RE: Draft New Draft

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

Javier,

The move from IANA to ICANN should be an evolution, not a revolution,
especially a reactionary revolution.  RFC 1591 emphasizes the obligations of
service providers to the Internet community.  That should be front and
center of any DNSO.  Instead, everyone's talking about "rights" and
"ownership."

Javier Sola wrote:

> >> At 11:23 31/01/99 -0600, John B. Reynolds wrote:
> >> Specifically, the
> >> >> DNSO reaffirms the rules under which the TLD registries and
> registrars
> >> >> have operated to date.
>
> How can DNSO reaffirm a set of rules through which all gTLDs have been run
> as a monopoly by one single company? The European Union Antitrust
> laws, for one, will not allow this type of arrangement.

The RFC says nothing about which company(s) will run gTLDs.  The InterNIC
(of which NSI was merely the contractor) was to run gTLDs.

>
> How can DNSO reaffirm that we have to follow NSi Dispute
> Resolution Policy,
> when WIPO is setting up new rules fair to non-US rightholders?

The RFC says nothing about NSI's dispute resolution policy.  One of NSI's
harshest critics, Carl Oppedahl, practically has as a mantra that dispute
resolution should stick to RFC 1591, which says:

     "In case of a dispute between domain name registrants as to the
      rights to a particular name, the registration authority shall have
      no role or responsibility other than to provide the contact
      information to both parties.

      The registration of a domain name does not have any Trademark
      status.  It is up to the requestor to be sure he is not violating
      anyone else's Trademark."

>
> How can DNSO reaffirm that the ccTLDs of some countries (aimed at having
> people from that country under one single domain) are in the hands of
> enterpreneurs who are asking DNSO to make sure that the country
> cannot take
> that domain back.

This paragraph is filled with half-understandings.  Let's parse it:

> How can DNSO reaffirm that the ccTLDs of some countries

1. ISO codes do not match up to countries only, but also to territories of
various descriptions -- including overseas departments (e.g. Guadeloupe,
Martinique, St. Pierre & Miquelon); protectorates and dependencies (e.g.
Guam); internationally administered territories (e.g., Antarctica); disputed
territories/provinces (e.g., East Timor, Taiwan), countries with disputed
government (e.g., Afghanistan), and countries with no ISO code (e.g.,
Palestine).

2. "of some countries" doesn't mean "the chattel property of the government
of some countries".  As well as the logical absurdity of positing the idea
of ownership in some of the "countries" I've listed above, the very idea of
"ownership" with regard to TLDs is a non-starter.  To quote from RFC 1591:

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


> (aimed at having
> people from that country under one single domain)

Who ever stated such an aim?  It may be the aim of Javier Sola, but it was
not (and is not) the aim of various ccTLDs, nor the IANA.   Within Europe
alone, .UK, .DK, .CH, and others are open to any registrant, regardless of
his or her residence.

If indeed there ever was such an aim, the whole idea of a gTLD would be
pointless and otiose, because why, if the aim was have "people from that
country under one single domain", would anyone need or want a gTLD?

> are in the hands of
> enterpreneurs who are asking DNSO to make sure that the country
> cannot take
> that domain back

1. "Country" is largely meaningless in this context -- see my examples
above.  Presumably you mean the government of a given country.

2. It is not the "country's" to take back.  The government of a country is
only one interest among many.  Others include users, ISPs, registrars and so
on.

3. Those horrible dirty nasty entrepreneurs, who often built up the domain
in the first place, have done terrible things like:

a. Provided for universal free Internet connecitivity (Niue)
b. Provided domain names for free to local residents by charging foreign
registrants (American Samoa, others)
c. Provided easy-to-use tools for quick and cheap registration of domain
names (contrast, for instance, Bhutan, with an intuitive web site, with
India, where domains are available only to those who have purchased network
blocks from the state monopoly ISP)

The point here is service to the community, not ownership by the "country."

> If what ORSC is asking is to reafirm the spirit under which the present
> domain system was built, I would wholeheartedly support that.

Great, I agree.  I would posit, however, that RFC 1591 is a better guide to
that spirit than Javier Sola.

>
> If what ORSC wants is to use the letter of 1591 to support that DNSO
> maintains the deviations that have been created by the NSi monolopy

If NSI had followed RFC 1591, then:

a) There would be no lame delegations ("There must be a primary and a
secondary nameserver that have IP connectivity to the Internet")
b) .NET would not be "open", but restricted to network operating centers
c) NSI would not have a dispute resolution policy at all
d) NSI wouldn't be keeping weird secret lists of names that couldn't be
registered

... and so on.

RFC 1591 in no way permits the "deviations" that we see at NSI.

> or the
> fact that some ccTLDs are managed for profit

I see.  ccTLDs are not to be managed for profit.  Profit is a bad thing.

> in no relation with the
> country the ISO code belongs to, then I am definitely against.

Better talk to .UK, .DK, .CH, .US, .ZA and about 65 other TLDs then.

>
> We are not here to defend the profit of a few againt the general interest
> of Internet users.

But you are here to defend the hypothetical rights of governments against
the general interest of Internet users?

I think the users should come before either, and that's what the RFC says
too:

RFC 1591 says:

    "The designated manager must be equitable to all groups in the
     domain that request domain names."

and

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

Is a government (if there is one) a "significantly interested party"?   Of
course.  Are there other parties as well?  I think so.  Domain name holders,
for one.  As the head of a users association in Spain, I should have though
that would be obvious.

The IATLD, for one, is interested in the *whole* of RFC 1591, not just a
single part of it.  The RFC talks a lot about community, public service, and
other such things -- you will perhaps not have noticed that the WITSA
application to become the DNSO, which is most specific with regard to the
rights of certain constituencies, says nothing at all -- NOTHING -- about
the obligations of any of the constituencies to the ultimate engine of
domain names, namely domain name holders.

There is more to a ccTLD (any TLD) than a government or a regulatory
mechanism.  There is no divine right of governments.  The whole history of
international relations is a history of checks put on the rights of
sovereigns, from the Magna Carta to the Declaration of the Rights of Man to
the U.S. Constitution to international laws against genocide to the arrest
of Pinochet.  Let's not return to the politics of Charles I of England or
Louis XIV of France or Philip II of Spain in the age of the Internet.

Antony