This link was posted today at www.Lists.netsol.com http://www.brandenburg.com/misc/msnbc-meeks-icann.html
Commenting
on Meeks' ICANN Reporting
D. Crocker
Brandenburg Consulting
A 25
October 2000 article by MSNBC's Brock Meeks http://www.msnbc.com/news/480700.asp
contains numerous factual errors and guilt-by-association slanders. Below is a copy
of Meeks' article's, with my own comments interspersed. /dc
Dirt in
the domain name game: Insiders hoard the goods
IT ALL STARTS with the controversial
organization known as ICANN or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
The non-profit group was hand picked by the Department of Commerce to transition
the assignment of Internet domain names from a monopoly to a competitive environment.
ICANN was developed under Jon Postel, who created an operated the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority for nearly 15 years. The U.S. government selected ICANN
because it seeks privatization of these administrative functions. No other organization
put forward an organized and detailed plan with broad community support, much less
attempted a public development process for this role. Who else was a credible candidate
for this task? For all of the claims about massive criticism of ICANN, there is an
unfortunate tendency to ignore its massive support.
What ICANN has mostly done is create controversy with every decision, while turning
itself into a de facto model for global Internet governance, a task it was never
supposed to undertake.
ICANN has been quite studious in its efforts to
focus only and exactly on its administrative tasks. The efforts to turn it into a
supposed model for Internet "governance" has come from others, outside ICANN. When
challenged about claims of ICANN doing more, critics note potential, rather than
actual transgressions by ICANN.
What is particularly facinating
about the claim of ICANN secrecy is that it is more open than any equivalent organization.
Most criticisms of ICANN process seek to have every facet of every activity in ICANN
subjected to full community review and participation in decision processes. Such
a perspective lacks attention to pragmatic requirements for making progress. What
other operational organization is subject to fishbowl participation at such a level?
Although a relatively small core of disaffected, loud voices persist,
what has been most notable at ICANN meetings is the acceptance and support for the
organization's activities. Hence, the loud rantings mostly serve only to prevent
reasoned public debate.
The acrimony between
ICANN and its legions of critics is as thick as the peanut butter on a two-year-old’s
sandwich. Truth is, ICANN has manufactured most of its own troubles, starting with
a stupefying bent toward secrecy, while pledging to operate in a spirit of consensus
and transparency.
ICANN’s proceedings and board
meetings have only recently been held out for public accountability and scrutiny.
And that was a begrudging concession to a ground swell of public criticism.
"Recently" means most of ICANN's existance. "Begrudging" is a wonderful catch-22
turn of phrase. If the organization makes no change, then it is unresponsive. If
it is responsive to community input, then somehow it is still characterized as not
wanting to make changes.
Then just last week
we learn that a crucial ICANN policy committee was created and is meeting secret.
That committee is meant to provide recommendations on the implementation of certain
aspects of the popular “whois” database, which lists the owners of Web sites.
Those of us in the technical community, who are active with DNS and ICANN would be
interested in hearing detail about whatever conspiracy is being claimed, here. The
secret is so well kept, literally no one appears to know about it, including those
presumably involved...
One law professor
has even stronger words for the ICANN debacle: “In lending ICANN its control” over
the domain name space, the Department of Commerce “created a system in which social
policy is made not by due process of law but by something that begins to resemble
government-sponsored extortion,” writes Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the
University of Miami School of Law in a law review article for the Duke Law Journal.
Prof. Froomkin has neglected to notice that a) the goal is not to "lend" control
but to relinquish it, and b) the Internet is not a US entity, so that its administrive
process must not be purely subject to US processes.
DIRT IN THE DOMAINS
There are three generic top-level
domain names right now: .com, .org and .net. By far the most coveted is .com. However,
the dot-com space has nearly reached its saturation point. Trademark conflicts abound.
And just try to find an available two or three letter dot-com — you’d have better
luck finding sweat on a dog’s back.
That scarcity forced
ICANN to choke on its hairball policy that new domains couldn’t be introduced for
fear of crashing the entire Net, and it began the process of taking applications
to create new domains.
