Re: [ga] The Value of Trust in 2007
Jeff mentions Esther Dyson. Her view of Verisign was pretty clear in a
letter of 15 June 99 to Ralph Nader and James Love. It reads in part :
"One important aspect of [ICANN's] mandate is the introduction of
competition into the business of registering domain names, under an
agreement with the US Government. In this particular task, naturally
enough, it is meeting fierce resistance from the private government
contractor that has been the monopoly provider of DNS services, Network
Solutions -- a company that has transformed itself from an unknown
start-up at the time (1992) when it first entered into a contract with
the National Science Foundation, into a subsidiary of a large
privately-owned government contractor today, with a market value of over
$2 billion for its own publicly traded stock [NSOL]. Given this history,
and the wealth that has been created through its administration of those
government contracts, NSI is in no hurry to see that monopoly eroded.
Since this very goal is a principal short-run objective of ICANN, NSI has
apparently concluded that its interests are not consistent with ICANN's
success. Thus it has been funding and otherwise encouraging a variety of
individuals and entities to throw sand in the gears whenever possible,
from as many directions as possible.
Of course, "I want to protect my monopoly" is hardly an attractive
slogan, and so NSI uses the language of democracy instead. In addition,
it encourages and supports others who have a variety of reasons ?
economic, philosophical or political ? to be unhappy with the way the
community consensus has formed. Of course, many of these people are
sincere in their concerns about the transparency of ICANN's operations
and their interest in fostering public debate about its activities - as
you are. But ICANN's goals and its actions are in fact the result of
public debate and consensus - though not of unanimity.
NSI's rhetoric is also quite inconsistent with its conduct. The company
operates under the cloak of nondisclosure agreements covering not just
technical and commercial information, but also the experiences of the
ICANN-accredited registrars now attempting to open up the domain-name
registration business to competition. Furthermore, Network Solutions
claims "proprietary" rights in databases and techniques developed under
government contract as a reason for refusing to release information and
for expensive license fees. The nondisclosure agreements it imposes on
competing registrars are so onerous that many who wish to participate in
ICANN's competition initiative cannot do so without permanently
restricting their ability to compete in this space in the future."
It is clear that nothing has changed - edit this a bit and it describes
Verisign's current activities, and the rationale behind them, very well.
Even the "this is for the benefit of the users" nonsense is there. The
full letter can be found at
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/dyson-response-to-nader-15jun99.htm .