Joe,
Surely it is not for an attorney to be so emotively or personally involved
in defending a client in a public forum. While we are all driven to
distraction by some individuals, it looks terrible to see this slanging
match in public.
Actually, it gives me the feeling that NSI may be winning some battles in
the background! You protest too much.
Ivan
Ivan Pope
NetNames
Managing Your Internet Identity
http://www.netnames.com
180-182 Tottenham Court Road
London, W1P 9LE
+44 171 291 3900
+44 171 291 3939 (Fax)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joe Sims [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: 21 June 1999 14:37
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [IFWP] Your Nando story
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> In the interests of full disclosure, I am the outside lawyer
> for ICANN.
> This was a good job of regurgitating the NSI story, but it
> was a little
> short on accuracy. ICANN is hardly operating "under the
> vague auspices of
> the Commerce Department;" Commerce in fact went through two rounds of
> extensive public comment before inviting the Internet
> community to form
> what became ICANN, and it ultimately entered into a Memorandum of
> Understanding with ICANN that clearly sets forth the
> relationship. All
> this information is available on the DOC/NTIA website if you
> had bothered
> to look. And it is not ICANN's members who "claim" that they
> are charged
> with ending NSI's monopoly -- it is the DOC documents and the
> agreements
> that NSI has entered into with DOC that set forth that goal.
> (By the way,
> the notion that NSI was doing this on its own before this
> process started
> is a joke; would you like to buy a bridge? When was the last
> monopoly you
> know of that voluntarily introduced competition?) You go on
> to say that
> "records of their meetings are not public;" this is simply
> not true, and
> the fact that you were apparently told this should make you
> worry about
> accuracy of the other things that NSI or its agents told you.
> The minutes
> of all meetings are made public; all Board meetings are
> preceded by an open
> public meeting that deals with all items on the Board agenda;
> and the Board
> holds a press conference to announce decisions and take
> questions from all
> comers, press and others, immediately following its meetings.
> Finally, the
> "Internet tax" canard: what do you call the fee that NSI
> charges to accept
> a name registration, and even more obviously the fee ($35) it
> charges to
> renew a registration -- an act that has virtually no cost at
> all to NSI? I
> would call it a monopoly tax -- 35 times the fee that ICANN
> proposes to
> charge for providing the vehicle that allowed the introduction of
> competition that will almost certainly drive down NSI's
> monopoly charge far
> more than $1. If you want to make a meaningful contribution to this
> debate, and not simply repeat NSI's propaganda, you need to
> do a little
> more independent research.
>
>
