While John's accurate reflection on the present
state of
many
ccTLD's is not name specific, I would offer this ground level
appraisement of the case in American Samoa.
In 1997 IANA delegated one Mr.
Joseph Matua the Administrator
position of the .as domain. Unbeknownst to anyone
in this U.S.
territory in the South Pacific, Mr. Matua operated the domain in
a
fairly quiet manner. In September, 1998 Andy Raskin mentioned, in a
WIRED
article, the economic viability of the .as domain because the
acronym resonated
Inc. in Scandanavia. Since then nearly 15,000
registries have been recorded.
The story prompted a local furor which resulted in a joint
resolution
from the local legislature and a letter from the governor
requesting redelegation.
Two people, a legislative counsel and the
Speaker of the House of representatives,
are attending the Cairo
meeting to investigate just how the delegation was made.
We do know
that Mr. Antony Van Couvering represented Netnames, the marketer,
at
the time of the delegation.
The question is fairly simple; When
the rubber meets the road, where
will ICANN stand on this issue? John's reflection
extends several of
the recommendations give by organizations to ICANN. That's
fine. The
fact is, if this isn't a clear case of piracy, what is? And if a
decision
can't be made on a clear case, where do we go from here?Comments welcome. From
Pago Pago,
|
|
|