Slashdot Mirror
Karl Auerbach Wins Right To Inspect ICANN Records
Siobhan Hansas writes: "Karl Auerbach was in court today fighting for the right to inspect and copy documents he first asked to see in 2000, shortly after he became a member of the Board of Directors. Salon have the AP story. Auerbach won the right to inspect documents, but not to copy them, and was required to give ICANN 10 days notice of release of any information marked "confidential" to give them the opportunity to seek a court order stopping him." M : A first-hand report from the hearing makes good reading.
'bout time ICANN had their nose bloodied! And they had the nerve to say that they were considering appealing the decision!?! What gall.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
During Standard Time, his name is Karl Auerbach.
But during Daylight Savings Time, his name is Karl Adenauer!
(ducks)
sulli
RTFJ.
...Since ICANN is getting rid of his position in November. He's got to cause a stink with what he finds and cause it fast, or it's going to be too little, too late.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
And a spell checker - it's grammar.
And maybe a speling checker too.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
remind me again why we have to have these kinds of legal battles with the orginization that is "running" the Internet? Doesn't it counter the "priciples" of the 'net? (openness, sharing of knowledge, etc..)
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
ICANN has -- as we all know -- hindered Mr. Aeurbach and others representing the public interest since elected. Now, they're finally forced to give him access to all documents -- though he should also be given an unequivicol right to copy them and make them publicly available.
It would be in character if ICANN went through before Friday and labelled all of their documents "confidential". These guys are crooks just like the people at Enron and Global Crossings.
ICANN obviously realized what a mistake they made in "allowing public elections", as critics were elected. They're revoking elections so they can retain their totalitarian control. Fucking nazi's.
Auerbach should have a permanent seat. No one on ICANN has done a better job than him. All the rest of them -- aside from that European elected fellow, allied with Auerbach -- are crooks.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Auerbach is one of five elected members on the 19-member ICANN board. His term expires in November, and ICANN already has said it will not hold another round of elections.
Gee, isn't that convenient? Well, I suppose I don't blame them; if I had the choice and I were them I wouldn't, either.
Danish != nationality
For those of you just tuning in, Auerbach was elected to the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) board in November 2000 by the public at large. According to a Salon primer, ICANN "had already earned a reputation for ineptitude and closed-door policies that favor corporate interests. ... Auerbach intended to guide ICANN toward reform." He requested access to the financial records, he says, "[T]o find out where the money goes. Why does it take $2.4 million (47 applicants paid $50,000 each) to evaluate seven top-level domains?" As a director, according to California law, he was entitled to "the absolute right at any reasonable time to inspect and copy all books, records and documents of every kind," but ICANN thought otherwise, and the suit whose outcome is the topic of this story followed.
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
He is standing up for us little guys.
Fight Spammers!
does this seem to anyone else as just a pitiful bid for extra time? auerbach has been working for two years to get ahold of these documents. what could an extra 10 days possibly do for ICANN? they're just trying to be difficult on principle...
Xfce: Lighter than some, heavier than others. Just right.
But then, all is fair in love, war, and corporate politics.
I hate this expression. All is not fair in any of the above. This is a case where they are trying like hell to cover their own tracks. I am beginning to think maybe Mr Auerbach is going about this in the wrong way. $2.7mil for 7 top level domains was given to ICANN. Go get the IRS involved, find out how much money went into the pockets of those board members. There's your real ticket. Creative accounting can only get you so far. Check the homes, the cars, the life-styles of the other members. There's your $2.7 million. Of course, I am sure the people doing the real work at ICANN are getting crapped on, just like everyone else.
Sent from your iPad.
As those who design DNS software know, the power over DNS resides not with ICANN, but collectively among all the people who configure the root server tables in the major sites and ISPs of the world, and in particular, in the sites that distribute the most common name servers (BIND and IIS) which come pre-configured with a root table that points at the official ICANN list.
If the net community got together and could express a unanimous will, that table could be changed. No court would be needed. Governments would be hard pressed to stop it.
But it requires near unanimity because a splintered net, where some people use some roots and the other half uses a different set, so names don't resolve the same, is bad for everybody.
