How Europe caused CORE to fail

At 10:00 PM 1/24/98 +0000, Jim Dixon wrote:

>> Out of 11+2 members on POC, Rob Austein, Dave Maher, Glen Kowack and
>> Alan Hanson are USA reps. That makes USA representation about 30%. Go
>> back a year and you will find that in the IAHC the USA made up 54%.
>
>Ignore the observers who are, after all, only observers.  Correct the 
>count by adding Robert Shaw and Albert Tramposch back in (Tramposch 
>only just left the POC) and you have 6/11 Americans, or 55.5% American.  
>That is, the "decrease" in US representation is scarcely the issue.

Unfortunately, the US gov't does not view people who live and work outside
the USA for foreign organizations as representing "their" viewpoint.  Albert
and Bob fall into that category.  As to observers - whether they vote or not
- there are no Americans there.

>
>> Now lets look at the current gTLDs: com/net/org. 99% of all USA based
>> companies register their names in these 3 gTLDs. If we examine the RIPE
>> stats that are published each month, I would guess that only about 10%
>> of companies in Europe register in the gTLD area and prefer the nTLDs.
>> So the general makeup of current users of gTLDs is overwhelming USA (we
>> have said all along the gTLDs is a USA based problem and they should
>> migrate to .us as everyone else is using the ISO3166 nTLD effectively).
>
>You can count this various ways.  By domain count US-registered .COM
>entries are somewhere in the low 70%s.
>
>> So for something that is mainly used by Americans, and created by
>> Americans (Arpanet), and run by Americans (IANA), we were able to
>> extract 46% non-USA participants. Not bad. But anyone who has followed
>> the IAHC, iPOC, POC lists and discussions knows that Europe and
>> non-Americans have been clamoring for *more* representation. So now USA
>> has a minority stake in POC (30%), due to the unrelenting pressure of
>> certain geographical interest groups.
>
>The POC was actually attempting to curry favour in Europe by handing
>out seats.  This succeeded in Europe but may certainly have backfired 
>in the States.

Bingo!  You hit the nail right on the head.

>
>But the gTLD MOU's problems aren't due to a lack of American presence.
>They are due to a very vocal North American-based opposition who are
>disdained by those who have been acting as spokesmen for the gTLD MOU
>and to a lack of industry support.  Of the world's 10,000 or so ISPs
>only a few dozen have signed the MOU.  Why?  Essentially because the
>gTLD MOU crowd have ignored them and ignored their interests.
> 
>> What have you gained? It could very well end up to be "king of nothing".
>> The USA gov't is not stupid. The gTLD MoU was set up in Geneva,
>> controlled via a very European run organization (ITU - go thru the halls
>> and count the number of European employees) and we might have been able
>> to pull it all off if certain people had checked their geo-egos at the
>> door and looked at what they had gained.
>
>All of this was done long ago and done by a US-dominated POC.  The 
>loudest voices defending the decision to locate in Geneva (Crocker,
>Shaw, Maher, Tramposch, etc) are certainly American.

Because it was and still is the "right" thing to do.  If Europe hopes
to have CORE and the gTLD MoU succeed (and not lose it all) it should
contact POC and state that the US gov't be allowed to determine the size and
staffing of POC.  Let Ira and Bill place reps from MCI and Uunet on POC.

>
>> You have only yourselves to blame if CORE gets dissolved.
>
>These comments are interesting set against reports that IANA, ISOC, 
>the POC, and CORE are intent on ignoring the US government and are
>raising a $10 million war chest to fight expected lawsuits.

Who wins?  Not the US gov't.  Not CORE.  Not Europe.  NSI does.  Think about
it.  -Hank

>
>--
>Jim Dixon                  VBCnet GB Ltd           http://www.vbc.net
>tel +44 117 929 1316                             fax +44 117 927 2015
>
>




-------- Logged at  Sun Jan 25 16:00:10 MET 1998  ---------