Thanks, Todd. :) I'm one of those Joe Internet Users. I recently did buy a domain, but I've been participating long since before then...: Let me list several things I've used the Net for and maybe then you can understand why I just might have a stake in IP/domain policy: 1. hosting personal http, mail, ftp, etc. 2. finding a job 3. writing code for myself and others (work and personal) 4. troubleshooting people's problems (work and personal) remotely 5. purchasing retail goods 6. selling goods and services 7. planning events, meetings, etc., (personal and work) 8. chatting 9. downloading random stuff 10. learning my trades better 11. educating myself from other people's thoughts 12. buying a domain 13. renting an IP 14. interacting with government services 15. interacting with University services 16. emailing you and other people 17. playing a video game with a German who I introduced to KMFDM My concerns about lack of public, non-governmental oversight are this: 1) breaking the Net. My livelihood is dependent upon it. a) only big companies can afford to muscle around Internet policy b) government might care about my livelihood, I'll grant you that 2) artificial scarcity: making the Net more expensive than it needs to be a) some governments might care, some not b) VeriSign sure doesn't c) Why can't every user have any [word]dot[word] they want for a locally reasonable price? d) Why isn't every ISP a registrar for a distributed database system controlled by no one? 3) consumer culture enforced in allocation policies. I am a producer, too, ya know. a) It's easy to say "oh sure, we'd *never* convert TCP/IP into TV-style technology" but it could happen. This ties in with 2c and 2d. b) Who's to say a top-down entity wouldn't create additional restrictions on domain ownership so that regular people would not have the option of becoming owners? Same with IPs. 4) Unicode. I get to use my native character set when typing in URLs, I don't see why other people can't. My primary OS is a product of Internet collaboration and it has i18n/l10n features. Why not domains? a) governments might care, but I'm sure many couldn't be bothered to b) controlling corporations have an interest in keeping down infrastructure costs and keeping domain costs as high as possible. they don't have a huge interest in taking on the infrastructure costs associated with Unicode software, larger character spaces (i.e., total # of TLDs), etc. 5) Free speech / IP Laws. I worry that government-based oversight would lead to filtration and blocking. Should all Internet users live by the rules of the most restrictive country? What am I talking about? How about Country XYZ vetoing domains and owners of domains that do something XYZ doesn't like? This is why government oversight could suck. Anyway that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure others here have other and better examples. -s On Fri, 2002-11-15 at 15:27, todd glassey wrote: > I have a problem with the "everybody at large" concept which is what this > group talks about. If you want to only focus on NTIA then this might be OK > but otherwise ICANN's sole existence is in regard to domain name to address > conversion and the assignment of those addresses, so since only domain > operators and owners have an interest in that this mission statement is way > too broad. > > My two cents. > > todd > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Stephen Waters" <swaters@amicus.com> > To: <atlarge-panel@lists.fitug.de> > Cc: "At-Large Discussion List" <atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de> > Sent: Friday, November 15, 2002 11:37 AM > Subject: [atlarge-discuss] MISSION STATEMENT draft #3 > > >
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