Unanimity is impossible over a given policy but it seems near-unanimity might well be possible over replacing ICANN with another body that will represent the users in choosing a replacement for ICANN. We might universally agree to make the change according to some democratic user-based process even if we don't know how the final decision will go. We just all have to agree to do whatever 51% of the users approve.
How this works is documented on my web site at this essay along with my proposed possible replacement.
But the key isn't if I can get unanimous support for my particularl proposal -- I can't. The question is, can we find a way to a path away from ICANN without yet agreeing on what it is?
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Please comment.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
So are we just in for another round of legal battles?
Of course, if an appeal allows them to delay revealing anything interesting until Auerbach is out of office, they will have won.
Has anyone else noticed the odd surge in bids on papers shredders at E-Bay lately?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
You obviously met him in person, because the proper spelling of his first name, Karl, is not exactly tattooed on his forehead.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I've been pondering about maybe replacing the DNS system outright.
Something that is distributed, and based on a kind of certification that the users give. Something that would of course have to be attack-resistent (in the sense that a single entity or small group can't profoundly influence the certification of a name->ip mapping on it's own)
The major problem I see, aside from the obvious difficulties in implementing and deploying such a system, is in organising the namespace. Can a name be owned by more than one entity?
You could imagine a system where names would have a subjective meaning, depending on what you and your 'friends' have certified. Other people could get a different entity for the same name.
Needless to say this subjective view is more than just annoying if you think about email for instance. You don't know if a name will lead you to a specific entity. All you're sure of is that the people you trust have picked this one.
Enforcing the one name-one entity mapping could however lead to problems like we currently have:
- first come, first served is a good rule, but gives opportunities to cybersquatters. Conflicting trademarks need to be worked out. Big corp with a trademark practically always wins over an well-intentioned individual. Inevitably disputes follow, courts get involved, lawmakers get involved, everything gets messy and too expensive for individuals, so individuals drop out.
- we could have a global certification where the majority of votes wins. But that leaves little protection for unpopular entities (ie tyranny of the majority).
The EFF has the court ruling in HTML thanks to Cryptome. You can also read the press release.
-- Are you an EFF member yet?
Well, ICANN will win regardless, if you shift views of what they were trying to accomplish. They were running down the clock, and they've accomplished this. Soon the gadfly will be gone.
Interesting. Even though the judge seems sympathetic, there is really no law to punish corporations who misbehave. WHO gets punished? So classic. No one really does. It's a win-win for them. And the very wealthy movers behind ICANN will still make their millions, or is it billions, in the years to come.
- Having considered the applicable law and the undisputed facts presented herein, he court concludes that paragraphs 3, 5, and 6 of the Inspection Procedures conflict with section 6334 and Art. V, 21 of the Bylaws by unreasonably restricting directors' access to corporate records and depriving directors of inspection rights afforded them by law.
- Furthermore, Lynn's 10/5/01 letter violates both section 6334 and Bylaws Article V, Section 21 because it deprives Auerbach of the inspection rights he has under law and imposes such unreasonable requirements as having to sign a confidentiality agreement and having to pursue burdensome review in any effort to enforce his inspection rights.
- Additionally, the Inspection Procedures here apparently have not even been adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors, but were promulgated by an ad hoc group of functionaries consisting of the Audit Committee, Louis Touton, Diane Schroeder, and Lynn (Auerbach Dec. Ex. 17, 18, 21).
- Based on the undisputed facts, there is no triable issue as to any material fact and Petitioner Auerbach is entitled to judgment as a matter of law granting his Petition for Writ of Mandate.
I'd say - that is clear.I haven't seen such an atrocious pun in ages, and it's bilingual, and two words, and ... and ... too bad! You deserve some sort of award. But I can't think of anything appropriate... yet.
Infuriate left and right
...From ICANN to UCANT.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
None-the-less ... check out opennic
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
The internet was based off of the ideas of intellectuals and academics, and has turned into a world nearly exactly opposite of what it was initially intended to do. No I'm not against any porn sites or anything else that is "wrong" with the internet today, I'll leave that battle for the conservatives.
What we are seeing here is a group who likes the control they have and they will be damned if they are about to just give it up. And why should they, the only ones who are against them are the ones who have no real say in the matter, in terms of numbers. Have I purchased a few of the DNS entries that ICANN holds, of course, it's the only way that is widely accepted as a way to identify yourself on the internet.
