Re: [ga] Unfair?

[Michael Sondow <msondow@iciiu.org>]

Mark C. Langston wrote:
> 
> Now, what was this about fairness?

It's all a matter of perspective. From the point of view of people
like Canis, Cohen, Schwimmer, Cade, Maher, etc., "fair" means giving
to businesses whatever domain names they want, and then perhaps
allowing others (the rif-raf) to pick from what's left over. Their
values derive from one fundamental value: that money determines
right. From that value flows their perspective on domain names as
well as everything else. 
Aren't these the same people who say that medical and other services
belong to those who can pay their excessive costs? They haven't been
able to figure out how to make domain names costly, so they have to
win their imagined prerogatives some other way, through expensive
litigation, or one-sided DRPs, or by controlling the allocation of
names and numbers.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the U.S. Government, which once
represented the populace at large and counteracted the manipulations
of big business, has become the representative of those same special
interests and is in a real sense against the best interests of the
populace. The reason that business is getting its way with the
Internet now is that the populace hasn't yet woken up to that fact.

Michael Sondow
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