Steve Phillips wrote:
Why then is the generic Internet domain space (keeping in mind that .us was reserved for US based naming) suddenly belong to an entity to do with as they please ?
It has not been sudden. NSI were taken over by Verisign a very long time ago. They have been doing as they please for a very long time also.
keeping in mind also that .com, .edu, .org, .net and so on were not "USA reserved" but rather, generic TLD's that grew out of a legacy system and everyone in the world used - surely some hick-arse little corporate suit in the USA cant have the right to suddenly wake up and say "hey, i think I'll screw the Interweb up for everyone today" and proceed to do just that ?
I think you'll find you're wrong - some H_ALCS in the USA can, has, and did wake up and screw the Internet...
If this is the case then surely, if the Internet is to continue to be a viable medium and move on then this sort of thing should have controls such that people _at least_ know in advance that this is about to happen and can prepare for it.
Yup, yup yup - now let's talk about reality... The political and marketing aspirations of some USA corporations significantly outweigh their desire to abide by accepted practices. If it is legal to do something, then they will do it, and moral and ethical behaviours don't enter the equation.
Where was the notification ?
www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60466,00.html Interesting quote 1: "Vinton Cerf, one of the Internet's main designers and chairman of a key oversight board for domain names, said the service could violate long-standing Internet standards." Interesting quote 2: ""Right now, VeriSign's business is not a growing business, and anything that they do to add the slightest amount of growth is going to be positive," said Gene Munster, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray" Yet Versign themselves report at www.verisign.com/corporate/investor/releases/q22003.html?sl=060802 "Network Solutions added approximately 430,000 new domain names during the second quarter of 2003" and "Network Solutions ended Q2 '03 with 8.6 million active domain names". Correct me if I'm wrong, but that equates to 5% growth, and 5% growth per quarter equates to 20% per annum. There are very few businesses on the planet that can boast 20% growth per annum... Keith Davidson