[wg-c] response to Milton -- sorry if I'm imposing on you to "listen".

["Cade,Marilyn S - LGA" <mcade@att.com>]

Milton, I appreciate the personalized posting. :-)

I apologize to those of you who might not be interested in Milton's efforts
to provide counseling to me and encourage you to tell us both to take our
conversations offline, if you are not interested in this.

But for now, since Milton enlisted you as a "listener", either willing or
unwilling, I'll proceed with my response.

I think we all seek to find a compromise which balances the interests of all
stakeholders, Milton. I respect your right to your views, but in this
specific set of instances, my company does not agree with them. We are not
just a famous trademark holder, but a company engaged in building the
Internet and supporting its growth from a research network, serving
sophisticated, but few (figuratively speaking) users, to masses,
geographically dispursed, and with limited expertise in technology.  The
more users of the Internet, the better, from our perspective. The broader
and more global its reach, and the greater the diversity of content and
applications it can access -- from socially valuable content, to non-profits
who reach both individuals and groups, to commerce -- provided by businesses
of all sizes, sole proprietorships, small businesses, large, multi-national
corporations, and yes, even governments themselves, from agencies to policy
makers -- we view all of these as stakeholders, and users of the Internet.
We also acknowledge that like all critical infrastructures, there are a
diversity of perspectives.  

Since we value the Internet for ensuring that individuals and businesses and
non-profits can reach each other, and the broadest breadth of information
and resources possible, we believe that there has to be some certainty. So
that trust in the medium can be maintained.

So, we continue to support the trial of one new gTLD, with an evaluation
period before any further movement takes place. We remain unconvinced at
this time that it would be responsible to do other than than. We also firmly
believe that it is important to support the continuing valuable role of the
ccTLDs and would like to see .us become as viable and well used as many
other ccTLDs.  

I haven't posted to this list the lengthy and time consuming examples which
the famous trademark holders have provided to the WIPO process, to hearings
before the U.S. Congress, and which you are well aware of, but don't agree
with as we battle consumer fraud, infringements, and consumer confusion
problems within the current name space.  I haven't done that because I don't
think that is the issue here, Milton.  I think the issue is that you
represent a constituency who may not have the same perspectives that my
company, and the constituency which I represent have. That's what this
process is about. Trying to hear from all stakeholders, and find a way
forward which serves the broad stakeholder community -- which now includes
commercial users, that is those customers large and small, and individuals,
who use this as a critical, reliable, global infrastructure.  Most do not
care about these issues. They care about predictablity, reach, realiablity,
and security.  All  of those things underlie my company's concerns -- not
just protecting our trademark, as critical as that is to us, since consumers
from over 200 countries recognize it and rely on it. We take that
responsibility seriously, of course, as well as our role as an
infrastructure provider. But I continue to urge you, as I have in the past,
to make an effort to acknowledge that we are concerned about more than
trademarks; you do us an injustice when you deny that, and I regret you are
unable to accept my explanations.

I hope this helps to explain our positions.

Cheers,

And, again, to the rest of the participants whom you invited to our
conversation, please feel free to "opt out", and I'll delete  you from any
further responses.

Sorry to impose on your Saturday. 

Marilyn Cade

-----Original Message-----
From: Milton Mueller [mailto:mueller@syr.edu]
Sent: Friday, September 10, 1999 9:57 PM
To: Cade,Marilyn S - LGA
Cc: wg-c@dnso.org; Esther Dyson; Greg Crew; Mike Roberts; George
Conrades; Frank Fitzsimmons; Hans Kraaijenbrink; Jun Marai; Geraldine
Capdeboscq; Eugenio Triana; Linda Wilson
Subject: Re: SV: Wrong Question (Was Re: [wg-c] compromise proposal)


One of the dangers of so-called "industry self-regulation" that
was explicitly recognized by the Federal Trade Commission was
the possibility that certain industry interests can coalesce in
restraint of trade.

This seems to be happening now. We have a commercially marketed
ccTLD registry (Bill Semich) telling us that he does not support
any new competition from open gTLDs. He is being supported by
trademark interests who also have an economic self-interest in
restricting the gTLD market. While the trademark lobby has some
legitimate concerns about infringement, legal business activity
cannot be forclosed or unduly restricted simply because it
creates a possibility that infringement will occur in one one
hundredth of one percent of all registrations.

ICANN's board should be deeply aware of the danger of litigation
is these kind of rationales are used to stifle the market for
domain name registrations.

Specifically in response to Marilyn, I think this bears note:

Cade,Marilyn S - LGA wrote:

> My company has from its original postings in the Green Paper and White >
paper supported a slow, controlled, and thoughtful expansion -- 
> suggesting that 1-3 could be possible number, but that we needed to
> start with a controlled trial of only one, with an evaluation before
>  proceeding further.

What you're saying Marilyn, is that your position hasn't changed
at all in the last two years.

Why should anyone on this list offer to change their position if
you are unwilling to make any changes or compromises in your
own?
Especially when you have been unable to support your position
with any serious refutations--or even serious engagement--with
the more powerful arguments offered by others on this list?

--
m i l t o n   m u e l l e r // m u e l l e r @ s y r . e d u
syracuse university          http://istweb.syr.edu/~mueller/