Re: [ga] Essay on ICANN

[Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@mail.msen.com>]

	Make no mistake -- I support ICANN a whole lot more than you do, Michael.
(After all, who doesn't?)  But everything in my five-minute opening
statement was taken directly from the prepared testimony.  As for the Q&A,
here is Ben Edelman's "scribes's notes" summary (from
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/events/Commerce-Scribe-072299.html>).
The first two answers were critical of ICANN and NSI, and the third was
supportive of Commerce (which is guardedly supportive of ICANN).

      Upton: Is ICANN board representative? Is ICANN going too far by
attempting to address cybersquatting? 
               Weinberg: Board isn�t representative. PSO and ASO will send
engineers to the Board. DNSO will send people interested in
               the business of registering domain names. Need At-Large
Membership to represent the interests of individuals. An agreement
               will be reached re cybersquatting. 
       Klink: Is there a game of chicken going on here? Will the Internet
come crashing down if NSI walks away? 
              Weinberg: NSI would like to have the real power over its
gTLDs, ideally with the "fig leaf" of someone else�s so-called control. It
               would be a big mess if the gTLDs were pulled away from NSI. 
       Pickering: Want to set up a structure for accountability. Does USG
need to step in until issues are adequately addressed in an open
          forum? Does NTIA/DoC have adequate authority? 
               Weinberg: Don�t need to step in. ICANN has a long way to go,
as does NSI of course. But DoC is basically doing all the right
               things, maybe being too timid sometimes in its negotiations
with NSI (but that�s "backseat driving"). Committee should throw its
               support behind the DoC. 

Jon



At 04:33 PM 7/23/99 -0400, Michael Sondow wrote:
>Jonathan Weinberg a �crit:
>> 
>>         Since yesterday's hearing, I've read characterizations of my
testimony
>> from a variety of people, most recently Michael Sondow, on this list.
>> Here's a copy of my prepared testimony (which was distributed at the
>> hearing; I gave an edited version orally).  Any folks who care can read it
>> for themselves.
>
>As I said in my post, I was referring to your verbal testimony not
>your written one. In verbal testimony, you supported ICANN. You
>sounded like an auxiliary for Olgilvie.
>
>============================================================
>Michael Sondow           I.C.I.I.U.     http://www.iciiu.org
>Tel. (212)846-7482                        Fax: (603)754-8927
>============================================================
>
>