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Username: fabrcop
Date/Time: Wed, October 25, 2000 at 2:01 PM GMT
Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer V5.01 using Windows 95
Score: 5
Subject: Very interesting and important article!!!

Message: 		 

 
  I did not like the critical attitude against ICANN in the article
and I believe that ICANN will make a fair choice.
However, this article is very interesting and important and
clearly shows IOD's rights and merits about .web!

Please read the excerpt below, that is very interesting!!!
Fabrizio Coppola
Italy

Excerpt:
SHOOTOUT AT THE .WEB CORRAL
I suppose the real test of whether ICANN has the
political will to “do the right thing” will come with its
decision over who gets to run the .web domain, which
surveys show is the most desired new domain.
Small catch: .web already belongs to Image Online
Design.
Image Online Design has been running an alternative
domain name registry using .web since 1996; that registry
has attracted about 20,000 paying .web domain name
holders.
ICANN has refused to recognize Image Online
Design’s efforts when in fact it could specifically
set aside .web under a “pioneer’s preference”
exemption, much like the Federal Communications
Commission has done when handing out slices of
the airwaves to companies that have
pioneered particular technologies.
Now Image Online Design finds
itself fighting for what is clearly its own
intellectual property. One of those bidding against it is —
big shocker — the Afilias group.
Image Online Design CEO John Frangie said the Afilias
bid for .web is led by the “world’s greatest monopolistic
force: NSI.” Frangie then goes on to say that Network
Solutions has “put together a cartel of 19 companies to
capture even more market share,” noting that the Afilias
proposal is a “cynical attempt to enhance the entrenched
monopoly of NSI” and thereby “perverting the very process
that ICANN established to increase competition.”
I couldn’t have said it better.
                               
MONEY TALKS
And just finish off this murky tale, the other bidder for
.web is listed as NeuStar, which as it turns out is really
“JVTeam,” a “new company formed by NeuStar and
Melbourne IT,” its application says. The latter of those two
is a member of CORE and thus also a member of Afilias.
Smell a trend here?
Wallow through this JVTeam bid for .web long enough
and you come across this statement:
“JVTeam is prepared to meet with ICANN and
discuss any legal issue relating to a .web registry. If
necessary, JVTeam will indemnify ICANN for legal
expenses incurred by ICANN resulting from any legal
challenges brought regarding a grant of the .web registry to
JVTeam.”
I’m sure they didn’t mean to try and bribe ICANN, but
it sure sounds like the old comedy sketch where a conniving
driver, pulled over for speeding, hands the cop his license
wrapped in a $50 bill.
ICANN will deliver its decision on new domain names
in November. The group can redeem itself, if ever so
slightly, by outright dismissing all proposals from established
players in the domain name space.
 
Link: The article

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