come into existence, these contracts will
be the product of voluntary agreements; since
ICANN has no governmental power, and indeed no
existence outside the context of community
consensus, it cannot coerce cooperation," ICANN
told the Commerce Committee.
Still, legal experts and other observers have said
that ICANN has to ability to "make law" on the Net
through its agreements. That's because to enter
NSI's business, new registrars have to promise to
comply with numerous terms and conditions, such
adopting an impending domain name dispute
procedure that could give offline trademark holders
special rights to Net names even if they already
are in use by someone else.
[...]
"NSI must fulfill its obligation to recognize ICANN,"
Commerce stated. "The transition of DNS
management to the private sector can succeed
only if all participants in the domain name
system--including NSI--subject themselves to
rules emerging from the consensus-based,
bottom-up process spelled out in the White
Paper."
=======
**
ICANN's (40 page) reply to the House Cmte on Commerce is at
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/bliley-response-08july99.htm
