Subject: GA-DIGEST V1 #1273
From: [email-masked] (GA-DIGEST)
To: [email-masked]

GA-DIGEST            Friday, June 14 2002            Volume 01 : Number 1273

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 00:25:38 -0700
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] WLS Questions - Spcl Attn.  Nancy Victory and Karen Rose

John and all assembly members,

John Berryhill wrote:

> I'm trying to understand this notion of how a monopoly WLS, which guarantees
> only one person a crack at an expiring name, is "fair" relative to multiple
> competing services, and would appreciate hearing from someone who (a)
> believes it is fair, and (b) is not associated with SnapNames or Verisign.

  Yes it is very difficult to understand!  The close association
now between Versisign and Snapnames would in part explain
their particular interest of course.

>
>
> Chuck Gomes has said that something like 50% of SnapNames customers are
> speculators instead of "average" domain name registrants.  Leaving aside the
> question of how a population of 50% of anything is not "average", or the
> methodology used to read the minds of the other 50% to determine their
> motivation, then can someone clue me in to how 50% of WLS position holders
> are NOT going to be speculators?

  In effect 50% of proposed WLS position holders either way would
be speculators..  My question is and was to verisgn is what
is an "Average Domain Name Registrant"?  I have yet to receive
any answer, regardless of it's actual validity or considered validity.
So perhaps as Nancy Victory suggested in her statement to the
Senate hearing yesterday, we should direct these questions to
the GAC, which our US representative is Karen Rose.  Karen?
Nancy?, Can you answer these questions in a straight forward manner
please?  ( of course I am not holding my breath awaiting and answer)...

>
>
> Snapbacks are $69 a pop, and we are told half of them are owned by
> speculators.  So, the point here is that SnapNames wants to have 50% fewer
> customers?  Or they want to charge 100% of them twice as much money in order
> to get rid of the "bad" customers while keeping the "good" customers?

  Two very good questions here as well John...  And again perhaps
Nancy or Karen could answer them...  Nancy?  Karen?

>
>
> And with the "price high enough to discourage speculation" idea, what is the
> evidence that speculators don't have more money than these "average"
> registrants for whom we are trying to make things "fair"?

  Ore vice versa.  As a matter of fact what is the difference if any between
a speculator and Verisign and SnapNames defines them, which remains
undefined by either of them?

>
>
> And if we aren't going to have a dispute resolution procedure for people who
> take up WLS slots on expiring domain names that are someone else's
> trademarks, then what is the point of making the identity of WLS slot
> holders known?

  The only logical point I can see is that the IP Legal community,
or IP ambulance chasers, can easily define whom these folks are
and can more easily have a tool to defend their Trademarks.

>
>
> I have to take my hat off to the guy with enough chutzpah to tell a Senate
> subcommittee that ICANN was strangling consumer choice and competition by
> refusing to introduce a monopoly service that would replace several
> competing services to do the same thing.  Doing that and avoiding dizziness
> at the same time is an admirable feat.

  Yes, that was very interesting and high speed spin.  But I believe that
no one bought off on his testimony very much...  But it was hoot!  >;)

>
>
> --
> This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
>

Regards,

- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 124k members/stakeholders strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number:  972-244-3801 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 22:45:29 -0700
From: William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] South African .za ccTLD administrator takes drastic action to prevent government takeover

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020613/wr_nm/tech_safrica_internet_dc_1

Some excerpts:

The administrator of South Africa's web addresses said on Thursday he
had hidden the key to the country's ".ZA" domain network abroad to
prevent any government interference in access to the Internet.

Lawrie, a South African Internet pioneer who is not paid for
administrating the ZA domain, told Reuters he had taken pre-emptive
action to stop the government from seizing control.

"The storage of the primary zone file that defines and controls the ZA
namespace is now offshore," he said.

Lawrie said he had announced his action to signal to the global
Internet community that the South African domain was secure despite
the controversial legislation scheduled to pass its final
parliamentary hurdle next week.

