Re: [wg-review] Clarifications requested from BoD, Staff, NC, TC, Chair prior to co-Chair elections

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 at 11:54:29AM -0500, Milton Mueller wrote:
> 
> >From the White Paper:
> 
> "Comments: Several commenters suggested that the U.S.  Government
> should provide full antitrust immunity or indemnification for the new
> corporation.  Others noted that potential antitrust liability would
> provide an important safeguard against institutional inflexibility and
> abuses of power.
>   
> Response: Applicable antitrust law will provide accountability to and
> protection for the international Internet community.  Legal challenges
> and lawsuits can be expected within the normal course of business for
> any enterprise and the new corporation should anticipate this reality."
> 
> Case closed.

Yes, indeed.  Thank you for agreeing with me at last: it is indeed
anti-trust authoritities that ultimately provide oversight over ICANN. 
No special laws are needed; ICANN is a monopoly, and can only exist if
it is structured in a way that satisfies the normal legal requirements
of anti-trust authorities.  There are several relatively common legal
structures that have been proposed -- the most popular being the 
"standards body" model.  (Standards bodies collude to produce standards 
that may have worldwide force; they could be considered a species of 
monopoly, but anti-trust authorities recognize them as benign, and 
don't hassle them.)  The expertise of a lawyer of the caliber of Joe 
Sims was retained to be sure that ICANN fell within the rules that 
satisfy anti-trust authorities.

Thank you once again for agreeing at last.

> 
> >>> Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com> 01/10/01 08:11PM >>>
> On Wed, Jan 10, 2001 at 04:40:01PM -0500, Milton Mueller wrote:
> 
> It is the case that a primary legal concern (perhaps THE primary legal
> concern) in the formation of ICANN was how to avoid anti-trust action --
> if things went as envisioned, ICANN would be the single controller for
> access to two unique resources -- the central root dns registry, and the
> central IP address registry.  This is a pure monopoly. 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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