I think a thorough investigation is also needed to establish who is paying who for
what.To find no fault at all with Afilias is bizzare to say the least.
Obviously
the IOD supporters want the IOD registry to be active so that the domain we have
paid $35 for will be online.
All of the IOD supporters here that do not support
Afilias clearly doubt that they stand a chance of getting the domain that they want
via Afilias (this is probably based on past experience with NSI) otherwise this would
not be an issue.
If Afilias was as good as ICANN say it is then no one would really
have a problem. No one owes Mr Cambler anything and $35 is not the most money
any of us will ever lose now is it?
The trouble is Afilias is NOT as good as ICANN
says.
One firm should not be able to dominate the internet.
We need a rival
to Afilias - which is already the biggest player. They are the only group that dominate
the market in the year 2000, and through their aggressive pricing they have
made enough profit to aford the very very best legal and PR firms that money can
buy - OF COURSE they look good on paper!!!!(ICANN - doh!)
Their own rules state
that no one company can rise from 5 1/4 percent ownership to beyond 11 % (that suggests
that pretty soon half of the membership can be bought out). By introducing new members
it is possible for one firm to dominate the market with 11% while the other 30 members
have 3% / 90 members have 1% / 900 members have 0.1 %etc.
And what is to stop them
doing exactly the same thing that ICANN just did and change their own set of rules
to suite the individuals at the top?
Who would be rich enough to slap the wrist
of Afilias in 5 years time?
The American government itself has had its work cut
out dealing with Microsoft who is the market leader for one sort of software for
one sort of computer (as far as I am aware they still don't dominate the hand held
market yet).
Afilias will dominate the ENTIRE internet. All computers all phones
all PDAs all news networks all email all web TV etc etc etc - GLOBALLY.
If these
applications go ahead and NSI were to take over CORE not only would it still have
less than 11% of Afilias but it would control around 160 ccTLDs, .com .net .org .web
.info .site .nom .health (via WHO) .per .biz .dot .spot .surf (via Melbourne IT).
Then, in the same way that NSI has recently dropped its fees down to $6 - making
$15 which was on a par with the old fees now look bad - they could do exactly the
same thing again until the competition is entirely killed off.
IOD poses the single
most serious challenge to NSI / Afilias's monopoly.
There will clearly be attempts
at every level to protect NSI from this. ICANN has already shown that its members
are close enough to achieve vested interest in these companies at the highest level.
Finally,
I draw ICANN's attention to this comment in the Quesation and Answers section (http://www.icann.org/tlds/info1/qa.html).
"Afilias'
registration forecasts were based upon assumptions regarding the market demand for
a new unrestricted TLD, and not based upon the actual string selected. The company
has not attempted therefore to quantify the financial differences between operating
a .web TLD and operating a .info or .site TLD."
All of ICANN's entire comment applies
to all three of the TLDs that Afilias applied for. Their financial position and capability
will not be affected should ICANN decide to issue them with any of the TLDs (which
I don't think they should).
If IOD is blackballed by ICANN, however, then one
of the most significant elements of competition will be removed from the market place.
Not only is this bad but it will leave people searching out answers for years to
come.
ICANN clearly does not feel that IOD can meet its predicitons and if Afilias
group runs the greatest section of the internet as above then that might be the case.
However,
ICANN and the rest of us know that as soon as .web .info .spot and whatever else
are available a whole bunch of the
"this-wasnt-my-first-choice.com" brigade will
be looking to move on to pastures "more appropriate".
ICANN you have it in your
capability to avoid the greatest most damaging scenario that the internet will ever
see.
As things stand (especially since the reports went online) there is much
distrust of the ICANN position.
The comments against a number of applicants were
biased and inconsistent.
Furthermore, in the future if any of the ICANN members
become involved in any profitable internet activity in any way then the fingers will
continue to point - long after this process is ended.
Put aside your own "little
earners" and your apparant dislike of the Toyota man at IOD (I forget his name) and
give them a chance to prove you wrong.
If you don't then history will have only
your own track record to judge you by. (!!!)
It is my own theory that Afilias put
forwards the .web application to ensure that they do get .info for the next round
of the internet.
Most of the Afilias members stand to lost if .com is devalued
(NSI for example have hung on to a reported one million .coms that are about to drop
in value).
Personally I think that Afilias is good enough to
give the new companies a run for their money with what they have already.
If Neulevel
(JVTeam) run .info and IOD run .web then I think that Afilias would still do well
with .net.
Now, however, if Afilias gets nothing then they can clog up the proceedings
with litigation long enough to make sure that the ICANN board members never get anything
out of the deal at all and the overall effect will be most damaging for the internet
as a whole as well as the credability of ICANN and its members.
There is really
only one way that ICANN can please everyone and that is for Afilias to get .info
and IOD to get .web as many others have suggested before me.
Any other circumstance
would cause the whole process to be dragged through the courts and thoroughly examined
and I suspect that ICANN would rather avoid that - especially in light of the activity
of some of its members over recent months.
Even if board members did genuinely
forget that they were also executive chairman of one of the applicants then it still
sounds bad when its read out in court that they only stepped down after it came to
light in the public forum.
my reluctant vote (to ensure that the whole process
does go ahead) is Afilias for .info and IOD for .web. Its a compromise but it works.
Doc