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ICANN Deep in Debt
Milkman Ken writes "It seems that after several months of operating, ICANN is now a million bucks in the hole. Bummer. "
Apparently the transition from the NSI monopoly over .com,
.edu, and .net domain registrations to a competitive
registration environment has been handled so poorly that the whole system
may collapse, at least temporarily, without government
intervention. And I thought the purpose of ICANN was to
get the government out of the domain name registration
business. Oy!
NSI Closes Top Level Domain Servers
NSI challenged over "obscene" domains
NSI Modifies "whois" agreement
Other related "alternative" DNS and related resources which I have seen mentioned here on /. or elsewhere: Not the European Union: eu.org (free domain names), The Internet Namespace Cooperative (provides alternative to mainstream root servers), The .us domain (an often overlooked alternative for those in the united states), Granite Canyon (free primary/secondary DNS). eu.org recently got very efficient and cleared a backlog of domains; Granite Canyon has had a lot of complaints about spotty service.
Suggested other readings: In whose domain, Exclusion and Coordination in Cyberspace, for the advanced user; Ask Mr. DNS and the FAQ for comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains.
Fuck Slashdot
...when you look at NSI's practices.
NSI has a habit of double-billing, 'losing' registrations, 'losing' payments, 'not recieving' the faxes of the canceled checks and so on.
Think it's a load of bull? Guess again; I used to deal with that on a daily basis. Was working at an ISP that handled some 200+ domains for customers. And on a near weekly basis, one of those domains would be put "On Hold" pending "payment." Even though the whois database showed that it had been paid for and registered less than 9 months ago.
Then there's NSI's policy on domain name conflicts. They'll give whoever pays them more the domain. Typical practice. But wait, there's MORE!
For those of you who didn't take note of it, NSI has challenged ICANN's authority over them, saying that they are above ICANN and can basically refuse to allow ICANN access to anything whatsoever. They're paying lawyers ungodly amounts of money to do this. And congress is *REVIEWING* it last I heard. What does that mean? Means another 10 years of NSI if they get their way. At the least.
NSI was a nothing company before they got the government contract. I don't even know how they got it. They were in the hole, they had very few employees, and now they're a multimillion dollar corporation with I'd guesstimate well over 250 employees, raking in millions of dollars of profit every quarter.
Let there be absolutely *NO* question that NSI has done MORE than abuse their monopoly; they have exploited it to lengths which have NEVER been seen before. They're worse than AT&T was. Worse than Microsoft. They have a 100% monopoly, they have absolute and total control over every domain they sell, and the government holds them above the law as they blatantly violate anti-trust law after anti-trust law.
Hell, NSI has even supposedly gone as far as to attack the one existing competitor, AlterNIC, in the past. As if that wasn't enough, to this day, they have refused to allow AlterNIC near the precious root servers.
And now, they're forcing ICANN to spend what little funding it has on lawyers, so that they can attempt to do what they were *CREATED* to do. The EXPRESS PURPOSE of their existence. And they have to fight with NSI about it. Wasting thousands every day.
The only question that remains now is how much longer will NSI get to abuse their power? The way things look, it may be for the rest of our lives. This is what happens when you give one little company a government sanctioned monopoly. You get one big clusterfuck that costs the people who have to deal with it millions upon millions every single year.
And you thought Microsoft was bad. At least they don't tell you that you have to pay for Windows 98 again, right after you bought it.
-RISCy Business | Rabid System Administrator and BOFH
your company here.
shelby != ford