- -- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
- --
Save Internet Radio!  
CARP will kill Webcasting!
http://www.saveinternetradio.org/

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 00:46:47 -0700
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [ga] South African .za ccTLD administrator takes drastic action to  prevent government takeover

- --------------ADED3F3B18D6750E3490339F
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Unless, something went really haywire I thought that the government there now represented the
people?

Is this a "blacks cannot run the Internet" problem?

I have read and understand that the government is ill equipped at this time but if they
represent the people I have a real hard time with this.

Perhaps some of us here could mediate to find a common ground.

The government at this time is incompetent to run the net there, Lawrie is not representative
of the LIC.
(Keep in mind that LIC clearly means both users and those that do not use but benefit
therefrom)

So if you have a digital divide between competence and representativeness - what should you do?

If ICANN were competent we may have that problem here!

Sincerely,
Eric

William X Walsh wrote:

> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020613/wr_nm/tech_safrica_internet_dc_1
>
> Some excerpts:
>
> The administrator of South Africa's web addresses said on Thursday he
> had hidden the key to the country's ".ZA" domain network abroad to
> prevent any government interference in access to the Internet.
>
> Lawrie, a South African Internet pioneer who is not paid for
> administrating the ZA domain, told Reuters he had taken pre-emptive
> action to stop the government from seizing control.
>
> "The storage of the primary zone file that defines and controls the ZA
> namespace is now offshore," he said.
>
> Lawrie said he had announced his action to signal to the global
> Internet community that the South African domain was secure despite
> the controversial legislation scheduled to pass its final
> parliamentary hurdle next week.
>
> --
> Best regards,
> William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
> --
> Save Internet Radio!
> CARP will kill Webcasting!
> http://www.saveinternetradio.org/
>
> --
> This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
> Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
> ("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
> Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

- --------------ADED3F3B18D6750E3490339F
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
Unless, something went really haywire I thought that the government there
now represented the people?
<p>Is this a "blacks cannot run the Internet" problem?
<p>I have read and understand that the government is ill equipped at this
time but if they represent the people I have a real hard time with this.
<p>Perhaps some of us here could mediate to find a common ground.
<p>The government at this time is incompetent to run the net there, Lawrie
is not representative of the LIC.
<br>(Keep in mind that LIC clearly means both users and those that do not
use but benefit therefrom)
<p>So if you have a digital divide between competence and representativeness
- - what should you do?
<br>If ICANN were competent we may have that problem here!
<p>Sincerely,
<br>Eric
<p>William X Walsh wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE><a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020613/wr_nm/tech_safrica_internet_dc_1">http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;u=/nm/20020613/wr_nm/tech_safrica_internet_dc_1</a>
<p>Some excerpts:
<p>The administrator of South Africa's web addresses said on Thursday he
<br>had hidden the key to the country's ".ZA" domain network abroad to
<br>prevent any government interference in access to the Internet.
<p>Lawrie, a South African Internet pioneer who is not paid for
<br>administrating the ZA domain, told Reuters he had taken pre-emptive
<br>action to stop the government from seizing control.
<p>"The storage of the primary zone file that defines and controls the
ZA
<br>namespace is now offshore," he said.
<p>Lawrie said he had announced his action to signal to the global
<br>Internet community that the South African domain was secure despite
<br>the controversial legislation scheduled to pass its final
<br>parliamentary hurdle next week.
<p>--
<br>Best regards,
<br>William X Walsh &lt;[email-masked]>
<br>--
<br>Save Internet Radio!
<br>CARP will kill Webcasting!
<br><a href="http://www.saveinternetradio.org/">http://www.saveinternetradio.org/</a>
<p>--
<br>This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
<br>Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
<br>("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
<br>Archives at <a href="http://www.dnso.org/archives.html">http://www.dnso.org/archives.html</a></blockquote>
</html>

