Re: [ga] Thoughts/question on the WLS

[Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>]

At 01:54 p.m. 13/07/2002 -0700, Bret Fausett wrote:
>Thomas Roessler wrote:
> > Nobody could disagree with this.  As I said before, WLS has some
> > aspects which may best be dealt with in court, and some aspects
> > which can _only_ be dealt with within the ICANN process...
>
>That's just right! What I'm trying to articulate -- and I'm doing a fair
>amount of thinking out loud here -- is a decision-making philosophy for
>ICANN by which ICANN looks to defer a decision to another forum/arbiter
>whenever possible. It decides only those matters that only it can decide.
>
>This might mean making a determination as to whether the WLS created
>instability for the .com TLD or the Internet as a whole. It might mean
>examining other technical issues associated with the implementation of WLS.
>
>But if the registrars had a remedy at law for a registry's anticompetitive
>behavior, then ICANN would intentionally pass on that issue, taking care to
>preserve everyone's legal rights so they could be pursued elsewhere.
>
>Of course, if ICANN had adopted such a decision-making philosophy from the
>beginning, we never would have had the UDRP. But it's easy to grant the UDRP
>a special grandfather status in a reformed ICANN and look to narrow ICANN's
>mission for the future to those matters that only it can deal with
>effectively.

Bret,

Your thinking is  undermining the main raison d'etre of ICANN.
The UDRP was no fluke to be grandfathered now.  It was the prize for the IP 
"constituency" for politically protecting ICANN.
ICANN needs this protection to continue.

As the only global TLD controller, it will be asked to come up with models 
for further supra-national rulemaking.
Only it can impose global "sanctions" and "taxes" on gTLD domains.
(It *can* set price conditions for WLS and surround it with Registrant 
guarantees).

The power is there. It's only a matter of political will.

All this can be defended as long as the global public that is affected can 
participate with its own representatives on a level playing field.

Local courts settling fights between registrars in the US are no substitute 
for that.




--Joop

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