So where do we go from here? Stop supporting ICANN and start supporting something worth supporting. I support OpenNIC, a free and democratic DNS root. And not some democracy that ICANN has created, a real democracy where everyone gets one vote and that's it. The most votes, wins. Simple majority rules type of governance. While they aren't widely advertised like some other Alternate TLD's I can say that they aren't interested in doing this for the money. They are interested in doing this to take away ICANN's power/influence on us all. If we stop financially supporting ICANN than there will really be no reason for them to exist, they will be a company without assests, which in the capitalistic society we Americans live in, sucks.
Basically I see it like this, if we can all band together and show that we as true computer intellectuals can become something great. A group that can out do the professionals. A group that is designed to have a fair DNS system. A group that is not ICANN. A group that is truly INTERNATIONAL. A group that knows that not everything has to be about money. Money is nice, but certainly some things are more important than money, and freedom happens to be one of them.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
But, it was on his name tag.
Fight Spammers!
Hmm... Wonder what would happen if he were to hand scan some of the more damaging documents (assuming that they exist) onto his laptop which would later turn up ``missing''. (``Gosh, I don't know what happened to it. I know I had it when I went into the NYT offices for that interview. I'll have to ask around.'')
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
No, I am not talking about opennic or new.net or similar. A splintered net is useless, which is why nobody uses these extra TLDs. I have yet to see any of these extra TLDs appear in a URL, ad, billboard or E-mail address, and for good reason.
There is a natural monopoly in the root. We all have to use the same root, or I can't tell you my e-mail address and expect you to be able to e-mail me with it. Or I have to tell you which root I use, which means a super-root that lists roots, in otherwords a shared root once again.
Attempts at alternate roots will fail both because of this, and because most of them so far have just tried to be a different ICANN. They still wanted to hand out TLD monopolies to people and create TLDs with inherent meaning.
A really workable system has to have all TLD operators (and thus the 2lDs under them) on an even footing. If they are not on an even footing you get artificial scarcity as people try to own meaningful words and phrases ahead of everybody else. Then you get conflict.
Nobody has done this.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
From the www.opennic.unrated.net website
The OpenNIC is a user owned and controlled Network Information Center offering a democratic, non-national, alternative to the traditional Top-Level Domain registries.
Users of the OpenNIC DNS servers, in addition to resolving host names in the Legacy U.S. Government DNS, can resolve host names in the OpenNIC operated namespaces as well as in the namespaces with which we have peering agreements (at this time those are AlterNIC and The Pacific Root).
There ya go ... problem solved ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Fight Spammers!
But the flow isnt 2 way. What happens to the AOL user who can resolve your domain? This is why most splinter DNS NICs dont work.
Sounds to me like: Democracy is no fun, if someone does not fully agree and follow the flock.
So lets get back to dictatorship.
If is interesting to note, that the US home os the ICANN, tries to get rid of all of the dictators of this world.
Now, if the TLDs got more uppity and took a page from the US's book on paying its UN dues, well, maybe this wouldn't be an issue.
"Your honor we need to drag this trial out just two days more while we get the rest shredded."
Not only does OpenNIC not solve the problem, it appears to be little better than ICANN, handing out ownership of ordinary words like "geek" to those who are simply the first to claim them.
Even the trademark lawyers, usually the bad guy in this, worked out centuries ago that you don't give ownership in real words to anybody. The generic terms can't be owned, only brands.
Nobody should own "com" or "museum" or "aero" or "org", or 2LDs within them. But we do have that, so we fight over it.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
The USENET newsgroup hierarchy seems to have worked quite well. The newsgroup names are very similar to domain names. Why not copy that model? For instance you get enough votes to create a 'developer.php', and then anyone can sell subdomains of that.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
The authorities know the solution to trademark conflicts.
.reg) - as in apple.reg. This is because all word domains are 'confusingly similar' to trademarks. That is one of the excuses they use to steal domain in UDRP.
.reg could serve the same purpose as the registered trademark symbol ® - to advise the public that it is legally registered and protected by law.
