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Username: cgrady
Date/Time: Sat, October 14, 2000 at 1:05 AM GMT
Browser: Netscape Communicator V4.75 using Windows NT
Score: 5
Subject: My Letter to ICANN

Message: 		 

 
        I thought I should post my initial letter to ICANN for public record.

**********************************

Ladies and Gentlemen of ICANN,

I am certain that this is a difficult and stressful time for you. I truly appreciate your commitment to ICANN. Please accept my apologies in advance for adding to the overflow of emails that you must already be receiving. However, I feel so strongly about the upcoming review process that will take place that I felt the needed to email you directly.

I am taking this opportunity to voice my strongest endorsement and support of Image Online, Inc., owner of www.webtld.com (the .WEB registry)  I believe this organization, granted permission by IANA several years ago to establish the .WEB registry, has shown superior customer support and handling of .WEB registrations.  They have proven to me to have the capacity, know-how, and the existing stable  infrastructure to support the .WEB initiative.

However, the strongest show of support has been the more than 18,000+ names that have been registered and are currently being managed in advance of final approval from ICANN.

The open working relationship between ICANN and entities that IANA granted permission to, for the establishment and collection of proposed registry domain names, is of crucial importance to the tempered expansion of the Internet and how it will be accessed, used, and accessible in the future.  I feel that my letter of support also represents the thousands of people who are more than satisfied with the way in which Image Online has more than competently managed this process.

Several years ago I stumbled upon the .WEB registry at www.webtld.com completely by accident. I read Image Online's statement regarding the permission given to them by IANA to establish the .WEB registry and to begin accepting and managing registrations. Before registering a .WEB domain I called and emailed ICANN to verify that IANA had indeed given this permission. ICANN verified that IANA had given permission to Image Online several years prior to my request.

To date 18,000+ .WEB domain names have been registered. Translated this means:


- Over 18,000+ times a person has risked their money based on IANA's permission for Image Online to establish the .WEB tld
- Over 18,000+ times persons invested, and continue to invest on a daily basis, in a company (Image Online) because they provided a stable and safe system to register and manage domains, provided phone support, answered email, and resolved the few problems or issues one had immediately, many times while you were still on the phone.
- Over 18,000+ times and actual person, and not heavily backed domain squatters registered their .WEB domains.
- Over 18,000+ times people backed this alternative to .com, .net, and .org for themselves and their clients

We knew that there was risk involved. We also knew that any one of us, whether we had purchased a .WEB domain or not would have selected Image Online to manage the .WEB registry simply because they had proven their complete and total competence at establishing and managing the .WEB tld by providing unmatched services and support (as well as a stable registry). They had successfully established a domain management system the way it should be ...  something that Network Solutions had not been able to do since the beginning and still has not accomplished today.

Having personally suffered through the tyranny of the Network Solutions monopoly, an organization which I still jokingly refer to today (through my 1st amendment right) as "The Poster Child for Abusive Monopolies", Image Online's .WEB registry, though not live, has been a breath of fresh air (and all from a company that has struggled for years with the delays resulting from IANA's re-organization into ICANN and the subsequent re-alignment).

While many organizations have submitted their applications to establish top level domains, their proposals for applications are somewhat irrelevant.

The REAL and RELEVANT issues are:

- that IANA did give permission to Image Online to establish the .WEB tld many years ago.
- that over 18,000+ times Image Online was elected by us, the users of the domain name system, every time we paid our $35 registration for a .WEB domain name over the past several years.
- if Image Online was not every bit as qualified as I have mentioned above to manage the already established .WEB tld registration system then they would have disappeared a long time ago.
- Image Online is still here, we still support them and it is ICANN’s obligation to listen to us, the users of the Internet, the builders of the Internet, the people at the mercy of the current domain name system and at the mercy of ICANN's decisions.

You must understand that the required $50,000 fee that accompanied Image Onine’s application is not simply a fee that is backed by some large venture capital firm. It was paid for by us, the users, in support of Image Online by our 18,000+ X $35 registration fees. It is the result of a free and open market ... the way it should be. Please take this into consideration.

On the Internet only the organizations that provide a quality service, both physically and technically survive. Organizations that fail to meet the end users standards quickly find that their customers have gone elsewhere, often over night. This is the way it should be, WE the users deciding what services we want and need and from what organizations. It is clear that we have chosen, by sheer volume of existing registered domains, Image Online to manage the .WEB registry.

Image Online has more than demonstrated their capacity to manage the .web registry and Internet users have more than begun to demonstrate their interest in the .WEB domain as well as interacting with Image Online in support of this process.


Kind Regards,
Chris Grady
President & CEO
Vieodata, Inc.
chris@vieodata.com

cc:
Esther Dyson
Jean Francois Abramatic
Amadeu Abril i Abril
Robert Blokzijl
Geraldine Capedeboscq
Vinton G. Cerf
Jonathan Cohen
George Conrades
Greg Crew
Philip Davidson
Frank Fitzsimmons
Ken Fockler
Hans Kraaijenbrink
Sang Hyun Kyong
Jun Murai
Alejandro Pisanty
Michael Roberts
Helmut Schink
Eugenio Triana
Linda S. Wilson
Pindar Wong
Andrew McLaughlin
Louis Touton
     
 

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