Internet Governance

On Monday, May 18, 1998 2:05 PM, Scott Averbach[SMTP:saverbac at hway.net] wrote:
<snip>
@
@If you enjoy inventing things and seeing people communicate why not come up
@with a proposal of your own for addressing issues rather than pointing
@fingers?  Wouldn't that be along your lines of thinking as stated below?
@

Scott,

You seem to be missing some key background information. You
seem to be making the assumption that all of the Internet Governance
issues are in the private sector and the U.S. Government has decided
to stick its nose into these matters. This is not the case. For years,
and still to this day, many people and companies are operating with
U.S. Government contracts and funding. They derive their "authority"
from the U.S. Government. Do not let them tell you otherwise. Also,
note that they are gaining financially from being U.S. Government
contractors. They never seem to want to mention that. They somehow
have people fooled into thinking they are non-profit volunteers with
a strong dedication to the Internet. This is hardly the case.

All discussions are currently focused on the U.S. Government and
its policies. This is being done because the U.S. Government does
not always have a good working knowledge of the Internet. They
allowed their contractors to get too far afield without the proper
oversight. That is now going to change. How that changes and what
the final result looks like will be influenced by all concerned citizens
helping the U.S. Government find the best approach any collection
of people can develop given the time alloted, which has been years.

If the U.S. Government's solution is a 100% withdrawal of all funding,
contracts, influence, etc. then I think that you will see a very different
set of discussions. Until the time (which is reported to be soon) that
the U.S. Government develops and states their position we have
to operate under the assumption that all companies enganged in
IPv4 allocations and Domain Name sales and service are part of the
U.S. Government's arena and as such are subject to public scrutiny
and the extra laws that many companies do not have to be concerned
about. Just because you might desire to paint a picture that one or
more companies or people are outside of the U.S. Government's
boundaries, does not make it so. Also, because companies have not
paid for the U.S. Government assets they are using, they have no right
to claim those assets in case the U.S. Government decides to pull
out of the Internet 100%. Those assets should be sold and are
subject to all of the U.S. Government laws regarding the disposal
of assets. I am sure that people from the U.S. Government will make
this clear to companies that may think they are going to walk away
with the assets without government supervision of a sale, even if it
is a fire-sale and no one else bids. It still has to happen.


-
Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation - http://www.unir.net
IPv8 - Designed for the Rest of the Human Race
AM Radio Stations ---> http://www.DOT.AM




-------- Logged at  Tue May 19 03:21:42 MET DST 1998  ---------