- --------------ADED3F3B18D6750E3490339F--

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 09:12:46 +0200
From: "J-F C. (Jefsey)  Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] WLS Questions

- --=======373DBB0=======
Content-Type: text/plain; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-334918F4; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Please stop wandering at WLS. This is just a way for them to get a few 
bucks out of cybersquatters. They are not in DN business but, as everyone 
else, in survival business. jfc

On 06:13 14/06/02, John Berryhill said:
>I'm trying to understand this notion of how a monopoly WLS, which guarantees
>only one person a crack at an expiring name, is "fair" relative to multiple
>competing services, and would appreciate hearing from someone who (a)
>believes it is fair, and (b) is not associated with SnapNames or Verisign.
>
>Chuck Gomes has said that something like 50% of SnapNames customers are
>speculators instead of "average" domain name registrants.  Leaving aside the
>question of how a population of 50% of anything is not "average", or the
>methodology used to read the minds of the other 50% to determine their
>motivation, then can someone clue me in to how 50% of WLS position holders
>are NOT going to be speculators?
>
>Snapbacks are $69 a pop, and we are told half of them are owned by
>speculators.  So, the point here is that SnapNames wants to have 50% fewer
>customers?  Or they want to charge 100% of them twice as much money in order
>to get rid of the "bad" customers while keeping the "good" customers?
>
>And with the "price high enough to discourage speculation" idea, what is the
>evidence that speculators don't have more money than these "average"
>registrants for whom we are trying to make things "fair"?
>
>And if we aren't going to have a dispute resolution procedure for people who
>take up WLS slots on expiring domain names that are someone else's
>trademarks, then what is the point of making the identity of WLS slot
>holders known?
>
>I have to take my hat off to the guy with enough chutzpah to tell a Senate
>subcommittee that ICANN was strangling consumer choice and competition by
>refusing to introduce a monopoly service that would replace several
>competing services to do the same thing.  Doing that and avoiding dizziness
>at the same time is an admirable feat.
>
>--
>This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
>Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
>("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
>Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
>
>
>
>---
>Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.370 / Virus Database: 205 - Release Date: 05/06/02

- --=======373DBB0=======--

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 12:55:56 +0200
From: "DNSO Secretariat" <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] NC teleconf agenda June 17, 2002

[To: [email-masked], [email-masked]]
[To: [email-masked]]

ICANN/DNSO

         DNSO Names Council Teleconference on 17June 2002 - agenda
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coordinated Universal Time UTC 13:00 - see below for local times

Philip Sheppard will be chairing the NC teleconference.
Scheduled time for meeting - 120 mins.

PROPOSED NAMES COUNCIL AGENDA June 17, 2002

1.Adoption of minutes of last call.
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020606.NCteleconf-minutes.html

2. . Discussion and adoption of NC reply to the Evolution committee
http://www.dnso.org/temp/200206.NCreply-evolution-com.html

3. AOB

Note:

Proposed next Names Council meeting: Wednesday June 26, at 14.00 local time
in the main auditorium, Marriott Hotel, Bucharest
See http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2002.NC-calendar.html

(6:00 LA, 9:00 New York, 15:00 Paris, Japan/ Korea 22:00, 23:00 Melbourne)
Local time between April and October, Summer in the Northern Hemisphere
- ------------------------------------------------------------

