Re: [ga] Urgent: questions for ICANN Board Candidates

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sat, Sep 08, 2001 at 07:55:41PM +0100, Paul Cotton wrote:
> *** start ***
> > Even without that you would have meltdown.  ICANN for example could
> > try and take .uk away from Nominet but with hundreds of ISPs in the UK
> > all using Nominet they would beyond doubt all continue to recognise
> > Nominet.
> 
> Not if there was a new delegate.  The ISPs would use the one in the
> root that has the most exposure, and that would still be ICANN.
> 
> *** end ***
> 
> Only someone who has no real knowledge of UK internet usage would make such
> a crass statement.  .uk is not a novelty namespace in the UK, it is widely
> adopted and actively used in preference to gtld's for many companies
> including banks etc.
> 
> To say that if .uk was redelegated the UK ISP's would ignore Nominet is mind
> numbingly stupid.

Almost as mind-numbingly stupid as claiming that Nominet could use some
alternate root service.  Both claims are irresponsible, unrealistic
bluster.  

But the first rumblings about alternate root zones for the ccTLDs were
not over any threat by ICANN of redelegation -- they were simply because
the ccTLDs weren't getting the contract terms they wanted.  For the
ccTLDs to proceed with such a plan, over basically nothing, would have
been suicide -- the governments would indeed take over, then, because
the ccTLDs in question would have demonstrated beyond doubt that they
couldn't be trusted to run critical infrastructure -- and the DNS *is*
critical infrastructure...  in my opinion that's why the cooler, more
knowledgable heads in the ccTLD camp soft-pedaled on the alternate root
claims. 

> The user outrage at not being able to access their online
> bank accounts etc would indeed lead to ISP's ensuring their service resolved
> Nominets .uk namespace - to do otherwise would be commercial suicide for the
> ISP.

Perhaps.  But 1) ISPs don't handle all name resolutions, and thus, they
can't really solve the problem; and 2) ISPs in the rest of the world
would not be under such a constraint.  The banks etc would have to
decide whether they wanted their names to resolve outside the UK, in the
root zone that 99% of the rest of the world uses.  If so, they would
quickly register in the new registry.  Otherwise, they might not.  The
ICANN root zone offers some thing that no ccTLD root zone could offer --
current and continuing worldwide visibility. 

Of course, ICANN isn't going to delist Nominet.  Nominet could 
completely disregard the welfare of its customers,  but ICANN won't. 

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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