From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 11:18:28 -0700 (PDT)
To: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Subject: Re: Generic announcement
In-Reply-To: <19970422183723.30130@bywater.songbird.com>
Message-ID: <v03007802af854c2938f7@[168.161.105.191]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 6:37 PM -0700 4/22/97, Kent Crispin wrote:
>This is from a story on Top Level Domain Names.  Seems like it could apply
>to anything:
>
>"In Washington DC, officials from the White House, federal agencies and
>Congress say regulations may be necessary to promote a free-market
>system. A White House inter-agency taskforce was due to meet last
>week, after CWI's press deadline, to discuss the matter."

Here's an article I wrote about this last week. The White House interagency
task force, under OSTP, has met twice already.

-Declan

*******

Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 11:36:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: fight-censorship-announce@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: FC: Domain name disputes, Network Solutions, and the FCC

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

http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,847,00.html

The Netly News
http://netlynews.com/

April 16, 1997
by Declan McCullagh  (declan@well.com)

        Don Telage, the president of Network Solutions -- the company
   that oversees Internet domain-name registration -- wants the
   government to seize control of your Net address. "The FCC should
   assume interim authority" over domain names, he argues. "These
   functions need to be institutionalized."

        Telage says that unless the FCC steps in, a plan to add new
   top-level domains such as .firm and .nom will bewilder netizens, spark
   disruptive lawsuits and threaten the "fragile stability of the Net."
   He proposes that the federal government nix additional top-level
   domains for now, then pick a contractor to deal with them (perhaps
   Telage's own firm, Network Solutions).

        And so the battle lines were drawn earlier this week between a
   proposal granting the FCC jurisdiction over the Net and the
   International Ad Hoc Committee's (IAHC) plan to create a Swiss
   organization to rule cyberspace -- with the backing of the Internet
   Society, the U.N., the World Intellectual Property Organization and
   the International Telecommunication Union. Important members of the
   high-tech community, including UUNET and MCI, have endorsed the IAHC
   plan, but Network Solutions hopes to muster support for its
   counterproposal from within the Beltway. Both sides agree that the Net
   is choking under the clogged .com domain, but they disagree on how to
   answer these questions: Who gets to sell additional top-level domains,
   what will they be and who controls the process?

        At stake, the contenders claim, is nothing less than the future
   of the Internet. Network Solutions' proposal, unveiled on Monday at a
   Federal Networking Council Advisory Committee meeting, is only the
   latest offensive in the increasingly bitter war over who controls the
   three-letter suffixes that identify organizations. These databases
   have quickly become hot property: Thanks to its government-granted
   monopoly, Network Solutions raked in up to $100 million last year.
   That turned heads. Gold rush fever spread to the would-be profiteers
   at Image Online Design, who last year thought they'd get rich quick by
   claiming exclusive ownership of the ".web" top-level domain. (They
   failed. They're suing.)

        Which amply demonstrates one thing: The informal, cooperative
   gentleman's agreement that served the Net so well during its
   not-for-profit infancy no longer works. This growing realization marks
   the end of the old Internet and the arrival of the new. No longer can
   Jon Postel, a little-known but highly trusted network guru, run the
   Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and decide what top-level
   domains should exist. Not only is he being battered by lawsuits, what
   happens if he drops dead tomorrow? I don't mean to be morbid here, but
   this is important stuff in high-powered telecom circles: The Federal
   Networking Council's Advisory Committee took time this week to
   seriously contemplate the "Jon Postel getting hit by a beer truck"
   scenario.

        The roots of the current controvery stem from when Network
   Solutions won an exclusive contract from the National Science
   Foundation to maintain the InterNIC database. After the company
   started charging for domain names registration in 1995, netizens
   started to complain. "The community has given us incredibly powerful
   pushback that they don't like the lack of competition," says Perry
   Metzger, a member of IAHC and the president of a New York consulting
   firm.

        The IAHC proposal aimed to fix that problem by allowing other
   private-sector registrars to compete under rules created in Geneva.
   Yet its critics say more guidance is needed from the U.S. government.
   "There needs to be some sort of nominal governmental action or
   responsibility to provide a mechanism for the industry to meet and not
   run afoul of antitrust laws," says Tony Rutkowski, former head of the
   Internet Society and now a leading critic of the organization. In
   other words, it's time for the federal government to expropriate what
   it created.

        Now, if there's a sure-fire way to get federal officials
   twitching to regulate, it's an industry appearing divided and in need
   of help. "What happens when the notion of industry self-regulation
   fails? What does the government do? Do we have to come in and clean up
   afterwards?" one Clinton administration official asked me recently.
   Sure enough, last month a White House interagency committee formed.
   The goal: to decide what the U.S. government should do with domain
   names. "We're collecting information. We're collecting advice," says
   Glenn Schlarmann from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
   "The FCC probably has a role. The Patent and Trademark Office probably
   has a role. The government traditionally has been the guardian of
   public interest." (Of course, other countries may have a different
   idea of "public interest" and may take a very dim view of the U.S.
   seizing control.)

        Even some high-tech firms hardly known for their willingness to
   cozy up to regulators quietly welcome this move as a way to stabilize
   the Net. Right now, it's vulnerable not only to beer trucks hitting
   Jon Postel, but also, more disturbingly, to claims under antitrust
   laws. That's exactly what a lawsuit filed last month in New York is
   arguing. PGP Media's complaint claims that Network Solutions "has
   conspired" to head off "competition in the domain name registration
   market."

        Now, PGP Media may have a reasonable claim under antitrust laws
   -- but if the suit succeeded, it would spell disaster for the Net. PGP
   Media wants to create an unlimited number of top-level domains, but
   the Net can only handle a few hundred. Tony Rutkowski suggests the FCC
   as a way out. The IAHC plan suggests WTO and the ITU.

        My own suggestion is to steer clear of both bureaucrats and
   Eurocrats. Instead, netizens should ask the U.S. Congress to pass a
   law exempting the Internet from dusty, century-old antitrust laws.
   Where's the Congressional Internet Caucus when we need it?

###


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