1. LAWSUIT CLAIMS NETWORK SOLUTIONS IS SQUATTING ON DOMAIN NAMES Here is a great article by Randy Barret of ZDNet ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2643256,00.html Last month, Alabama software consultant Stan Smith filed a class-action suit against NSI, claiming restraint of trade in the domain name resale business. He is claiming Network Solutions Inc. domain name hoarding. That they are unlawfully holding up to 3 million expired domain names that have lapsed due to nonpayment. NSI said it would auction off the names. (by the way, I personally have been waiting since May to get a name that has lapsed and NSI refuses to let go. Curtis) Randy's article says that when he asked Mike Roberts, ICANN's President what he was going to do about it, Roberts said he wasn't going to do anything. In fact Randy reported that Mike Roberts, ICANN's President, said "I have more important things to do..." Like what? Let me repeat that one more time "I have more important things to do..." This is almost as good as ICANN relying on snail mail to conduct its elections.... well maybe it is on parity with it. You know there is a legal term for behavior like this: Res Ipsa Loquitor (The thing speaks for itself"). Read the article, it's good. Send an email to Randy at [EMAIL PROTECTED] to encourage him to continue to follow the lawsuit and report on it. It's really important that we give journalists who write on this our support. The best thing you can do to support him is to just go read the article... and following ICANN's travails can be entertaining... watching a Marx Brothers film.: http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2643256,00.html Does anyone have contact info for the Plaintiff Stan Smith in Alabama? 2. ICANN DEBACLE RESOURCES. Here is a collection of resources for anyone who wants to learn more about ICANN vs. Internet Democracy. http://infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/10/02/001002oplivingston.xml (by [EMAIL PROTECTED]) - In my opinion, the best article to date on ICANN's dysfunctional behavior... http://www.media-visions.com/icann.htm (Analyzing ICANN - a page with a very good set of links to pages containing well researched and reasoned critical analysis of ICANN) http://www.ADOR-DOC.ORG/wipoletter.html (you can't understand how outrageous has been ICANN's behavior with respect to favoring large corporations in domain disputes... unless you read this) http://www.news.com/Perspectives/Column/0,176,459,00.html (article by by Brian Livingston of cnet about ICANN bias in domain name arbitration) http://www.Icannwatch.org (regularly updated website monitoring ICANN activities) http://dailynews.yahoo.com/full_coverage/tech/domain_names_and_registration/ (100s of articles written by reporters who've been covering these issues) http://www.flywheel.com/ircw/overview.html (an overview of the domain names controversy - starting pre-ICANN with an extensive and thorough set of related links) http://www.icann.org (ICANN's Web Site) http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/gao-icann/DNS-Proposal.txt http://umcc.ais.org/~ronda/ (background on the development of the Internet and the role of the government) http://www.domainhandbook.com/toc.html http://www.iciiu.org/ (International Congress of Independent Internet Users) http://www.domainnotes.com/ http://www.eff.org/ (electronic Frontier Foundation (the ACLU of the Internet) http://www.media-visions.com/newdom2b.html (links to government and industry leaders) http://www.media-visions.com/icann-involved.htm (steps you can take to help this problem) http://www.civsoc.org (the Civil Society Democracy Project has a good set of links on internet democracy and related current happenings) 3. PASS THE WORD ON. Please pass this email along to anyone who might want to be added to the distribution list. Curtis Sahakian 1-847-676-2774 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.Corporate-Partnering.com/cpi
