RE: [wg-c] "within the process"

["William X. Walsh" <william@userfriendly.com>]

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On 17-Mar-2000 Kent Crispin wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 16, 2000 at 01:56:27PM -0800, William X. Walsh wrote:
>>> The only such company is CORE.  Companies that file lawsuits to force
>>> their way into the IANA root, and in the meantime use rogue root zones,
>>> can not by any stretch be said to be working "within the process". 
>>
>>CORE is no better, Kent.  IANA had no authority to grant to them.
> 
> That is neither true nor relevant.  1) It's not true, because IANA in
> fact did authorize TLDs -- many TLDs -- over its tenure.

No, it is not true.  IANA was delegated authority to delegate ccTLDs, but NOT
gTLDs without the approval of the NSF.  This is a clear fact, Kent, and is not
in dispute, or open to any interpretation.  The NSF's statement to NSI is on
the record, and is clear and concise to this point.

>  2) More
> important, it's not relevant, because whether IANA had authority or not,
> that was the only process available, and CORE diligently played by the
> best set of rules it knew.  IODesign, on the other hand, filed a lawsuit

CORE CREATED ITS OWN PROCESS with IANA'S help.  I can go do the same, and with
the same legitimacy.  Just because no process existed doesn't mean you can go
and create one with the authority of the only party who is able to actually
GRANT that authority. 

With your argument, the efforts of PGMedia are legit, since no process existed,
and their's was the only one available at the time they started it, and they
did the best they could under those conditions, then their entire effort should
be legitimized.

Do you see the problem with your justifications, Kent?

> In addition, there is a fundamental logical fallacy in what you say -- 
> withdrawal of a delegation of authority does not mean that the entity 
> from which that authority was withdrawn never had the authority.

They never had the authority.  It wasn't withdrawn.  Please, prove me wrong. 
Point to a document from the NSF that gives IANA authority to create and add
new gTLDs without it's consent.

Please.  I'd sure love to see one. I bet IOD would also.  It would make a great
exhibit in their court case.
> You are talking about some process that never existed, then.  CORE was
> dealing with the only real game in town, and followed the admittedly 
> vague rules as best it could.

Vague rules???  You mean no rules.  So CORE tried to create some when it had no
authority to do so.

>>I know you think by ignoring
>>that point you can pretend it doesn't exist, but the reality is still there. 
>>If IANA did have the authority, then NSF wouldn't have directed NSI to not
>>add
>>any new gTLDs submitted by IANA.
> 
> You have this exactly backward.  In fact, this example demonstrates
> conclusively that IANA *did* have the authority -- otherwise NSF would
> not have acted. 

NSF was merely clarifying, at the request of NSI.  NSI asked what to do,
because they expected the request to come in.  NSF clarified that they were NOT
to insert them, and that only the NSF could authorize such a process.  This is
all documented, Kent.
 
> Prior to that action on the part of NSF NSI did add TLDs on IANA's
> authority.  NSF changed the rules. 

No, they added ccTLDs only, which NSF >>DID<< authorize IANA to do.  This
authorization didn't extend to gTLDs.  NSF made that clear.
 
>>Your justification for giving CORE some higher position is as weak as Chris's
>>for IOD.
>>
>>All applications, regardless of the prior work of the applicant, should be
>>considered on their merits alone, and nothing more. 
> 
> Yay!  We agree on something.

Good.  The the point over CORE's lack of authority to advance their proposal is
moot.
 
> As far as selection of registries is concerned, I agree.  I am not
> arguing that CORE should be given special treatment as a registry --
> registries should be selected according to technical merit, business
> case, and perhaps other factors such as geographic diversity. 
> However, if the TLD names are selected independently of the registries,
> and announced some number of months in advance of registry operation,
> then *every* ICANN accredited registrar would have the opportunity to
> pre-register domains in the selected TLDs.  No registrar could guarantee
> the name, of course, because the registrars are all independent.  (This
> was true in CORE, it would be even more true in this case.)

There you go again, forcing your shared registry model onto every new top level
domain and every registry.   This is not acceptable, and would never acheive
consensus.

 

> So, given that registry selection is independent of name selection, I 
> don't see that use of the IAHC names would give CORE registrars a 
> significant advantage.  There would be some, I grant, but it would be 
> pretty small.

This point is not valid.  No such assurance exists.  And nor should it.  It is
based on a faulty premise, that all top level domains should be shared
registrar model.  This is an unnecessary restriction, anticompetitive, etc.
 
>  I think it is a fairly safe bet that any open TLDs will have
> to be run as shared registries, and that any ICANN accredited registrar
> will be able to register in those TLDs; that they will be under the UDRP
> rules, and that basically they will be run in a manner very similar to
> .com, .net, and .org.  Any significant deviation from this would, in my
> opinion, run into significant opposition from NSI, from the IP
> community, from the current registrars, and a great many other sources. 

This is not a safe bet, Kent.  It is what CORE would want, to force their view
of how things should be run on the entire domain namespace.  But this will
NEVER reach consensus.

As for the so called opposition you claim would be significant, of course the
registrars would want it that way, they make more money this way, but at the
same time you are eliminating registry level competition and eliminating the
many benefits from consumers that a real registry level competition and
multiple business model industry could bring to the Internet.  This would
greatly benefit domain registrants.  The IP community would oppose this only
because it makes it harder for them to get more rights than they have under the
law by simply manipulating ICANN's board to change a single document that gives
them rights to hijack domains that a court would never give them the right to
do.  
 
> Precisely the same would be the case for IODesign, or any other approved
> registry. 

Only if CORE and you can force your view onto the entire domain namespace.

- --
William X. Walsh <william@userfriendly.com>
http://userfriendly.com/
Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192
GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg
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