RE: [icann-europe] Re: [ecdiscuss] Re: [icann-europe] European Root Server System

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

I just returned from a business trip to NE, CH. Among the things I learned
there are some of the EU attitudes wrt non-regulated business activities. To
tell the truth, I both see some value there and some downside issues.

Basically, the desire is to engrain some stability into the internet before
making major business risks on an unstable platform. As run presently, the
Internet is generally an unstable business platform. The proof of that
pudding is the dot-com implosion (I can defend that statement, but currently
lack to time to do so). EU regulators generally see that as a true
statement. I can't say where I can disagree with it either.

However, having privately-owned TLDs does not necessarily mean that they are
unregulated or that they would have to remain unregulated. That is the
fallacy that Karl falls into. That ICANN incompetence has lead to such a
strange situation is to be taken as a failure of the ICANN and not a
definitive statement, either pro or con, of privately owned TLDs.

However, forcing all TLDs to be geo-politically managed is not only not
do-able, it is enevitably counter-productive. I believe that we can have a
happy mix. I proposed such a solution myself over 3 years ago (Not to say
that the proposal was perfect, only that the concept was introduced).

We need to look at the entire matrix of possible solutions before we
knee-jerk react to any of them. For one, we no longer have the luxury of
making more mistakes like ICANN. In the US, at least, the economy can no
longer weather such errors. I am not sure that the EU economy can either.

DNS is a fundimental architecture issue that needs to be stabilized before
we can build the rest of an internet-based economy. ICANN's destablization
efforts (intentional or not) is preventing (and in some views; sabotaging) a
build-out of such an economy. For the past 5 years, we have eliminated and
answered all the technical issues. There are no more dragons left there.
However, the policy issues and environment have deteriorated substantially.
Worse, business has found out the hard way that investing substantial
resources into domains that are based on UDRP quicksand is a good way to
lose money.

--
R O E L A N D  M J  M E Y E R
Managing Director
Morgan Hill Software Company
tel: +1 925 373 3954
cel: +1 925 352 3615
fax: +1 925 373 9781 
http://www.mhsc.com


|> -----Original Message-----
|> From: Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law
|> [mailto:froomkin@law.miami.edu]
|> Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 8:35 PM
|> To: Karl Kramer
|> Cc: icann-europe@lists.fitug.de
|> Subject: Re: [icann-europe] Re: [ecdiscuss] Re: 
|> [icann-europe] European
|> Root Server System
|> 
|> 
|> Why is it 'insane' please?  Is that market *that* evil?
|> Can't we have lots of both?
|> 
|> On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Karl Kramer wrote:
|> 
|> > To:             	icann-europe@lists.fitug.de
|> > 
|> > > It's not clear to me what's the aim of New.net.  Just to 
|> earn money
|> > > with the current model?  Or force ICANN to add their TLDs?
|> > 
|> > Or stop the Insanity of 1st-level TLDs that are not assiged
|> > to political structures.
|> > The more non-nation TLD's exist the lower use one has from
|> > owning a .com style Name and the higher from owning a .nation.
|> 

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