Proposed Agreements Similar to Eliminating Network Neutrality
August 28, 2006 To the ICANN Board of Directors: The proposed agreements for the .BIZ, .INFO and .ORG registries very closely resemble what broadband providers in the U.S. want to do. As Vint Cerf wrote in his letter to Congress, outlining Google's support of Network Neutrality: "The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. This has led to an explosion of offerings - from VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging - that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required by design." http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/vint-cerf-speaks-out-on-net-neutrality.html By eliminating price controls and using language that permits registries to implement variable by domain pricing, ICANN is creating a group of gatekeepers who have control over new content and services and who can hamper the ability of people to innovate free of any central control. If a registry operator disagrees with a political or other opinion site, what is to prevent them from effectively silencing the web site by pricing their domain name renewal exorbitantly high? What incentive will there be to innovate, when being successful could mean losing your domain name due to extraordinary price increases? Or, what if the reverse occurs? What if the registries raise pricing across the board, but then lower pricing to favored entities? In either case, the registries become the gatekeepers. They become the central control over the Internet. There can be big money in giving preferential treatment to some money-laden individuals and businesses over others, as broadband providers in the U.S. are well aware. The question is, if these scant few broadband providers cannot be trusted to deliver services fairly in a supposedly free market, then how can a scant few registry operators be trusted to deliver services fairly in a supposedly free market? The proposed .BIZ, .INFO and .ORG registry agreements as currently written should not be approved. Regards, Dan C. Rinnert |