FYI:
At 11:54 PM 7/13/00, [someone] wrote:
>Jay Fenello <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,16642,00.html?nl=dnh
> >http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/00/151796.html
>
>Neither of these articles goes into detail on the pros or cons of
>ICANN's DNS management or plans. Do you have any URLS to something
>more substantive?
Yes, please see Mikki Barry's Congressional
testimony below.
>Most of us domain owners see ICANN as a breath of fresh air after 5 years
>of monopolistic management, price gouging, anti-consumer privacy policies,
>insecure data management, and direct email advertising (spam) by
>NSI/NetSol.
Well, others wonder why you would feel that way.
Ironically and if anything, your domain name is
much less secure today than it was before ICANN
started messing with it.
For example, we have just endured a wave of domain
name hijackings (i.e. Internet.com), and lost names
due to transfer glitches in the SRS (i.e. races.com).
We have a registrar community that has discovered
"partnerships" with domain name brokers and auction
houses, and the last time I checked, every single
registrar had a clause that allowed them to
confiscate your domain name without recourse.
Truth of the matter is, ICANN has made egregious
decisions in support of its agenda, resulting in
an organization heavily biased against small
businesses and individuals.
Just look at the terms of the UDRP. It heavily
favours the plaintiff, to the point of allowing
them to choose their jury, and only giving the
defendants a very short time to retain counsel
and respond.
Or look at the bias in the DNSO, where famous
mark owners have pushed through a "Sunrise
Provision," whereby they get to preclude up to
50 derivations of their mark in any new gTLD!
What we are really seeing is an attempt to
control words on a world-wide basis, just as
we are seeing attempts to own genetic code,
business processes, etc. But these are very
complicated times, as highlighted by the ever
present questions that surround Napster.
While I don't have any answers, I do have many
questions -- and a belief that we must have open
and frank discussions about these issues if we
are to find any kind of lasting solution.
Hope this helps,
Jay.
>Until someone presents a reason to question their management, other
>than the fact that we're all waiting for more top level domains, I say
>thank goodness for ICANN.
>
>[sig file]
From the Congressional Record:
http://com-notes.house.gov/cchear/hearings106.nsf/0ecf8a0be39f34228525671b0073d116/42eb7dbc7f008088852568a90072b057?OpenDocument
TESTIMONY OF MICHAELA M. BARRY
Ms. Barry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have to admit here that I am an attorney. Please make no
mistake about ICANN's role. It goes far beyond that of
technical management and enters into the realm of the
regulatory body. It is not just about plumbing, but it is also
about the codes and the licensing for that plumbing.
ICANN's policy will affect commerce, freedom of expression,
and likely stifle the very medium it seeks to regulate. We
spent years fighting communism and its vision of planned
economies. Let us not let that vision happen to the Internet.
Competition is paramount, but not at the cost of free
expression, sacrificing small business, and individual
interests, and without accountability.
ICANN is now trying to execute a policy agenda before it
has created the participatory structures that would allow its
decisions to be accepted and trusted by a broad spectrum of
stakeholders. ICANN does not now, nor has it ever had
legitimacy by consensus of the Internet community. ICANN is the
classic top-down organizational structure without
accountability. Most of the ordinary participant's in ICANN's
activities thought that they were participating in an
institution-building process. They thought that ICANN was a
level playing field where all competing groups could come
together to work out a consensus approach.
They thought that they would have an opportunity to create
membership structures, representational mechanisms, and policy
development procedures first, and that actual policymaking
would happen second. These include imposition of dispute
policies from the World Intellectual Property Organization,
WIPO, which even the U.S. Small Business Administration says
are discriminatory.
<BIG SNIP> Please read the rest!!
Respectfully,
Jay Fenello,
New Media Strategies
------------------------------------
http://www.fenello.com 770-392-9480
Aligning with Purpose(sm) ... for a Better World
------------------------------------------------
"If we want to change the world, we have to
begin by changing ourselves" -- Deepak Chopra