 Reference (Coordinated Universal Time)     UTC         13:00
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  California, USA                            UTC-8+1DST   6:00
  Monterrey, Mexico                          UTC-6+1DST   8:00
  Lima, Peru                                 UTC-5+0DST   8:00
  Washington DC, USA                   (EST) UTC-5+1DST   9:00
  St.Thomas, Virgin Islands                  UTC-4+0DST   9:00
  Buenos Aires, Argentina                    UTC-3+0DST   10:00
  London, United Kingdom                     UTC+0+1DST  14:00
  Brussels, Belgium                    (CET) UTC+1+1DST  15:00
  Barcelona, Spain                     (CET) UTC+1+1DST  15:00
  Frankfurt, Germany                   (CET) UTC+1+1DST  15:00
  Paris, France                        (CET) UTC+1+1DST  15:00
  Jerusalem, Israel                          UTC+2+1DST  16:00
  Seoul, Korea                               UTC+9+0DST  22:00
  Tokyo, Japan                               UTC+9+0DST  22:00
  Melbourne, Australia                      UTC+10+0DST  23:00
  Auckland, New Zealand                     UTC+12+0DST  01:00 (Friday)
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  The DST starts/ends on last Sunday of October (with some exceptions)
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  For other places see http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

The full participants are the 21 NC members as listed in
http://www.dnso.org/constituency/ncmembers.html,
DNSO Secretariat and ICANN Officers.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

                 Information from:  © DNSO Names Council

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 09:30:30 -0400
From: "James Love" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] WLS Questions

What would fix the WLS issue would be to have a period after a domain
expired, where anyone who wanted it could express intereset, and there would
be a fair lottery to see who got it.     And, at any point before the
lottery, the old domain holder should be able to get it back.

Jamie

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "John Berryhill" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 12:13 AM
Subject: [ga] WLS Questions

:
: I'm trying to understand this notion of how a monopoly WLS, which
guarantees
: only one person a crack at an expiring name, is "fair" relative to
multiple
: competing services, and would appreciate hearing from someone who (a)
: believes it is fair, and (b) is not associated with SnapNames or Verisign.
:
: Chuck Gomes has said that something like 50% of SnapNames customers are
: speculators instead of "average" domain name registrants.  Leaving aside
the
: question of how a population of 50% of anything is not "average", or the
: methodology used to read the minds of the other 50% to determine their
: motivation, then can someone clue me in to how 50% of WLS position holders
: are NOT going to be speculators?
:
: Snapbacks are $69 a pop, and we are told half of them are owned by
: speculators.  So, the point here is that SnapNames wants to have 50% fewer
: customers?  Or they want to charge 100% of them twice as much money in
order
: to get rid of the "bad" customers while keeping the "good" customers?
:
: And with the "price high enough to discourage speculation" idea, what is
the
: evidence that speculators don't have more money than these "average"
: registrants for whom we are trying to make things "fair"?
:
: And if we aren't going to have a dispute resolution procedure for people
who
: take up WLS slots on expiring domain names that are someone else's
: trademarks, then what is the point of making the identity of WLS slot
: holders known?
:
: I have to take my hat off to the guy with enough chutzpah to tell a Senate
: subcommittee that ICANN was strangling consumer choice and competition by
: refusing to introduce a monopoly service that would replace several
: competing services to do the same thing.  Doing that and avoiding
dizziness
: at the same time is an admirable feat.
:
: --
: This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
: Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
: ("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
: Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
:
:
:

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 07:25:14 -0700
From: William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] WLS Questions

Friday, June 14, 2002, 6:30:30 AM, James Love wrote:

> What would fix the WLS issue would be to

not implement it at all.

- -- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
- --
Save Internet Radio!  
CARP will kill Webcasting!
http://www.saveinternetradio.org/

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 22:43:37 +0800
From: Jim Ayson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] South African .za ccTLD administrator takes drastic action to prevent government takeover

At 10:45 PM 6/13/2002 -0700, William X Walsh wrote:
>Lawrie, a South African Internet pioneer who is not paid for
>administrating the ZA domain, told Reuters he had taken pre-emptive
>action to stop the government from seizing control.
>
>"The storage of the primary zone file that defines and controls the ZA
>namespace is now offshore," he said.

This is a problem when one individual controls a ccTLD. What if Lawrie gets 
hit by a truck tommorow? Will .ZA just go into limbo?

