Re: Tired of Waiting

["Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

At 09:54 AM 7/14/98 -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>    From: "Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com> 
>
>    Originally, and the fubar that IOD stepped into, IANA even had a TLD
>    registry set up and running. Chris even officially used the published
>    process. >poof< Suddenly there was no process and the check was returned.
>    Then the scum-bags at CORE decided that the WEB name was so neat that
>    they wanted it, since IOD obviously couldn't use it. Does IANA help
>    defend IOD? They do not.
>
>The fly in this particular complaint (which does have a smidgen of merit, but
>let's not get into the grubby details, they don't matter for this larger, and
>much more important point) is that:
>
>+++ New TLD's should not be new "Oklahoma Land Rushes" for entrepreneurs who
>+++ are out to make a quick buck.
>
>In other words, it's *critical* that the *Registry* for a new TLD be operated
>as a public trust, not as someone's way to "make money fast".

This entire point was hammered to death, in the first half of this year, on
DOMAIN-POLICY. You really don't want to go the "public trust" route. See
the archives. I thought it sounded neat too, but there is a specific legal
meaning to the words "public trust".

>(If you don't see why for-profit, but competing, Registries don't work, ask
>yourself how you'd feel once your snappy URL http://my_name.new_tld/foo/bar
>is embedded in 10,000 web pages world-wide, and your for-profit Registry then
>ups the rate to $1,000 per month....)

There are folks out there that are perfectly capable of blowing their own
brains out too. The good thing is that they can only do that once.
Similarly for such a Registry. The customers would be inconvenienced, but
they'll go to another Registry, sueing the pants of their old one as they
go. You do realize that such a move is a legal breach of contract don't
you? There *are* remedies available for such breaches. 

Why is it that some folks think that there is no law, or that existing law
does not touch the Internet? There are numerous court cases that prove
otherwise. Contract law is very much in force, as is its application.

>>From this observation - that for-profit Registries are a bad idea - one can
>see why it was not wholly unreasonable that the original "published process"
>was withdrawn.

I respectfully submit that you observe incompetently, sir. 

Also, to answer yet another point. Becasue of the legal morass regarding
"Common Carrier" in the US (subject to individual State regulations, etc),
we really don't want to go there either. There isn't a State government
that wouldn't like to tax the devil out of the Internet, even if they kill
it in the process. The biggest pirates of all legislate out of Sacramento,
California. We just got them to place a moritorium on taxation. Going the
Common Carrier route changes all that completely.

BTW, your arguments, as regards the links, is a canard. Most web-servers
reports broken links and re-route them, if possible. They disable them if
not. It's an inconvenience, nothing more.
___________________________________________________ 
Roeland M.J. Meyer, ISOC (InterNIC RM993) 
e-mail: <mailto:rmeyer@mhsc.com>rmeyer@mhsc.com
Internet phone: hawk.mhsc.com
Personal web pages: <http://www.mhsc.com/~rmeyer>www.mhsc.com/~rmeyer
Company web-site: <http://www.mhsc.com/>www.mhsc.com/
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