---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 07 Jun 1998 20:13:23 -0400
From: Jay Fenello <Jay@Iperdome.com>
To: Sascha Ignjatovic <sascha@isoc.vienna.org>
Hi Sascha,
Here's a couple of the many articles referenced:
Jay.
======================
thanks
sascha
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980605S0013
"This is a victory for the Internet and a victory for
Internet self-governance," said Don Heath, president of
the Internet Society. Heath's group had sponsored a
competing vision of self-governance, but he said
Magaziner's paper had satisfied most of their concerns.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/06/cyber/articles/05domain.html
David Maher, a leader of the group that developed that
plan, said he was very pleased with the Administration's
recommendations and optimistic that the international
community would be able to quickly reach "rough
consensus" for moving forward.
"We think the government did the right thing," said
Maher, a trademark lawyer with Sonnenschein, Nath &
Rosenthal in Chicago. "We had quite a number of concerns
with the green paper [the initial government response],
but nearly everything has been resolved in an
appropriate way."
Giving final authority on the tough decisions to the
board puts it "where it ought to be," he said.
If all goes well, competition should be introduced into
the domain registration process within a few months. And
that, Burr said, should mean "more choice, more
innovation, better services and lower prices" for users
of Internet services.
The Administration's earlier plan, released in January,
drew criticism from groups complaining that the
government was being too heavy-handed in deciding how
the Internet should be run even as it sought to
surrender those management decisions.
Other countries also complained that, under the plan,
the Internet would still be too U.S.-centric, mainly
because the new governing group would be based in the
United States.
"There are those who would say the U.S. government has
sidestepped or shirked its responsibilities," said Don
Heath, president of the Internet Society, an
international group devoted to maintaining and promoting
the Internet.
Buy he said the government's "actions and
recommendations recognize a profound understanding of
the Internet. They took the difficult stuff and turned
it over to the world population. It's a major victory
for Internet self-governance."
Heath said he expects initially a "handful" of new
top-level domains to emerge under the new plan.
"But within a fairly reasonable amount of time, there
will be thousands,'' Heath said.