[ga] Re: Fw: Trust Us With .COM ??....Keep Dancing...

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Jim and all assembly members,

  Yes they sure are dancing!  It is so obvious it is disgusting.  This whole
sorted affair with ICANN and Versign/NSI along with the ICANN BoD's
lack of proper if any oversight and the fact that it seems that DOC/NTIA
is turning a blind eye is causing a tremendous amount of damage that
is both unnecessary and could have been avoided.

Jim Fleming wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim Fleming" <JimFleming@prodigy.net>
> To: <RCochetti@verisign.com>
> Cc: "karl@cavebear. com" <karl@cavebear.com>; "Lynn" <lynn@icann.org>;
> <mcade@att. com>; <DannyYounger@cs.com>; "Chuck Gomes"
> <cgomes@VERISIGN.COM>; "krose@ntia. doc. gov" <krose@ntia.doc.gov>;
> "mueller@syr. edu" <mueller@syr.edu>; "joppenheimer@icbtollfree. com"
> <joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com>; "froomkin@law. miami. edu"
> <froomkin@law.miami.edu>; "elliot noss" <enoss@tucows.com>;
> <richard@vrx.net>; <terastra@terabytz. co. nz>; "Gordon Cook"
> <cook@cookreport.com>; "pg@namespace. org" <pg@namespace.org>;
> "edyson@edventure. com" <edyson@edventure.com>; "William X. Walsh"
> <william@userfriendly.com>; "Eric MacIver" <ericm@nameslinger.com>; "Erica
> Roberts" <erica.roberts@bigpond.com>; <discuss-list@opensrs.org>;
> "Jay@Fenello. com" <Jay@Fenello.com>; "love@cptech. org" <love@cptech.org>;
> "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com>; "JandL" <jandl@jandl.com>
> Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2001 5:22 PM
> Subject: Trust Us With .COM ??....Keep Dancing...
>
> > http://www.icann.org/correspondence/cochetti-to-lynn-16jul01.htm
> >
> > Roger Cochetti
> > Senior Vice President, Policy
> > VeriSign, Inc.
> > ------
> > http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/Arc01/msg00858.html
> > http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/Arc01/msg00640.html
> > http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/Arc01/msg00738.html
> > http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga-full/Arc07/msg04469.html
> >
> > Dear Mr. Cochetti:
> >
> > I have read your letter to ICANN and noted many of the responses to it.
> > Several things seem to pop out, with even a casual reading.
> >
> > 1. Much of the basis of your letter seems to center around DNS end-users
> and
> > their
> > perception of who they have entrusted their domain name to. As an ex-IBM
> > employee,
> > who has joined Network Solutions/Verisign only recently, it should be
> clear
> > to you
> > that most of the .COM/.NET/.ORG owners did NOT entrust their name with
> you,
> > because
> > you were not with the company when many of them first registered their
> > names.
> > Continuing, I doubt  that many of them entrusted their names to Verisign,
> > for a similar
> > reason, Verisign purchased Network Solutions and the existing customer
> base.
> > I know
> > in my case, I was never asked whether I wanted my names moved to Verisign
> > management
> > or Roger Cochetti stewardship. I have also tried to move names away from
> the
> > Verisign
> > Registrar, without success, because of the cumbersome procedures required.
> I
> > wonder
> > how many other people have tried to do that. Those statistics did not seem
> > to be the focal
> > point of your letter to ICANN.
> >
> > 2. I doubt that many people entrusted their names with Network Solutions
> (or
> > Verisign)
> > because many people viewed the .COM zone as run by the U.S. Government.
> They
> > entrusted
> > their names to the InterNIC, which was portrayed to be a 3-way cooperative
> > agreement
> > between General Automation, Network Solutions, and AT&T. Anyone following
> > the DNS
> > evolution since 1995 will know that Network Solutions attempted to make
> that
> > NSF contract
> > a sole-source contract, from the start. Network Solutions contracted Jon
> > Postel as a consultant,
> > in order to win the contract. Network Solutions apparently paid Tony
> > Rutkowski for years
> > to appear to be a neutral industy advocate. He also is now a
> > Verisign/Network Solutions
> > employee. I doubt that all of the .COM registrants entrusted their names
> > with Mr. Rutkowski
> > or the late Mr. Postel. Many people did not know who was involved with
> > Network Solutions.
> > In the case of Mr. Rutkowski, he was on the review board which eventually
> > ousted General
> > Automation from their part of the cooperative. As for AT&T, the lights may
> > have been on but
> > no one was home. I doubt that anyone thought they were entrusting their
> > domain names with
> > AT&T. People are still surprised when they discover that AT&T was supposed
