Re: New York Times article on ccTLDs/IATLD

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

At 19:36 27/11/98 -0600, John B. Reynolds wrote:
>>From my perspective, the key paragraph in the NYT article is the one where
>Mike Roberts refers to "back-channel pressure" as the cause of the
>"sovereign control" statement.  This tends to confirm my suspicion that
>major foreign governments have indicated that they will repudiate ICANN and
>thereby derail the privatization process if they are not given unambiguous
>authority over 'their' national TLDs.  If this is the case, governmental
>control over ccTLDs is a fait accompli.  Further debate over past practice
>or governments' authority to regulate "semantic constructs" is certain to
>come to nought.
>
Yep. Now it becomes a bit of a hot potato for those governments (such as
the nz govt.) that so far preferred to have informal arrangements.
With the government officially in charge, the monopoly registration and
renewal fees become a tax, that will have to be approved by parliament. 

>I agree that this situation is cause for concern about the stability of
>ccTLDs, particularaly those that function as virtual gTLDs.  (A glance at my
>domain name will tell you why I have a particular interest in this issue.)
>Governments whose TLDs are used primarily by entities outside their
>countries may be tempted to try to maximize revenue without regard to the
>rights of domain holders.  The only effective defense against such measures
>is to remind national governments that policies that disrupt ccTLDs would
>'kill the golden goose' by causing current and prospective ccTLD domain
>holders to flee to TLDs whose stability is not in question.
> 
Once a registrant is solidly spun into the web, it is not so easy to flee.
Governments will be tempted to think that 80-90% of the golden geese cannot
waddle away.



--Joop--
http://www.democracy.org.nz/