Perhaps some sort of Digital Petitions could be created to apply
additional pressure on these issues?
On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 09:15:28 -0700 (PDT), d3nnis <d3nnis@mciworld.com>
wrote:
>I sent the following letter to Nader and Love in response to their interesting questions to Esther.
>To Ralph Nader and James Love --
>
>
>
>
>Thank you very much for your letter to Esther Dyson. Your questions were
>direct and on-point, and should have
>received a comparable answer. They didn't.
>
>Back in the 1970's I worked briefly at Citizens Communcation Center in
>Washington DC, where I had the privilege of working with a lot of the
>different media and telecommunications projects that arose under the Nader
>umbrella. I have to say that I have not personally encountered a civil
>rights issue with such emotional wallop as the issue of domain name dispute
>resolution since that era. I am at times tempted to think that the Bill of
>Rights is being nullified.
>
>While NSI may be non-governmental, it does in fact make the equivalent of
>judicial trademark decisions. It does so by placing a name on hold once a
>trademark holder makes any kind of a complaint. While NSI protests that
>placing the name on hold is not 'taking it away' it is indeed taking
>property from the owner -- and doing so without due process. It is a tilt
>that dares an individual to either litigate the matter or file a trademark
>abuse complaint. It empowers large corporations essentially to blackmail
>and browbeat domain name owners from exercising what should be protected
>speech under the first amendment.
>
>However, NSI is angelic compared to the iron-fisted approach proposed in
>the WIPO draft. If I am correct that NSI is a de facto state actor, then
>ICANN is embarking on the same course at an international level.
>
>I was very sorry that Esther Dyson chose to tell you that ICANN gives
>adequate notice and ensures participation. This is not what happened in my
>experience. I was not permitted to post comments opposed to the WIPO
>draft, and was in fact told that many of them were deleted. While I was
>assured that the board received them prior to the meeting, they never were
>posted. As a result, I never saw the other comments, or my own.
>
>In addition, participation is effectively being squelched by the board.
>There is no recognized Individual Domain Name Owners Constituency, in spite
>of the fact that individuals make up the preponderance of domain name
>owners. Without such representation, ICANN is essentially a business
>organization which has acquired governmental powers without any of the
>restraints that protect individuals from government abuses.
>
>I hope you will become an active watchdog over NSI and ICANN.
>
>
>Yours truly,
>
>
>Dennis Schaefer
>Marblehead, MA
>d3nnis@mciworld.com
-- William X. Walsh General Manager, DSo Internet Services Email: william@dso.net Fax:(209) 671-7934The Law is not your mommy or daddy to go crying to every time you have something to whimper about.
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