cook@cookreport.com (Gordon Cook) writes:
in my estimation [verisign] would like to control telecom by control of the numbers associated therewith.
...
... I am tying to stay away from this cesspool. It brings no income - only grief. But, knowing what i know, i am remiss if i don't stick my head up here.
I go waaayyyy back with network solutions to 1994 actually and i keep damned good archives. If I can assist Paul or the anti-verisign part of this case in building the details of the history of who did what to whom, I gladly will do so
that's an interesting offer for several reasons. i meet many people in my travels who weren't domainholders when the system was first commercialized and so they do not remember any of the times network solutions overstepped internic's charter in order to, for example, unilaterally impose new terms in the domain change templates. in fact most people don't know what a domain change template was, or what internic was, or who GSI was or who SRI was. and without that knowledge, it's easy to mistake the icann/verisign legal battle as "turf related". i know of any number of nose-holding fence-sitters who only tolerate icann (or consider icann relevant) because icann is somehow keeping verisign from abusing their monopoly -- and who feel betrayed every time icann fails. i know folks who are still angry with icann and with us-DoC for ever signing the current .COM registry agreement -- the one verisign says is too restrictive and claims icann is violating. there's a huge amount of history that's required before anybody should draw conclusions or form opinions about icann or verisign. however, it would have to be written up by someone who is not an ambulance chaser before it could have any effect on unbiased objective observers. -- Paul Vixie