ICANN has never had a policy that new domains could
not be introduced. It has had a policy of proceeding with due diligence and due caution,
as apprpriate for an organization that is a) new, b) responsible for operation of
critical infrastructure resources, and c) having to pay rather a lot of attention
to the carping of poorly informed critics.
The ground rules noted that anyone could submit an application to run a new domain,
a potentially lucrative business that can return hundreds of millions of dollars
in annual revenue.
But the brutal truth is, ICANN
didn’t want just anyone to submit a proposal, so they imposed what amounted to a
digital poll tax: all applicants had to pony up a non-refundable $50,000 check. Some
47 applications were received, pouring $2.35 million into ICANN’s cash strapped coffers.
And none of the applicants is guaranteed it will get to run a
new domain; ICANN hasn’t even decided how many new domains to create. Estimates range
from three to 12, but hundreds of new domains were proposed in the bidding.
47 is hardly a small number, thereby suggesting that the barrier to entry is not
nearly as onerous as is being suggested. How many untested (and problematic) new
business sectors get that many entrants right out of the gate?
By
the way: Not wanting "just anyone" to submit a proposal is a Good Thing, not a bad
one; this is critical infrastructure and financial resources are one of the necessary
indicators that an applicant just might be able to perform the necessary functions.
But one group of players has seen to it that they
have an inside track in being selected to run one of the new domains.
Members of a newly created company called the Afilias Group have,
in one way or another, managed to get their hooks into more than one-third of the
domain proposals. Members of Afilias include the current monopoly domain name registry
owner, Network Solutions, Inc.
Let's see if we get the innuendo right:
it is bad that interested parties got together to cooperate on an application? It
is bad that they participated in more than one application? It is bad that the company
that has a monopolistic position in the pre-expansion world is being permitted to
participate as an equal-among-many?
It would be interesting to see
the legal basis for excluding NSI from a cooperative and equally interesting to fantasize
about the ensuing lawsuits. (And I am no fan of NSI.)
Did anyone
bother to ask about NSI's participatiion in this group? Has it, for example, been
out-voted with any regularity? (The answer is that it has, of course.)
The “registry” is key and differs from a “registrar.” There are
dozens of the latter; these companies will register your chosen Web site name for
a fee. But it’s the Network Solutions registry that is the cash cow.
Every registrar has to pay a registry fee to Network Solutions for every
new dot-com-this or dot-com-that it creates. The registry is the central clearinghouse
that keeps track of all those domain names and its profits go only to Network Solutions,
which is now owned by Verisign.
Afilias also counts
CORE among its members. CORE grew out of a group that tried unsuccessfully, a couple
of years ago, to pull off what can only be called the first coup d’etat in cyberspace.
CORE set up its own company and registrars and said it alone would create new domains
and be governed in U.N. fashion, under Swiss bylaws. The attempt failed and CORE
was reduced to treading water waiting for ICANN to bless the creation of new domain
names.
The "coup d'etat" that is being cited was an effort sponsored and
approved by IANA -- the folks that created and ran DNS administration. Hence, the
effort was by IANA, itself. So, how does one accomplish a coup d'etat when one is
the "etat"?
CORE did not set up CORE. It was set up by an independent
body operating under IANA. (Full disclosure:I was a member of that independent body
and editor of its report.) Neither that body nor CORE ever said that it alone would
create new domains. That authority rested with IANA and such was always -- repeat,
always -- stated explicitly.
That Network
Solutions is even being allowed to participate, in any way, in the creation of new
domains is a travesty. The U.S. government created Network Solutions’ monopoly in
the first place and then spawned ICANN as a means to help introduce competition into
the domain name market. ICANN apparently forgot to look up “competition” in the dictionary.
NSI's market position is, indeed, remarkable and inappopriate. Does the best way
to fix this require making special, exclusionairy rules against NSI, or rather simply
to require that it compete on an equal footing? Mr. Meeks apparently forgot to look
up "complexity" in the dictionary.
