[ga] An open letter to Louis Touton
Mr. Touton,
This is to inform you that AGN Domain Name Service,
Inc is asserting legals rights to the top level domains .USA, .EARTH and .Z.
We have operated a registry for these top-level
domains since late 1995. If you check the famous "Postel List", you can see that
we were one of the first applicants for new top level domains in late 1995. At
that time, we established our registry and have been in operation since that
time taking registrations in .EARTH and .USA. In March of 1997, we added the .Z
top-level domain.
ADNS disagrees with the direction that ICANN is
taking the Domain Name System and we do not choose to participate in the ICANN
process. Instead, we are
supporting alternative root server networks and
will continue to do so.
Although none of our three top-level domains have
been entered into the ICANN application process at this time, we would like to
inform you that we are
asserting legal ownership of these top level
domains. Any attempt to add them to the ICANN controlled root zone under the
control and ownership of
any other party will be considered by ADNS to be an
infringement of our legal rights and we will take appropriate action. For ICANN
to assign these
top-level domains to another party in the ICANN
root would dilute our service mark and damage our company financially. In
addition to this, it would also
fragment the internet as there would be two
different versions of the same top-level domain.
In spite of Ms.Dyson's claim, alternative root
networks take great care not to allow fragmentation by allowing competing
versions of top level domains into their root zones if they are already in
existence in another root zone. We would expect ICANN to take the same care and
consideration to avoid fragmentation. There is room for all of us on the
internet. Please respect our rights to operate our business and respect the
rights of alternative root networks.
If you have any questions, you can contact me by
e-mail. You may consider this an "open letter" and can publish it if you
wish.
John P. Palmer
President
AGN Domain Name Service (ADNS), Inc.
Chicago, IL
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