> > to be 1/3 of the
> > InterNIC. Network Solutions appeared to tolerate AT&T, as long as they
> > played no role.
> > Throughout all that, people had no choice where their .COM names were
> > registered, and still do not.
> >
> > 3. People talk about the separation of Registrar and Registry as creating
> > competition. This
> > has not been the case. What really occurred was that Verisign/Network
> > Solutions was able to
> > lobby for having price regulation ($6 per name per year) be instituted in
> > order to protect their
> > monopoly. People still refuse to answer where the $6 fee came from or what
> > it is spent on.
> > It is hard to imagine what a "thin-registry" does with that kind of money
> > from 30+ million
> > customers. If I recall, you were one of the people attending the meetings,
> > on behalf of IBM,
> > and encouraging the creation of this system which only gives the illusion
> of
> > competition. While
> > all those meetings were occuring, no new TLDs were allowed to be entered
> > into the U.S.
> > Government's legacy root name servers. The .COM zone grew from a few
> million
> > names to
> > 10s of millions of names. Instead of new TLDs, people had to resort to
> DLDs
> > (Dash-Level-Domains)
> > in order to expand the name space. In short, people had little choice,
> they
> > were herded into
> > the .COM zone with the help of the U.S. Government and people like
> yourself
> > and Mr. Rutkowski.
> > It now appears that many of the efforts over the years to help create new
> > TLDs were actually
> > nothing more than distractions to PREVENT any substantial number of TLDs
> > from being added.
> > In retrospect, if I had it to do all over again, I would now know, never
> to
> > trust anyone who
> > claims to be here to "help" create new TLDs, when they are paid by the
> > company that will
> > benefit most with no additional TLDs being added. You speak of people's
> > trust in your letter
> > to ICANN. You make claims about people's trust, which in my opinion does
> not
> > exist.
> >
> > 4. One of the reasons that this trust does not exist is that people are
> > confused, they often can
> > not tell when Verisign employees are speaking on behalf of Verisign the
> > Registry or Verisign the
> > Registrar. In theory, one would think that Verisign the Registry would
> have
> > a different personality
> > than Verisign the Registrar. People can now choose not to do business with
> > Verisign the Registrar,
> > but they can not move away from Verisign the Registry. Despite Mr. Chuck
> > Gomes paid efforts to
> > portray Verisign the Registry as some altruistic do-gooder organization, I
> > think many people now
> > see that Verisign the Registry and Verisign the Registrar are largely the
> > same company. This
> > became even more clear in the recent distractions created at ICANN,
> > following the November
> > 2000 seven-TLD selection fiasco. Rather then allow the ICANN Board to
> > proceed to select
> > more and more TLDs, Verisign jumped in, with the help of the ICANN outside
> > attorneys, and
> > took center stage, to distract the ICANN Board, the Names Council, etc. to
> > make sure their
> > contracts were changed to their satisfaction and rubber-stamped by the
> U.S.
> > Department of
> > Commerce. Again, the emphasis was shifted away from the selection of new
> > TLDs. The
> > distractions resulted in more revenue for Verisign the Registrar and of
> > course Verisign the
> > Registry. It was interesting to see how quickly people saw what was going
> > on, but in the end
> > had no ability to change it, because ICANN gave everyone the illusion that
> > they should be
> > entrusted with all these decisions. That trust in ICANN has clearly
> rapidly
> > declined, following
> > the TLD selection fiasco, and the willingness to allow Verisign to
> > completely dominate the
> > .COM  community which never selected Verisign as their Registrar or
> > Registry.
> >
> > 5. It is interesting that ICANN chooses to showcase communication from
> you,
> > but appears
> > to ignore other inputs from people. Each day it is becoming more and more
> > clear to people
> > that ICANN exists mainly as an alter-ego for Verisign/Network Solutions.
> > Some people might
> > consider ICANN to be Verisign's "sock puppet". In other words, whenever
> > Verisign needs
> > to hand off some aspect of the domain name industry that is expensive to
> > handle, or has no
> > profit, or is able to come back to Verisign as revenue, ICANN seems to be
> > always ready to
> > catch the hand-off and handle it in exactly the way Verisign desires, to
> > maximize the return to
> > Verisign. Network Solutions used to do the same thing with the National