If one
of a few new domains goes to “a group of registrars who collectively already have
98 percent of the .com, .net and .org market, one would have to ask, ‘why?’” says
Milton Mueller, Associate Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies.
“It seems to be not only bad competition policy, but raises fundamental concerns
about how ICANN operates, because the organization would appear to be incapable of
awarding resources to anyone but its own insiders.”
Prof. Mueller has failed
to distinguish registrar market from registry market. He has also failed to note
corporate and legal boundaries. The cited applicants have zero percentage of the
registry business. Some of the members of some of the applicant consortia -- other
than NSI -- have a percentage of the registrar market.
The reference
to "insiders" is equally remarkable, since a) it presumes an outcome that has not
yet happened, b) it presumes that the application process was not open to all who
satisfy the listed requirements, and c) it states that those inside ICANN are being
given allocations. This last point is a charge of extreme conflict of interest and
it would usually be accompanied by at least a modicum of documentation to back up
the claim. Such documentation is eagerly sought, Mr. Meeks.
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.
Small catch: No it does not. Not
in the ICANN/IANA domain system.
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.
IOD's activity has been entirely independent of IANA and ICANN, other than the two,
failed lawsuits it has initiated, and it is free to continue its independent activities.
ICANN is taking no action that prevents IOD's independent activities.
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.
IOD did not come up with the "idea" of .web first. Further this raises an interesting
question: what exactly are they supposed to have "pioneered"? That people are interested
in the web? That people want additional top-level domains?
Giving
anyone special position is called favoritism. The purpose of the ICANN exercise is
to increase competition. Competition is about the absence of favoritism from an oversight
body, not about having the body engage in favoritism.
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.
"Clearly" its own intellectual propoerty? Given that it has
lost two lawsuits on this topic, there probably is a clear basis for assessing its
legal position, but the clarity is of the absence, not presence, of IOD intellectual
property.
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.
You couldn't? That is unfortunate,
since we are afforded no factual basis for the claim and IOD is just a tad biased.
A reporter is supposed to be neutral, absent documented facts. For that matter, a
reporter is supposed to make some effort to acquire facts.
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?
A trend? Oh my goodness, yes. It is called hedging one's
bets in a lottery. Any intelligent participant in a process such as this will try
to find ways to win, and participating in multiple bids is the standard technique.
Full Disclosure: I have recently become an advisor to Neustar. I have
no previous financial involvement in this topic. Highlighting that the process is
open: Neustar has extensive registry experience for telephone number administration,
but is new to DNS administration.
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.
A bribe? Bribes are supposed to create some inapprpriate
benefit for the bribed party. To guarantee to cover the legal costs -- if there are
any -- is a bribe? Companies do not casually offer to indemnify another party, when
there is a significant potential for a credible -- or even incredible -- lawsuit.
However such language in a contract is extremely common. A far more reasonable interpretation
of the offer is that a company that is trying to make a profit has determined that
the IOD position is sufficiently lacking in real legal merit so as to make the risk
associated with indemnification minimal.
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. But don’t hold your breath.
Now here we
have a truly novel idea: For an activity involving administration of critical infrastructure,
let us formally exclude anyone who has any experience with it. How clever!
Although ICANN says it is looking out for the stability
of the Internet as it tries to micromanage the domain name space, that argument flies
with the all the grace of a penguin. ICANN is cowed by big money interests. And money
and power talk, in cyberspace, just as they do in the halls of Congress.
As ICANN tries to make progress in the face of outlandish and unfounded claims from
ill-informed participants and reporters, who are trying to micromanage its activities,
it is astonishing that the Internet survives.
No I am not
K Stubbs or D Crocker, I did not write the above Comments
I am simply posting
it for Public Transparency of the issues.
Please Don't reply to my post, it simply
clogs up this Forum.
As of 16:00 CDT wednesday the total postings to the commentary
list was 2360 Of that number OVER 775 POSTINGS WERE MADE BY JUST 16 PEOPLE
http://www.icann.com/cgi-bin/mbx/rpgmessage.cgi?tldapps;39F82E7800000AED
Regards
Webster