Hello Charles,
I take great exception with your
article "Cut Esther Dyson a break!"
More comments below:
Excerpts from:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2298770,00.html
>Cut Esther Dyson a break!
>By Charles Cooper, ZDNet News
>July 21, 1999 4:30 PM PT
>
>Hardly a week goes by that I don't receive a barrage of flame-mail slamming
>Esther Dyson and ICANN, the non-profit committee she heads, as subverters
>of the common weal.
>
>Self-styled Internet domain name activists have skewered ICANN, taking it
>to task for backroom decision-making and its arrogation of power.
And rightly so!
>For the past several months, the committee has been on the receiving end of
>an often vicious disinformation campaign portraying Dyson & Co. in the
>worst possible light.
Could you please elaborate?
What exactly constitutes disinformation?
Is it the fact that the ICANN Board appeared
of a virgin birth? Is it the fact that this
board has made substantive decisions regarding
how the name space is to be regulated and taxed,
while it ignored its own by-laws in the process?
Is it the fact that this board has allowed for
the gaming and capture of the DNSO, the first
group authorized to appoint new members to the
ICANN Board?
While there is much disinformation involved
in this debate, most of it appears in your
article, not the well reasoned criticism
levied at ICANN. See Patrick Greenwell's
reply to Esther's response to Ralph Nader,
for a more complete list:
http://stealthgeeks.net/nader.html
>The upshot is the further delay in introducing real competition into the
>Internet domain name system, raising the specter of a breakdown and
>subsequent balkanization of the Internet's unified domain name system.
The competition which you describe is hardly
"real competition". It is a classic regulatory
approach to the allocation of assets. A true
competitive environment would be an expanded
name space, one featuring new TLDs to compete
with the saturated .com brand.
>But for the record, the company disavows any connection with the smear
>campaign aimed at ICANN and Dyson -- even though one of the more rabid
>anti-ICANN spammers used to do consulting work for NSI.
WOW, those are some pretty serious charges,
potentially even libelous!
So let me get this straight . . .
You claim that there is "vicious disinformation
campaign" instigated by a former consultant to NSI,
a "rabid" consultant who is using "spam" to perpetrate
a "smear campaign" against ICANN! The implication,
of course, is that NSI has fostered this campaign.
As the obvious target of *your* smear campaign,
please allow me to comment.
Let me start off by saying that I am not a former
consultant, I am a *current* consultant. If there
exists any basis in your charges (which I hereby
deny), then I suggest that you bring them to the
attention of the proper authorities. (The more
visibility on this topic, the better ;-)
And while my comments have been directed at the
illegitimacy of ICANN (and the many ways that ICANN
has lied, cheated, and deceived many in pursuit of
its agenda), I am not alone in my sentiments. In
fact, I am part of a relatively large community of
Netizens who are active in these debates, and who
share many of my sentiments. See the number and
quality of the supporters to Patrick's letter at:
http://stealthgeeks.net/endorsement.html
Also, see Ellen Rony's response to your article
below.
I'd also like to point out that my postings of late
have revolved around two topics. The one you have
described (aka the illegitimacy of ICANN), and the
one you haven't -- media bias. My latter complaint
is that the media is *NOT* covering the true nature
of the debate we are involved in.
Unfortunately, this debate has been framed as an
NSI vs. ICANN battle. Nothing could be further from
the truth. In actuality, we are fighting over control
of the Internet -- who will be in control, and what
rules and procedures will be used to make decisions.
I'm not the first to make this claim. David Post, a
legal scholar at Temple University, is among many others
who have said the same thing. Even Congressman Bliley at
last Thursday's hearings, equated the formation of ICANN
with the founding of the United States of America.
This is "The Untold Story!"
Why Charles, are you not telling it?
>In the meantime, the mudslinging continues.
>
>Dyson, who volunteered for the post in order to contribute to the greater
>good -- a quaint idea in these money-grubbing times of ours -- has to be
>asking herself why she even bothered.
>
>But like the legendary Jon Postel, who died last fall, she gives a damn
>about more than lining her private pocket.
>
>And that's more than can be said for a lot of the people in this silly
>little drama.
While I can't speak to Esther's motivation,
I can speak to my own.
It is true that, as the president and founder
of Iperdome, I stand to gain personally from
the DNS debate.
But I can also state, if it were entirely a
business decision, I would have left the debate
approximately two years ago.
I have remained in the fight because I know it
to be the right thing to do, because I care about
the Internet, and because I care about the World
in which we live.
Allowing a Soviet style takeover of the Internet
is simply *NOT* in humanity's best interest.
And if I thought for a moment that it would help,
I'd be more than happy to forfeit my interests in
Iperdome.
Respectfully,
Jay Fenello
President, Iperdome, Inc. 404-943-0524
-----------------------------------------------
What's your .per(sm)? http://www.iperdome.com
http://www.zdnet.com/tlkbck/comment/22/0,7056,61445-201175,00.html
At 04:43 PM 7/22/99 , Ellen Rony wrote:
>
>As one who has been closely monitoring the evolution for domain name system
>for 3.5 years, I feel your assessment in completely off-track.
>
>Early in the develoopment of ICANN, Esther Dyson, as chair of the Board of
>Directors, urged the Internet community to "trust us". Trust has been
>withheld from ICANN because it lacks any solid footing. The transfer to
>the private sector was intended as a self-governing initiative. Instead,
>an interim 10-member ICANN board generally lacking in tecHnical
>fundamentals and historical understanding of the DNS was imposed on the
>community out of the ether. Few of the ICANN board members have ever
>engaged in online public dialogue on the contentious issues that concern
>us. All ICANN board decisions to date have been made behind closed doors.
>The Domain Name Supporting Organization, as currently costituted, has no
>non-commercial or individual representation, although the public has
>requested such participation. Yet, we are told repeatedly that ICANN
>represents bottom-up coordination.
>
>We are also told that ICANN can discern "consensus" from its unknown
>stakeholders (ranging, perhaps from the 2,500 who have been directly
>involved to the 150,000,000 Internet users) but yet it will lose the
>ability to identify consensus of the 10 board members if its meetings are
>open to the public.
>
>The criticism of ICANN that you describe was not manufactured out of
>"interest in scoring partisan points". I believe ICANN arrived stillborn,
>as the people who committed time and money to participate in the
>Internation Forum of the White Paper through the summer of 1998 were
>ultimately denied a voice in the selection of the new corporation's
>interim board.
>
>So give *US* a break and research the history of this Internet
>transformation before you wave the banner for ICANN. And thanks so much
>for contributing to the disinformation and the mudslinging in which this
>privatization process is steeped. This is not just a "silly drama" and
>your generalizations about the participants are truly insulting.
>
>Regards,
>
>Ellen Rony