You can legally use any word, words or initials to start a new business without registering a trademark - providing you are not passing off, of course. Take for example the word 'apple'. It is legally used by thousands of businesses - large and small all over the world. Indeed, it is impossible that they all register themselves as trademarks - they are bound to conflict with many others, being confusingly similar. Just in my local phone book alone, there are at least five using this word - two garages (seems not connected), a car centre, fruit growers and a decorating firm.
Fact: Virtually every word is trademarked. In this vast ocean of domains on the Internet, mostly non-trademarks, a marker is absolutely essential - for people to identify it as trademark (e.g. protected TLD of
This
Yes, it is true - check USPTO link at end of paragraph - Virtually every word is trademarked. MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with five trademarks - in the U.S. alone (please check).
Whatever word you have for your business or personal web site, you will have some big bully try take your domain away from you. This is all a fraud by big business - the authorities are corrupt in helping them overreach Trademark Law.
It is ILLEGAL for one trademark to prevent others from using their trademark - even if using identical word. To allow this without consumer confusion or trademark conflict, it is absolutely essential that the class or subclass is included. Please visit WIPO.org.uk - Not associated with United Nations WIPO.org
I thought this was very interesting: (from http://icann.blog.us/stories/2002/07/29/auerbachWi nsCourtCriticize.html cited above:)
"ICANN responded that it didn't see Microsoft or IBM putting their general ledgers and charts of account on the web, but the Judge quickly intervened with this: Court: 'As a non-profit, public benefit corporation, you have a duty to the public -- the international public in this case -- that is very different than Microsoft or IBM. This is a public benefit corporation.'"
That's just the problem. ICANN keeps forgetting that it's public, and keeps falling back into the private, corporate mindset.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
"To ruin the net to save Disney is the equivalent of burning down the library of Alexandria to save monastic scribes"
Actually it's the equivalent of putting taxes on printing presses to SUBSIDIZE monastic scribes.
Or on establishing a "trade group" made up of representatives from the buggy industry to regulate automobile highways...
The old media companies established ICANN and other horrors strictly for the purposes of making the Internet safe for their profit.
Frankly, I feel it's more than slightly treasonous for ANY American administration/Congress to turn over US sovergnity to any kind of international body, which ICANN is.
Why? Because groups/treaties like ICANN, WIPO, NAFTA, WTO, almost ALWAYS end up being exploited by the powerful corporate intrest, both domestic AND foreign, to subvert the rights and interest of the common American Citizen.
The excuse for passing the DMCA, BTW, was that it was REQUIRED by WIPO...
Corporatism != Free Market
Another point I meant to make (hit submit too fast), is that the reason WHY corps and their allies in government favor turning over US sovergnity to such international alphabet soups is this:
l ) against these international corporate cartels who are subverting the law, but the cartels themselves!
To subvert the law (US Constitution).
Their loophole is to claim that obeying WIPO, WTO, ICANN, etc, is required because we are signatory to a TREATY. Which is how they justify overriding the Constitution.
The fact is, the Constitution puts rather severe restrictions on the government, AND corps, and there IS a limit to how far they can subvert it.
Setting up international orgs that operate in shadow (under US law, a director of ANY corp would have full access to records that Arebauch is having to SUE to get from ICANN), they can get greater lattitude that they could not get under US law.
For instance, want to have perpetual copyright? Get WTO to mandate it, and the President and Congress can say "we signed the treaty, we are obligated", thus striking away a DIRECT provision of the Constitution without going through the legal amendment process.
I submit to you all that it's not those who wish to fight back (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/26433.htm
Corporatism != Free Market
Ah. She gets it.
It's fascinating, and yet depressing, how people with nothing to hide will go to great length to keep things from public eyes and ears.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
TO ICANN LAWYERS - JONES, DAY, REAVIS & POGUE
Why do ICANN stick with Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue? Is it because of certain old ICANN links with them? Are JDRP profiteering? They are very costly - have ICANN looked for other Law firms?
Have you checked out JDRP.com - and their people involvement with ICANN?
A quote from a Karl Auerbach:
Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue is ICANN's law firm, and has been so since the day of ICANN's birth. Indeed Jones-Day actually performed the incorporation ceremony in its Los Angeles offices.
