Re: [ga] your comments

[Marc Schneiders <marc@fuchsia.bijt.net>]

On Thu, 30 May 2002, at 15:15 [=GMT-0400], Joe Sims wrote:

> I appreciate the clarification.  And you have certainly highlighted some
> issues that are important to some people.  The issue of cc's that act like
> gTLDs is a particularly relevant issue; if a cc registry is going to
> aggressively solicit name registrations from people all over the world,
> shouldn't it have to meet the same minimum standards as do gTLDs?

I don't think so. Tell us why you do, please.

> Such
> things as escrow requirements to protect against failure,

If I register a domain under the law of some unstable country, that is my
risk. I will not blame ICANN if it goes down.

> dispute
> resolution procedures or something equivalent to guard against
> cybersquatting,

Why? Don't the laws of the country of the ccTLD registry apply? Global
democracy may be a bad idea (I am not convinced yet), but global
Intellectual Property enforcerment may also, don't you think so? It does
in any case open up ICANN to reproaches of trying to set up global
government...

> whois
> systems that actually work so people can find our who
> to contact when an issue arises

Or to spam. Exactly what issues that are really important, make it
necessary, that anyone can find out who owns a domain? All criminal acts
are also traceable through the IP number, often even better. Domains can
be faked so easily. With an IP number that is much harder.

> -- stuff like
> this?  It is one thing to
> argue that a ccTLD that restricts registrations to its nationals or
> residents of the country of its charter should have the "right" to do what
> it wants on these points, since those adversely affected always have
> recourse to the national government, local courts, etc.  But when the
> registry decides to take advantage of the stable global DNS to attract
> registrants that, as a practical matter, do not have those protections, and
> can do so only because the rest of the world is working together through
> ICANN to maintain the global infrastructure that permits that behavior,
> that seems to me to be a different situation altogether.

Great marketing speech. What it comes down to, is that there are root
servers that carry the ccTLDs, right? Quite unclear how this stable global
DNS relates to ICANN. The latest MoU is still not available to read, is
it?

> As I understand
> the ICANN position, there is no desire to interfere in any way with local
> policy development; that should be up to the local community.  But when the
> registry takes actions that have global implications or effects, it should
> be subject, as are all other similarly situated registries, to the global
> policy development process.  What I take from your post is that you want
> someone else to shoulder the burdens of preserving and protecting the
> global DNS

What else than keeping the root servers running? That is all we need. Not
a global police. Conforming to certain _technical_ standards is necessary.
Nothing more. If TLDs must submit to some police to be served within the
root, they could decide to search elsewhere for the services. It is really
not that difficult to keep 13 nameservers running. It is also not
expensive.

If you are worried about fraud, bad customer care, and the like, well give
us 5 examples where ICANN did something about complaints regarding ICANN
accredited registrars. Then we can see whether we find this useful as
customers.

> that makes it possible for the ccTLDs to function, but to
> basically leave you alone to do with it what you please (although maybe you
> would be willing to contribute to the purely mechanical work of keeping
> your database records straight).  In antitrust economics, this is called
> "free-riding" and is generally not considered something to be admired or
> protected.

If you are so worried about anti-trust, stop trying to get all TLDs into
ICANN's cartel!

-- 
Marc Schneiders

http://marc.schneiders.org/

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