Re: [ICANN-EU] LA @large meeting preparation

[SCGupta@aol.com]

I understand what you're saying Alexander. We should be able to crawl before 
we can learn to walk! So, let us leave the issues regarding minimal content 
and rating standards on the backburner and away from ICANN. The same is true 
for the protocol and infrastructure. 

But the roles of ICANN, registrars, ISPs and the domain owners should be 
clearly defined and fully disclosed upfront. Right now, an individual is at 
the mercy of registrars, Web hosts, and ISPs. My own site was down for 25 
days in 1999 because of no fault of mine and without any notice to me, due to 
unholy alliance between the registrar, the DNS company, and the Web host. 
Recently, it took more than 2 months to change the host for another of my 
sites. Finally, the difference in the requirements and costs for getting a 
ccTLD is huge across countries -- poorer the country, more expensive the 
domain name!

If we can get some progress on the following, it will be a big step forward:

** Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for the Internet users, domain owners, 
editors and publishers ...

** Full and Upfront Disclosure of Terms and Conditions, including fees, 
rights and obligations.

** Equal, Open, Democratic Ability to Access and Use the Internet at a 
reasonable cost 

** At-large Representation at ICANN  by At-Large members

And, of course, eliminate the pin at all costs, and give them all to Andrew!


Best Regards,
<A HREF="www.indiasamaj.com/subhash.htm">Subhash Gupta</A>
Info Technology & Business Process Engg.
<A HREF="www.indiasamaj.com">AsiaSamaj</A> and <A 
HREF="http://indiasamaj.com/">IndiaSamaj</A>  - South Asian & Asian Indian 
Portals