After all of ICANN's saber rattling about how it would bing the NSI to heel and through measures ranging up to and includng rebid of the cooperative agreement by sept 30 next year in order to put NSI out of business, we have now a deal where, thanks to DoC and ICANN, NSI has managed to get its security guaranteed. For example: " ICANN's authority to set policy for the registry may be terminated if Department of Commerce concludes that ICANN has not made sufficient progress towards entering into agreements with other registries and NSI is competitively disadvantaged." ICANN has also seen to it that NSI is furher enthroned by stipulating that come jan 15, 2000 " NSI will be entitled to establish its own prices for registrar services (the Cooperative Agreement currently requires NSI to charge $35 per year for those services). " W ho here thinks that with NSI's move web based registration and payment up font policies it has not now established the economy of scale to put competing registrars out of busness by charging say $17.50 a year instead of $35? ICANN's trade mark lobby has insisted on a uniform right to strip domain name holders of their domains, so price is the only disciminator left in the maket. NSI would be foolish not to weild the price lever wih a vengeance and thereby put the finishing touches on whatDoC already has created -- an ICANN NSI cartel. But now the other part of this picture also begins to come into focus. This is the curious insistence of folk like Vint Cerf, John Patick and Dave Farber to say that if ICANN does not succeed, the Internet and electonic commerce will fail. When asked for a thorough and reasoned explanation of why none of these men have an answer. I suspect that I know why. The answer is that the authority for DNS, IP number allocation and port assignment rested not in law but in the consensual agreement of the Internet community with Jon Postel. Now Postel is gone. The department of commerce without a shred of legal authority to do so has stepped up to and asserted like General Haig that it is in control now. It will hold the reigns of power until it can turn them over to ICANN. This is why ICANN must not fail because it would them be revealed to the world and especialy to investors in the high flying Internet stocks that no signle legal authority existed over the operaton of the Internet's address system. Network Solutions had the financial and legal muscle to bring a court case challenging DoC's auhority. Therefore, ICANN and DoC had no choice but to give in and guarantee Network Solution's future. Behind the scenes in Washington a frenzied search for anything that could be used to grant DoC authority over the DNS and the other IANA functions has been carried out. It has been a failure. Consequently, Cerf, Farber, and Patrick plead that ICANN must finish the task, but are silent when asked why. They simply cannot afford to call attention to the fact that the king at commerce has no clothes. With a naked king, they are despirate to clothe the ICANN crown prince until it can transfer power. Part 2 of this post is a legal anaysis by Glenn manishenn of why DoC has no authority. **************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet Index to seven years of the COOK Report 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA http://cookreport.com (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) ICANN: The Internet's Oversight Board - [EMAIL PROTECTED] NEW - Incompetence or Duplicity? ICANN and it Allies' Stealth Agenda http://cookreport.com/isoccontrol.shtml ****************************************************************
