Has anyone seen this? It may rain on the parade come Mon.
.
Domain name registrar
slammed
House committee rips Network Solutions, threatens
to revoke company's charter
By Brock N. Meeks
MSNBC
WASHINGTON, July 22 — A congressional
panel Thursday harshly criticized
Network Solutions Inc., the
company responsible for
registering all Internet domain
names, for its monopolistic tactics
and refusal to abide by Commerce
Department orders to move the
system to a competitive process. If
NSI fails to follow those orders, the
department could strip it of its
registration, leaving the stability of
the Internet in doubt and putting
the company's lucrative financial
base in jeopardy.
Discuss NSI and ICANN
Should Network
Solutions be
stripped of its
domain name
registration
franchise?
Yes
No
Vote to see results
THURSDAY'S HEARING WAS
STEEPED in enough intrigue to fill a spy
novel: call it the “Domain Name Factor,”
a real-time plot line complete with
hidden agendas and global power grabs,
with the fate of the entire digital
community hanging in the balance.
For eight months a private
organization tapped by the Commerce
Department to oversee transition of
domain name registrations from a
government-sponsored monopoly, held
by NSI, to a competitive environment
has been under siege from consumer
advocates, Congress and assorted
Internet players for having overstepped
its original mandate: to provide a sound
technical plan for developing
competition in the domain name
registration process.
Instead, critics — NSI among the
loudest — claim the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names
(ICANN), has unilaterally embarked on a
plan to set itself up as the chief governing
body for the entire Internet. The group
has held closed meetings, self-selected
board members and set up ad hoc
organizations to which it has delegated
critical Internet functions, such as
working out a dispute resolution system
when a domain name infringes on a
trademark. And, in perhaps the most
inflammatory move, unilaterally decided
it would impose a $1 annual fee on the
millions of domain name holders as a
means of providing itself with a
dependable cash flow.
Net name group reluctantly
drops proposed fee, opens
meetings
Those moves created a firestorm of
protest leading straight to into the halls
of Congress. Fed up with the complaints,
Congress moved into action Thursday,
calling its hearing, “Domain Name
Privatization: Is ICANN Out of Control?”
The closed meetings and $1 fee are
“misguided ideas,” said Rep. Thomas
Bliley, R-Va., head of the House
Commerce Committee, calling the $1
charge “an unauthorized tax on the
American people.” Bliley blamed ICANN,
NSI and the Commerce Department for
what he called “this morass” of problems
on the road to a competitive
environment.
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“Transitions from monopoly to
competition are difficult and messy
under the best of circumstances,” said
Esther Dyson, interim chairman of
ICANN's board.
Just before Thursday's hearing,
ICANN renounced the $1 fee and
pledged to hold open hearings. However,
Dyson told Congress that those were
preliminary moves. A final decision will
be made in November when ICANN
holds its first annual meeting in Los
Angeles and permanent members of the
board will be elected and installed.
But the railroading of ICANN
abruptly jumped track as members of
Congress began to sharply question NSI
CEO Jim Rutt.
UP IN FLAMES
Committee members grilled Rutt
about the company's refusal to comply
with Commerce Department orders to
adhere to ICANN's authority and work
out a smooth transition to competition.
The government extended NSI's
authority until September 2000, hoping
that the transition would be complete by
then. But NSI is refusing to work with
ICANN, claiming ICANN's bylaws set it
up as a ruling authority for the entire
Internet, a move that goes well beyond
its mandated task of overseeing the
competition transition.
Rutt often ducked questions. When
asked “who owns” the .COM register, the
heart and soul of the domain name
process, Rutt summarily answered: “It
appears to me, a simple ol' country boy,
that the [intellectual property] belongs to
NSI.”
That statement was rebutted by
Andrew Pincus, general counsel of the
Commerce Department, who said it
belonged to the government because NSI
had done its work under a “cooperative
agreement” with the National Science
Foundation, which it won the right to do
through a competitive bidding process.
Pincus told Congress that, come
September, if NSI still hasn't negotiated
the proper agreements with ICANN, the
government could “recompete” the
process, a move that would strip NSI of
its right to control the database that
registers domain names.
Rutt dodged the question of whether
NSI holds a monopoly. When he
launched into a convoluted answer, he
was cut short by Rep. Bart Stupak,
D-Mich., who said, “Sir, a yes or no
works.”
“I'd say that can't be answered ‘yes' or
‘no,'” Rutt fired back.
change
+1.375
PS Somehow I had a problem posting the whole article but one can track it by following the url of msnbc |