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
jim ayson / [email-masked] / www.philmusic.com

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 07:32:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: George Kirikos <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] SnapNames "partners" tied up in long-term deals, need WLS to escape

Hello,

I found the following interview of Ron Wiener very interesting:

http://www.sao.org/newsletter/companies/woody01-02.htm

in particular:

"We have one- to five-year exclusive relationships with most of our
partners. It was almost accidental when we went to these companies
initially and wanted to partner with them; they couldn't picture how
big this was going to be. Most said, "Sure, you want an exclusive
relationship for back ordering? Yeah, whatever." And now back ordering
has become everything, and we're locked in."

I've always wondered why there were always a couple of supporters of
WLS, despite all the logical reasons against it (anti-competitive,
anti-trust, anti-consumer, higher costs, etc.). Now it begins to make
sense. Those "partners" of SnapNames are trapped in long-term deals
that they can't get out of, making below-market rates for their
valuable registry connections.

It would seem that the only way those registrars can get out of those
relationships, if indeed they are looking with envy at the success of
other competitive registrars who are innovating and winning new
consumers with their competitive offerings is to vote for WLS, despite
the bad taste it would leave in their mouths.

I think this is a factor that should be considered in this debate. If
Verisign, for instance, is one of the trapped parties, it has a great
interest in doing whatever it takes to escape from a bad deal. If WLS
goes through, though, consumers and other market participants will have
no way to escape from the bad deal, as there's no way to put the genie
back in the bottle once it's out.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 08:00:27 -0700
From: William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] South African .za ccTLD administrator takes drastic  action to prevent government takeover

Friday, June 14, 2002, 7:43:37 AM, Jim Ayson wrote:

> At 10:45 PM 6/13/2002 -0700, William X Walsh wrote:
>>Lawrie, a South African Internet pioneer who is not paid for
>>administrating the ZA domain, told Reuters he had taken pre-emptive
>>action to stop the government from seizing control.
>>
>>"The storage of the primary zone file that defines and controls the ZA
>>namespace is now offshore," he said.

> This is a problem when one individual controls a ccTLD. What if Lawrie gets 
> hit by a truck tommorow? Will .ZA just go into limbo?

Not at all.  Just like the Internet didn't collapse when Jon Postel
died.

There is no problem with one person being the delegate for a Top Level
Domain.

The problem is that the government thinks it has the sole ability to
determine who runs that TLD, or that it has some rights to make that
decision unilaterally.  It doesn't.

The management of that TLD is a matter of the delegation between IANA
and the delegate.  The government has no role in that.

Unfortunately, however, in exchange for support for ICANN, ICANN sold
out to powerful governmental interests such as the European
governments and Australian government who demanded that they have a
say in the management of ccTLDs.  This was a bad move in my opinion, a
very bad one.  It was a step backwards for the effort to maintain and
further private management of the DNS.  But in exchange for
recognition, ICANN sold out and created the GAC and then adopted a
change to RFC1591 that gave governments a stronger role in the ccTLD
arena.

However, that doesn't give any government the right to decide on its
own that it is assuming management of a ccTLD.  It merely makes the
government a party to any discussions about redelegation issues.

South Africa is making a move based out of complete ignorance over how
the DNS works, and what is involved, simply because a few ignorant
legislators realized that they could create a new bureaucracy and
possible revenue source for the government.

The delegate should be applauded for taking the necessary steps to
prevent the nationalization of the ccTLD zone file without a proper
and informed process in place.

- -- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <[email-masked]>
- --
Save Internet Radio!  
CARP will kill Webcasting!
http://www.saveinternetradio.org/

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 08:19:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: George Kirikos <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] SnapNames and their latest "circle-jerk" petition....

