Re: [ga] ITU Resolution 102 -- four years later

["Ross Wm. Rader" <ross@tucows.com>]

> This would be a good point enough should the domain name had not be
> confused with the mnemonic. You perfectly know that everyone around the
> world first resolves a mnemonic into mnemonic.com as a domain name.

I'm not sure that I completely agree. Let's assume that this is the case for
the sake of arguement. Why then do we need any new TLDs? Why not just fold
the entire namespace into dotCOM - imagine the customer confusion that dotFR
is creating simply by its very existence.

> Now, Ross, what is the capitalism to do with this? I have allways been
> explained that Internet was an academic network of military origin and
that
> names had a rate helping to support the cost of managing and developping
> the network?

The network never has been supported in any way by domain name
registrations. Names used to be freely available during a period of time
when it didn't make sense to charge for them because of scale. It was only
with the advent of the web and the brushfire adoption of the Internet by
regular folk that charging for domain names became an option. Even then, the
cost of registrations was only established to cover the cost of providing
the registration services - a model that persists until today.

> I
> genuinely believed when I started that Internet was democraticaly managed
> (I even rad the bylaws of ICANN) and that $100/two years was the real cost
> of the Internet operations under the control of the USG.

Your perception sharply differs from mine. I'm not aware of any time that
the Internet has been governed democratically - scratch that, I'm not aware
of any time that the Internet has been governed. The DNS != the Internet.
The registration services provided by SRI, GSI, NSI, SAIC, Verisign etc. !=
the DNS. The revenue generated from the registration of names has nothing to
do with the operation of anything except the registration of names.

> I was probably too much accustomed to the European notion of "public
> service". So, if I read you correctly "to foster competition" is the same
> as "to enforce capitalism"? If you say so I will accept it (a costly
lesson
> of English -).

I view it slightly differently - there is a healthy tension between the
public good and the needs of a free market. Fostering competition is a
vastly different exercise than enforcing capitalism - the latter would
likely require an army of soldiers, where the former likely requires an army
of lawyers. I fully believe that the market created through the
re-regulation processes that ICANN has implemented has furthered the public
good. Things could certainly be more streamlined and efficient, but that is
where a healthy policy development process becomes key. Without that healthy
process, the tension between the public good and the needs of the capitalist
players can become imbalanced.


                     -rwr




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----- Original Message -----
From: "J-F C. (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@club-internet.fr>
To: <ga@dnso.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2002 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: [ga] ITU Resolution 102 -- four years later


> On 17:32 19/10/02, Ross Wm. Rader said:
> >It has never been a dotcom world and its certainly not a gTLD world.
>
> This would be a good point enough should the domain name had not be
> confused with the mnemonic. You perfectly know that everyone around the
> world first resolves a mnemonic into mnemonic.com as a domain name.
>
> That would be a good point should that confusion did not result from
> ICANN's policy though the lack of new TLDs.
>
>
> Now, Ross, what is the capitalism to do with this? I have allways been
> explained that Internet was an academic network of military origin and
that
> names had a rate helping to support the cost of managing and developping
> the network?  I certainly observed that bluntly a fee became a discounted
> price but if was after I started using that domain names of mine. I
> genuinely believed when I started that Internet was democraticaly managed
> (I even rad the bylaws of ICANN) and that $100/two years was the real cost
> of the Internet operations under the control of the USG.
>
> I was probably too much accustomed to the European notion of "public
> service". So, if I read you correctly "to foster competition" is the same
> as "to enforce capitalism"? If you say so I will accept it (a costly
lesson
> of English -).
>
> But may I ask a question? What was the capital investment?
> If you go on the ICANN site, you will find the IANA agreement where the
USG
> sells the IANA function to ICAN for less than $ 10.000. Means that I have
> paid 7 times the price Internets. Even by tough capitalistic standard it
> would be a good deal for the seller :-)
>
> As an US tax payer, are not surprised that the USG Might sell for such a
> low price something generating so much revenue. I really think WRSN could
> thank Mr. DeWitt from Eindhoven, who I suppose never got a cent for having
> initially coined "com".
> jfc
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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