RE: Draft New Draft

["Antony Van Couvering" <avc@interport.net>]

Kent Crispin wrote,

> The funny thing about all this is that the interpretation of 1591
> that IATLD is hanging their hat on is just an interpretation.  I have
> read it carefully, several times, and as far as I can see 1591 is
> perfectly consistent with a strong "pro-sovereign" position.  For
> example, the statement that IANA is not in the business of deciding
> what is and is not a country is, in my reading completely neutral
> concerning whether countries have control over "their" ccTLD.

Presumably you can square the following circle then:

      'Significantly interested parties in the domain should agree that
      the designated manager is the appropriate party.'

Now unless there is an ISO country-code domain with more than one government
in it -- Antarctica, maybe -- it seems to me that there is always more than
one interested party, and one of them is not the government.  How can this
have anything to do with "sovereignty"?

>
> I have come to think of this as very similar to the trademark issue,
> in fact.  A country has some distinct form of intellectual property
> right in its ISO code.  It is a complex property right, to be sure,
> different from trademark or copyright, but a right, nonetheless.

Sure, RFC 1591 agrees with you here (NOT):

      Concerns about "rights" and "ownership" of domains are
      inappropriate.  It is appropriate to be concerned about
      "responsibilities" and "service" to the community.


> And the interesting question here is the relationship of that unique
> property right with the domain name system.
>
> In any case, my opinion, and I suspect the opinion of ICANN, is that
> the founding documents of the DNSO should contain no policy
> statements at all.  They should just describe the organizational
> structure and mechanisms.

I don't believe that it is a policy statement to remark that the ICANN, and
its subsidiary organizations such as the DNSO, is pursuing an evolution of
the DNS (that is to say, a move forward with an eye to history) rather than
a revolution (starting from scratch), and as such should recognize the rules
under which domains have operated to date.

Furthermore, I don't think it's any stretch at all to say that proposing a
constituency for one group (e.g. trademark interests) and not for another
(e.g., public interest groups) is a political statement as strong as any
respecting relevant RFCs.  It would be disingenuous to claim otherwise.

Antony

>
> --
> Kent Crispin, PAB Chair				"Do good,
> and you'll be
> kent@songbird.com				lonesome." -- Mark Twain
>