Hello,

Apparently, SnapNames is now circulating a petition to try to garner
support for WLS. It has been sent to some clients and "friends" of
SnapNames. However, the powers that be should take any results from it
with a grain of salt because:

1) it's "preaching to the converted"
2) only those in support of the petition were asked to reply to it
3) many folks didn't even receive the petition (I for one must be on
their "black-list", as I still didn't get a copy, despite being a
customer, even though it was sent more than 12 hours ago)
4) it ignores the fact that there is *already* an official avenue of
public input, namely the WLS forum at ICANN, at:

http://forum.icann.org/wls/

There is much more support for a Uniform Deletions Policy, which is a
mandatory *precondition* to any offering even resembling WLS at the
registry level, then there is for WLS itself. 

Indeed, there's more opposition to WLS than support, except mainly for
some special interests looking to "cash out" their already massively
diluted equity stake in SnapNames (see Ron Wiener, in a moment of
weakness, admitting their strategy at:

http://www.sao.org/newsletter/companies/woody01-02.htm

"My goal is for SnapNames to become as attractive as possible to as
many companies as possible, for the biggest possible eventual liquidity
event, as soon as the market turns around. The joke around here is that
we're waiting for when the most obvious acquiring companies can no
longer afford us -- we're holding out for a very large IPO or sale.
When you're making money and you're able to raise money -- we'll close
our first year at over $3 million in sales and next year we predict
about $28 million -- well, there's just no sense for us to sell today
when we can get a much higher valuation in a year or two."

Without WLS, SnapNames wouldn't grow to the $28 million per year level,
at the expense of consumers, registrars, and other market participants.

In conclusion, I'm sure that ICANN and others recognize this petition
as merely a "circle-jerk"*. If SnapNames and Verisign wish to take the
high road, they'd encourage their clientile to post to the official WLS
forum, take part in the DNSO, including its task forces which have been
considering WLS for many months.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/

*Apologies to those who are offended by the term "circle-jerk". Some
folks at SnapNames have a tendency to copy terms from their opponents
(shows a lack of originality, indeed), and twist them 180 degrees in
the wrong direction. I doubt that will happen with this catch-phrase.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 23:36:30 +0800
From: Jim Ayson <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] South African .za ccTLD administrator takes drastic  action to prevent government takeover

At 08:00 AM 6/14/2002 -0700, William X Walsh wrote:

>The delegate should be applauded for taking the necessary steps to
>prevent the nationalization of the ccTLD zone file without a proper
>and informed process in place.

Thanks for the explanation but the news report makes it appear there are 
only two parties affected, the ccTLD administrator and the South 
African  government. Where does the South African Internet community fit 
into all this, what has been their stand so far, pro or anti 
nationalization? The ccTLD administrator after all is supposed to be a 
trustee working on behalf of the community . That element seems to have 
been missing from news coverage of the issue. Has there been any one 
posting from South Africa about this?

- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
jim ayson / [email-masked] / www.philmusic.com

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 08:28:56 -0700
From: [email-masked]
Subject: [ga] South Africa

I know a great many of you like to avoid important issues because they
make you feel bad or you think talking directly about them is ill
mannered/ so for those of you immediately delete this is for culturally
mature audiences only.

I have now done enough research to make the following observation which
is troublesome;

South Africa's problems with their ccTLD stem from the old regime and
it's slow transition.
Show me one Internet oriented technical school that has operated over 5
years that includes allowing the representative majority being
students.  There is not one.  Suppressing education is ill advised.
However I believe that you could find some very technical people working
in the Internet field that
have obtained their education elsewhere and have the ability if asked to
run a ccTLD.  And love their country of South Africa.

We all must remember that the Internet exists as a tool for society.
Mr. Lawry appears to believe it works for the good of itself.

Racial differences should be embraced and appreciated.  When we stop
learning we start dying, when we stop teaching we are the pollution and
not the solution. Here is a problem that can be fixed if we throw some
money and wisdom at the problem.