> > Science Foundation.
> > The claim was always, NSI is not doing this, the NSF has requested this.
> > When people looked
> > more closely they would see that NSI had usually written the NSF a letter
> in
> > advance coaching
> > them on what their next mandates should be. The NSF became the whipping
> boy,
> > and NSI
> > walked away with the revenue and profits. One example of this is the
> > extensive MLM
> > Multi-Level-Marketing structure that Verisign/Network Solutions has been
> > able to help ICANN
> > construct. ICANN accredits (really franchises) Registrars, and
> > Verisign/Network Solutions
> > sells them expensive software. ICANN benefits and Verisign benefits, and
> of
> > course, the $6
> > per name per year fees continue to go to Verisign. With all the
> > distractions, it is clear that no
> > one wants to talk about what they $6 pays for, whether other structures
> > would make more
> > sense, whether other vendors could do it for less, etc. Via this
> > well-orchestrated waltz of
> > Verisign and ICANN around the dance floor of the DNS industry, people can
> > now see that
> > they are pushed aside as the dancers pass by, and in the end, the goal is
> to
> > keep dancing as
> > long as the music plays. No one seems to notice that there are only one
> pair
> > of legs on the
> > floor. Verisign clearly has the ICANN puppet strapped to its feet with a
> > nice annual feed of
> > .COM taxes paying the quarter million dollar per year salaries of the
> ICANN
> > staff to do
> > little but travel first-class a few times a year to do the dance.
> >
> > ----
> >
> > Mr. Cochetti, in my opinion, the music is about to change. After over 6
> > years watching these dances,
> > I look forward to seeing some new dancers on the floor. People may not
> > realize that .BIZ was one
> > of the first TLDs suggested to the "IANA" (aka Jon Postel) for expansion
> of
> > the TLD name space.
> > I strongly encourage everyone who has any concern about the long-term
> health
> > of the Internet to
> > move away from the .COM/.NET/.ORG name spaces to the . BIZ name space, if
> > for no other
> > reason than to make a statement that they are tired of the games, they are
> > tired of the dances, and
> > they prefer to dance to a different beat. Verisign may even want to dump
> > their ICANN dance
> > partner and start to regain the trust you claim people have. While that
> may
> > cost you $6 per name
> > per year, it might increase opportunities in other directions. I have a
> > feeling the Registrars would
> > collectively not mind having that $6/year fee. They can collectively
> easily
> > deploy a thin registry for
> > little or not additional cost to their operations. For a Registrar with
> one
> > million customers, that would
> > be $6 million per year in additional revenue. If they use $1 million of
> that
> > to contribute to a shared
> > thin registry, I suspect that would be overkill. They could pocket the
> > remaining $5 million as profit
> > and also dump their ICANN dance partner. For a Registrar with 2 million
> > registrations, that amounts
> > to $10 million in profit. That is a heavy price, to pay to watch the
> > Verisign/ICANN waltz.
> >
> > Beyond .BIZ, I do not hesitate to draw people's attention to all of the
> good
> > companies who continue
> > to labor to provide more freedom, more choice, more jobs, more
> opportunities
> > as the Internet
> > continues to expand.
> >
> > http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/ietf/Current/msg12574.html
> > RFC-2001-07-01-000 IPv8 Expansion of Proof of Concept TLD Development
> >
> > Beyond IPv8, we have IPv16. I look forward to working with all companies
> now
> > entering the dance floor to help move the Internet past the distractions
> and
> > into
> > a truely competitive industry, not dominated by non-profit puppets, but
> > instead by
> > for-profit companies who can stand on their own two feet, and provide
> > "production
> > services". When one talks about "production services", I assume they are
> at
> > a minimum
> > talking about IPv16-Compliant equipment. (i.e. Carrier-Grade, NEBS,
> > 24", -48vDC)
> > http://www.dot-biz.com/IPv16/
> >
> >
> > Jim Fleming
> > Why gamble with a .BIZ Lottery? Start a real .BIZ Today !
> > http://www.DOT-BIZ.com
> > http://www.BIZ.Registry
> > 0:212 - BIZ World
> >

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 118k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-447-1800 x1894 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208


--
This message was passed to you via the ga-full@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga-full" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html