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[ga] RE: PFF blasts ICANN, says Commerce Dept should look into contract


Jeff Williams and everyone,

Declan posted more today specifically on the chant to revoke ICANN
altogether and have Federal Govt take over.

David McOwen
http://www.freemcowen.com


From Declan below:

The Progress and Freedom Foundation is a think tank in Washington that is
generally more free-market than not. It organizes an annual conference in
Aspen, Colorado
(http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/pff-aspen-conference-aug02.html) that I
have found to be worth attending. PFF received funding from Oracle and Sun,
if I recall properly, and applauded the Microsoft antitrust suit. Way back
when, PFF enjoyed close ties with Newt Gingrich, and its current president,
Jeff Eisenach, was once on Gingrich's staff.

It's a shame that Bill (who I know to be a capable lawyer and economist)
did not, according to the below press release, address whether the ICANN
contract should be renewed.

-Declan

---

From: David Fish <DFish@pff.org>
Subject: Time to Say "You Can't" to ICANN
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 17:18:22 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
David Fish  (202) 289-8928

TIME TO SAY "YOU CAN'T" TO ICANN
  Adkinson Calls for Ending Economic Regulation of Domain Name System

WASHINGTON, DC - Should the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) be allowed to impose traditional economic regulation on the
market for domain names?  The Progress and Freedom Foundation's William F.
Adkinson, Jr.   says it should not, and he believes the Department of
Commerce should prohibit such activity if the agency decides to renew
ICANN's contract, which ends this month. While he does not address whether
the contract should be renewed, Adkinson argues that ICANN or its successor
should not be allowed to impose price or service restrictions.

"The Commerce Department and ICANN have been successful in developing
workably competitive markets for registry and registrar services," Adkinson
writes in a study, "Domain Name Services: Let Competition, Not ICANN, Rule,"
released today. [Available at
http://www.pff.org/publications/pop9.21ICANN.pdf]  "Therefore the time has
come to end price and service regulation of these markets and terminate
'mission creep'."  In fact, he argues, "such regulation interferes with the
efficient operation of the competitive markets that have developed" and
would be unwise, given ICANN's "serious governance problems".

According to Adkinson, the proliferation of firms authorized to provide
registrar services, the greatly reduced price for registering names, the
creation of seven new generic top level domains (TLDs) and growth among 240
country code TLDs and other factors have resulted in "widespread and
multifaceted competition" and innovation.  Moreover, Adkinson writes that
ICANN is "particularly ill-suited" to regulate, "lacks adequate standards
governing its decisions" and does not have authority over country code TLDs.
The last point, he says, creates an unfair disadvantage.

Finally, there is critically important work to be done in the areas within
ICANN's proper sphere of activity - for example, ensuring the security of
the root server system - that Adkinson says ICANN or a successor "should be
required to focus its energies" there.

The Progress & Freedom Foundation is a market-oriented think tank that
studies the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. It is
a 501(c)(3) research & educational organization.
# # #

David M. Fish
VP for Communications & External Affairs
The Progress & Freedom Foundation
1301 K Street, NW, Suite 550 East
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: 202-289-8928
Fax: 202-289-6079
E-mail: dfish@pff.org
Web site: www. pff.org




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-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Williams [mailto:jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2002 6:10 PM
To: atlarge discuss list
Cc: gen full; Declan McCullagh
Subject: [atlarge-discuss] FYi from Politech.com: Weekly column: Be wary
of Washington's solutions to spam


All stakeholders, assembly members or other interested parties,

FYI:

http://news.com.com/2010-1074-957024.html?tag=politech

    Be wary of Washington's spam solution
    By Declan McCullagh
    September 9, 2002, 4:00 AM PT

    WASHINGTON--About three dozen high-level lobbyists met quietly last
    Friday afternoon at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to concoct a way to
    drastically reduce the deluge of unsolicited e-mail.

    The invitation-only lunch meeting, which lasted about two hours,
    started a process that could result in an industry agreement on new
    laws or self-regulation.

    Lobbyists for AOL Time Warner, Verizon, the National Cable and
    Telecommunications Association, and the Direct Marketing Association
    were among the attendees. According to the invitation, the group met
    to discuss "approaches to addressing problems arising from abusive
    electronic mail practices."

    All that sounds pretty good, right? After all, who could be against
    efforts to reduce the heaps of spam that are snarling mail servers,
    clogging connections and making our in-boxes approximately as useful
    as a 10MB hard drive? One of my News.com colleagues estimates that
    spam soon will make up the majority of message traffic on the
    Internet.

    But Washington rarely has the best solution. When you dump a passel
of
    lawyers and lobbyists in a room, dub them a working group and close
    the door, they end up crafting new laws and regulations. And new
laws
    and regulations from Washington simply won't stop spam.

    [...]




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