Here in my country we have an astonishing racial/digital divide which is
shameful, and our DoC has chosen not to throw money ( which they have)
or wisdom which is doubtful. In my working country, Vietnam, we are
crushing any digital divide with hard work and dedication to the
people.  We are "stomping out the grapes of wrath" by acknowledging them
and changing for the better; but first we must acknowledge them and that
takes great courage and leadership.  Hooray to developing countries who
are trying, and whoa to those who are not.

Sincerely,
Eric

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 09:49:36 -0400
From: "Safran, David" <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: [nc-transfer] Re: [ga] WLS Questions

A recent NAF decision is interesting in the context of this discussion of
the use of WLS by cybersquatters.

In the proceeding of China Lucky Film Group v. Hu Haobo, FA 109372 (Nat.
Arb. Forum May 28, 2002), Complainant's Internet Service Provider (ISP)
failed to renew <luckyfilm.com>, a domain name it had used for five years.
Respondent seized the opportunity and "grabbed" the lapsed domain name.  The
Panel held that linking <luckyfilm.com> to a website that stated "back-order
expiring domain names you want" constituted evidence of bad faith
registration for the purpose of selling the domain name and the name was
transferred to Complainant.  

If a similar position is consistently taken by UDRP arbitrators, WLS
cybersquatters should have no greater success than ab initio cybersquatters.

This case also points out the real need for a grace period and notice to the
actual domain name owner of the expiration of its domain name since domain
name owners can easily fall victim to the negligence of the ISP or other
party to whom the domain name registration process had been entrusted.

David S. Safran
Nixon Peabody LLP 
8180 Greensboro Drive
Suite 800
McLean, VA 22102
Office:  703.770.9315
Fax:  703.770.9400
[email-masked] 

This email message and any attachments are confidential. If you are not the
intended recipient, please immediately reply to the sender and delete the
message from your email system. Thank you.

- -----Original Message-----
From: James Love [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 9:31 AM
To: John Berryhill; [email-masked]
Cc: Transfer TF (E-mail)
Subject: [nc-transfer] Re: [ga] WLS Questions

What would fix the WLS issue would be to have a period after a domain
expired, where anyone who wanted it could express intereset, and there would
be a fair lottery to see who got it.     And, at any point before the
lottery, the old domain holder should be able to get it back.

Jamie

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "John Berryhill" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 12:13 AM
Subject: [ga] WLS Questions

:
: I'm trying to understand this notion of how a monopoly WLS, which
guarantees
: only one person a crack at an expiring name, is "fair" relative to
multiple
: competing services, and would appreciate hearing from someone who (a)
: believes it is fair, and (b) is not associated with SnapNames or Verisign.
:
: Chuck Gomes has said that something like 50% of SnapNames customers are
: speculators instead of "average" domain name registrants.  Leaving aside
the
: question of how a population of 50% of anything is not "average", or the
: methodology used to read the minds of the other 50% to determine their
: motivation, then can someone clue me in to how 50% of WLS position holders
: are NOT going to be speculators?
:
: Snapbacks are $69 a pop, and we are told half of them are owned by
: speculators.  So, the point here is that SnapNames wants to have 50% fewer
: customers?  Or they want to charge 100% of them twice as much money in
order
: to get rid of the "bad" customers while keeping the "good" customers?
:
: And with the "price high enough to discourage speculation" idea, what is
the
: evidence that speculators don't have more money than these "average"
: registrants for whom we are trying to make things "fair"?
:
: And if we aren't going to have a dispute resolution procedure for people
who
: take up WLS slots on expiring domain names that are someone else's
: trademarks, then what is the point of making the identity of WLS slot
: holders known?
:
: I have to take my hat off to the guy with enough chutzpah to tell a Senate
: subcommittee that ICANN was strangling consumer choice and competition by
: refusing to introduce a monopoly service that would replace several
: competing services to do the same thing.  Doing that and avoiding
dizziness
: at the same time is an admirable feat.
:
: --
: This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
: Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
: ("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
: Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
:
:
:

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

End of GA-DIGEST V1 #1273
*************************