Forwarded with permission:
Jay.
At 08:22 PM 11/16/00, Judith Oppenheimer wrote:
>VINT CERF BLOCKS AFILIAS POWER GRAB FOR .WEB
>
>Marina Del Rey, CA November 16, 2000 (ICB TOLL FREE NEWS) After
>what can only be described as a day of keystone cop chaos,
>internet and MCI luminary Vint Cerf dug deep into his pioneer
>roots, and blocked NSI-conglomerate Afilias' grab for the
>desirable .WEB gTLD, an existing registry operated by Image
>Online Design.
>
>ICANN troublemaker (and Vice-President, Secretary, and General
>Counsel) Louis Touton bullied, badgered and smirked his way
>through the day, lobbying for his preferred applicant-TLD combo
>Afilias and .WEB, he thought triumphantly, apparently oblivious
>to his embarrassing public display of indiscretion.
>
>But in the end, after numerous straw votes the board was
>unanimous in its consensus to negotiate with Afilias only on its
>second choice TLD, .INFO.
>
>Cerf was unable to quiet his discomfort at displacing the
>existing .WEB, reflecting repeatedly on its function in commerce
>for the past four years, as well as its intellectual property
>interests in the TLD and its associated service.
>
>"I'm still interested in IOD," he repeated over Touton's
>objections. "They've worked with .WEB for some time. To assign
>that to someone else given than they're actually functioning
>makes me uneasy," he said, prompting board member Wilson to chime
>in, "I agree with Vint."
>
>Directors Ken Fockler and Esther Dyson expressed their support as
>well, whereas board member Fitzsimmons denounced IOD's status.
>
>"We have to be careful of preregistration," he said,
>mischaracterizing IOD's 20,000 active .WEB domain names
>registrations.
>
>"The wrong decision here might set up the wrong incentives and
>precedents, encouraging people to set up registries in advance of
>applying to ICANN."
>
>He forgot to add, and paying $50,000 for the privilege.
>
>While Afilias was not granted .WEB, neither was IOD, which was
>excluded in the final board resolution from consideration even
>though it is already a working registry in the ORSC rootzone and
>has the endorsement of the influential Intellectual Property
>Constituency.
>
>Per the resolution passed, one existing TLD, .BIZ, was assigned
>for consideration to JVTeam, a NeuStar company, despite the fact
>that .BIZ is already a commercial registry with web-based
>registration, and has also been in the ORSC rootzone for more
>than 4 years. It's creation date is 1995.
>
>Despite Fitzsimmons' attempt to brand alternative root operators
>as outlaw geeks or worse, the founding members of the ORSC
>rootzone include such respected internet players as Anthony M.
>Rutkowski, currently VP for Internet Strategy at VeriSign-NSI,
>and Kenneth H. Fockler, current ICANN Board Member.
>
>The board selected "the following proposals for negotiations
>toward appropriate agreements between ICANN and the registry
>operator or sponsoring organization, or both":
>
>JVTeam (.biz)
>Afilias (.info)
>Global Name Registry (.name)
>RegistryPro (.pro)
>MDMA (.museum)
>SITA (.aero)
>NCBA (.coop).
>
>A brief "special" board meeting followed at which Vint Cerf was
>named new ICANN Chair. For today at least, he earned it.
>
>Copyright © 2000 ICB, Inc. All rights reserved.
>
>
>Judith Oppenheimer, 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert
>Publisher, http://www.ICBTollFreeNews.com
>President, http://www.1800TheExpert.com
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>Domain Name & 800 News, Intelligence, Analysis
+++
Jay Fenello,
New Media Strategies
------------------------------------
http://www.fenello.com 678-585-9765
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