Jones, Day, in the person of its principle man-on-the-ICANN-scene, Joe Sims, was present for at least half a year before ICANN was born, working in the shadows, responding to unknown interests and possibly making unknown deals. About all we know about that period is that those who were not insiders to Joe Sims process were ignored and that those who objected were treated with condescension and abuse.
Over the life of ICANN, Jones, Day has been the the dominant creditor of ICANN.
Even now Jones, Day continues to receive a lion's share of every dollar that flows into ICANN.
And one of Jones, Day's partners, Louis Touton, left the firm to become ICANN's Vice-President, Secretary, and General Counsel.
There is in my mind a question about the appearance of propriety.
Karls platform.
***End quote.
In a good two month period, October and November 2000, they got $465,553.67 from ICANN.
ICANN minutes.
As it one of the largest intellectual property practice groups in a general-practice law firm - with more than 85 intellectual property lawyers, I would imagine Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue make a lot of money on trademarks problems on the Internet.
Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.
Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu - even common words you learnt with your A B C's - apple, ball and cat - most many times over.
MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - U.S. alone (please check). Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.
The solution to this problem has been ratified by experts - so that ALL registered trademarks can be identified on the Internet.
Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue know this solution.
They would lose a lot of money, if there was less trademark problems on the Internet - wouldn't they?
Draw your own conclusions - but it is my opinion they do not want the solution to 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off' problems on the Internet.
There is in my mind certainly no question about the appearance of corruption - it is beyond doubt.
Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see. No connection with the United Nations WIPO.org.
When the AOL user can't resolve your domain, you point them to www.opennic.unrated.net ... the same way that the new.net domains work. You can't just tell ICANN what to do, but you can inform the people who rely on ICANN about their other options.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Can anyone dream up some plausible hypothetical bullshit theoretical possible type of information ICANN could have, that would really be legitimately confidential?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
There would be a TLD named "apple", and Jobs' company would want to register "computer.apple" and people might visit "store.computer.apple" to buy an iMac. The Beatles would register "music.apple". Monopoly control over the "apple" TLD itself, wouldn't be particularly valuable, since the monopolist would exert power over so few entities.
Suppose I'm a farmer ("Sloppy's Orchard, Inc") and I sell real apples (the fruit). I can't register "fruit.apple" because "fruit" does have inherent and generic meaning within the context of apples (unlike music and computer), so I have to register something like "sloppy.apple"? Or perhaps some nonprofit concern (?) takes "fruit.apple" and I register "sloppy.fruit.apple" with them?
Do I have this right? Did I get confused at the end? ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If you ACTUALLY want to debate some points, it basically mandatory to be able to return to your comments.
Most, including myself don't have the time or energy to find their AC comments and follow up.
Thus, responding to AC comments is generally like talking to a brick wall, except in most cases the AC is MORE stupid and lifeless.
If AC has a comment that ALONE, has insightful info, then great - but it hardly ever will generate meaningful discussion - which is why I'm generally here. It's not often that enlightenment is reached in a single comment by an AC.
Lastly, it's generally accepted that AC's don't have to stand and be judged by their comments. Thus, they're off the cuff and often less than useful.
Notice, I'm replying to you because you want to have a dialog - there's (right now) 2 other AC posts that are total drivel. Perhaps you view my parent as such, but at least I have the balls to take the loss and drubbing by posting as me.
I've generally given up posting as AC. The only justification I can see for such, is a posting that needs to see the light of day, but for security reasons (i.e. Herr Ashcroft, whacko boss, job security etc) can't be posted as a logged in user. Other than that, about 99.5% of all AC posts are trash. (Statistics never lie! [grin])
Anyhow go read the post I was replying to - they claim to want to debate, but are too weak to actually do so. I was just pointing out their stupidity.
Cheers!
Translation : I have no fucking argument, but i still wanna look like i know everything!
Now, to comment on this...
If you believe that Republicans OR Democrats have the average guys' best interest in heart, you've been smoking something illegal.
BOTH sides of the isle are (generally) most concerned with getting re-elected.
To get elected, requires money. Unless you're in possession of almost unlimited wealth, and don't mind spending it, you're going to need some "donors." (Otherwise known as people who bribe you...)
