USAWebhost comments on the .net non-assignment non-process

[Eric Brunner-Williams at a VSAT somewhere (or in Portland Maine) <brunner@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Oki all,

I wish I would, in good faith, write ".net re-assignment process", however,
as a party to the constituency formation process, the new gTLD process, the
outreach process, the .org and .net re-assignments, I can't.

The criteria for re-award of the .net franchise to VGRS is just as broken
as it was for the award of the .org franchise to Afilias/ISOC, and notes
to that effect over the years have ellicited no responsible action on the
part of ICANN, only the abandonment by qualified opeators from costly and
futile bid preperation.

I'm sure that VGRS will engage in inequitable treatment of USAWebhost, vis
a vis NSI, and the other million-plus names-under-management registrars.
However, the .NET ICANN-Verisign language does not prevent this, it enables
it.

I'm also sure that VGRS will look at increassing the cost of .net names
over time, and while there are good reasons to treat .net names as more
critical for the function of the network infrastructure than .com or .org
names, or any of the new gTLD registries, there is nothing in the .NET
ICANN-Verisign language that anticipates VGRS (or the registrars, or both)
doing anything useful w.r.t. the .net namespace and infrastructure with
any increassed revenues, either soley by VGRS, or the registrars, or both.

The auto-renewal nonsense is so funny, so anti-competitive, that it could
only the product of a working commedian with a wicked sense of humor.

In sum, the re-assignment process is so broken as to be abandoned, and the  
re-assigned terms and conditions are irresponsible to the market, and also
indifferent to the users, and in case anyone missed, it, .net is part of
the criticial network infrastructure.

I don't know if the WSIS monkeys are googling over the transom, but they
can easily make a case for better management of the franchise resources,
and they would have to be _all_ wicked thick people to meet the level of
work of the post-Louis ICANN.

Eric Brunner-Williams
brunner at nic dash naa dot net
IANA Registrar id 449, CORE Member id 124