Re: newIANA (was Fram behind closed doors via opaque channels)

[Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com>]

> Like it or not, (see Karl Auerbach's analysis at 
> http://www.cavebear.com/nsf-dns/ ) has given credence to the
> notion that the .com database is proprietary information.

Before that gets taken out of context -- What those web pages discuss (as
does my submission to the Green Paper) is the fact that in response to
claims under both the US Privacy Act (5 USC 552a) and the Freedom of
Information Act (5 USC 552) regarding the domain name database (i.e. what
we think of as the whois database, apart from the raw .com/.net/.edu/...
TLD zone files).

The reason that NSF rejected the claims is that NSF asserts that it has no
control over this information, that instead, that database is the sole and
exclusive private property of Network Solutions.

In other words, NSF has put its foot into things and made a royal mess by
establishing a precedent that NSI owns the contact database.  Some have
said that this may not create an estoppel because the person who answered
the PA and FOIA claims had not right to bind the agency and USG in other
areas.  But it certainly does create an obstacle to implementation of the
White Paper.

There is, of course, a similar problem in that at the instant the US
government manages to compel NSI to disgorge the database, the data in
that database will clearly be subject to the privacy act which
specifically disallows transfers of databases containing personally
identifiable information to non-governmental agencies (absent a contract
imposing privacy constraints) without specific Congressional
authorization.

		--karl--