To keep those donors happy, you're going to have to deliver on something - that something usually provides a decent return on their investment - literally. If you don't produce a good return, your corporate interests are going to find a better investment vehicle (otherwise known as an opponent!)
I have lots of argument. I'm just not going to dress the pig up in pearls to hope he'll look better. If you want to argue/debate, post as a "real" user. Put in some FACTS, and back them up. Then we can actually debate.
Cheers!
It would be in character if ICANN went through before Friday and labelled all of their documents "confidential". These guys are crooks just like the people at Enron and Global Crossings.
What strikes me as odd is why an organization like this should have *any* documents labelled as confidential.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
You got it backwards. If there were an .apple TLD the growers of the fruit would not be able to register in it because that would be a generic use. In the real world, NOBODY gets to own the term "grannysmith apple" and it was a crazy mistake to let people own terms like this in DNS.
In theory companies that use apple as a trademark (and thus by law have nothing to do with apples) could possibly register in such a domain, if they were not operating it, but it might be better to design things to avoid this too.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
I think you misunderstood that sentence. Everything that Karl wants to review must be turned over to him, confidential or not, before August 9th. He can publish anything non-confidential any time he wants, and if he wants to publish something that is "confidential" then he gives them 10 days notice that he is going to do it, and they have to convince a judge that there is good reason to keep it confidential if they want to stop him. Since California law says all those records are public, ICANN would have a darn tough time ever convincing a judge to seal anything from publication, but they are free to try.
As others have said, this is a pretty complete victory for Karl. Of course this is only the beginning of any real action Karl might be able to take, but it is a very good beginning.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Ideally, under your system, what might Apple Computer's domain name be?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
There would be a large number of branded TLD naming providers, all on an even playing field, all competing and innovating as they wish. They would have names that would be satisfactory international brands in the "directory" or "naming" business.
.yahoo, .dunn, .wipo, .sloppy, .yellowpages, .fredsdirectory.
.XXXX as a resale TLD.
.wipo under trademark rules. They might insist that nobody gets apple, but Apple Computer can get apple.computer.wipo and Apple Records can get apple.records.wipo. Or they can set any rules they want. Don't like their rules, go to a competitor.
Examples I give would be
If you could legally get a trademark around the world for "XXXX Directory Company" (or if you already have one) you could have
That would include of course any made-up word nobody is using yet, or any real world term that qualifies as a trademark law. The principles of that are well established and ruled in law and courts and used by businesses every day.
Thus there would be tons of competing companies, and you would choose the best one. The one with the best price, best policies, best technology, whatever your definition of best is. Whatever the market likes.
Thus Apple might decide to use apple.yahoo. If Apple records like's Dunn and Bradstreet they could be apple.dunn. If apple is taken within too many branded domains, more will spring up to meet the market need.
WIPO might run
What matters is all the competitors are on a level playing field. If somebody owns ".computer" then if you don't like their rules you can't go to another TLD for a computer name that's just as good. Their TLD is inherently valuable, because it has an intrinsic meaning. They didn't create the value, the just staked a claim on it, presumably by being their first.
Brands, on the other hand, by definition have no intrinsic value. The acquire value, lots of it. That's what branding is about. Yahoo has a valuable brand in internet directories now, for example.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Well, the whole time I've known him, it's been spelled Karl. Maybe he doesn't care about how it's spelled and so didn't bother getting it fixed on his nametag. Or maybe he was just trying to confuse people who didn't know him all that well, as a hack. Anyway, it's definitely Karl Auerbach.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Bullshit. There are no records they possess that should be held confidential and I'm not talking root passwords and such. They've made ludicrous dispute decisions that clearly favor corporations. Remember canadian.net? The only possible reason ICANN would refuse to allow him access to these records AND disseminate them is to conceal wrongdoing. They should be public records anyway.
That said, the parent post was an insightful and outstanding rebuttal against ICANN naysayers like myself. But it's still bullshit.
I like my laptop and it would be a pain in the bottom to have to replace it.
Besides, would the NYT know how to run Linux?
Hmm... Ok, I'm sold. Adios, OpenNic.
Now just tell me what addresses to type into my /etc/dnscache/root/servers/@ and The World will be one user closer to switching. ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.