<original message>
From: Len Lindon <info(a)humanrights.com.au>
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 21:35:41 +1100
To: <admin(a)tlda.org>
Cc: "domain-policy(a)open-rsc.org" <domain-policy(a)open-rsc.org>
Subject: .court in court
Federal Court of Australia considers .court
TITLE: Lindon v Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
CITATION: [2001] FCA 265
URL: http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/feddec/0/20011/0/FD002270.htm
Justice Alan Goldberg on 9 March 2001 at Melbourne:
> 8 In general terms, the complaint which lies behind the proceeding is
> that the applicant seeks to enable there to be access over the Internet to
> what he calls two non-colliding name spaces, ".human rights" and ".court",
> which he has sought to set up and operate. He alleges in the statement of
> claim that ICANN and the other respondents, other than the Commission and the
> Commission's officer, will be holding a series of meetings, including in
> particular a meeting starting this day and ending on 13 March 2001 in
> Melbourne, and that they are engaging in conduct, or will engage in conduct,
> that constitutes a contravention of ss 45, 45B, 45D, 45DA, 45E and 46 of the
> Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) ("the Act"). It is further alleged that their
> conduct constitutes attempting to contravene such provisions, aiding,
> abetting, counselling or procuring a person to contravene such provisions,
> inducing or attempting to induce a person to contravene such provisions, being
> directly or indirectly knowingly concerned in, or party to those
> contraventions and conspiring with others to contravene such provisions.
>
> 9 It will be immediately appreciated that these are serious allegations.
> The particulars of the conduct which are then set out are that the proposed
> first to tenth respondents will do three things:
>
> * fail to allow the immediate recognition and resolution of all existing
> non-colliding name spaces as currently recognised and resolved by the many
> existing root service providers;
>
> * support the US government legacy root service as the sole and
> exclusive root service provider for the whole Internet;
>
> * actively promote the extinguishment of all other, that is non-ICANN,
> name spaces and all other non-US government legacy root service providers.
>
> 10 There is then an allegation that the Commission has failed to
> investigate the allegations which the applicant has made in respect of the
> proposed first to tenth respondents and has failed, accordingly, to prepare
> any enforcement measures.
>
> 11 The relief which is sought in the application is a mandatory
> injunction, interlocutory and final, ordering the proposed first to
> tenth respondents forthwith to recognise and resolve all existing
> non-colliding name spaces as currently recognised and resolved by the many
> existing root service providers, and an injunction restraining them from any
> conduct supporting the US government legacy root service as the sole and
> exclusive root service provider for the whole Internet and actively promoting
> the extinguishment of all other non-colliding name spaces and all other root
> service providers.
>
> 12 A mandatory injunction, interlocutory and final, is also sought
> against the Commission and one of its officers requiring them forthwith to
> conduct an expeditious investigation into competition in the markets for
> Internet root service providers and non-colliding name space service
> providers.
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
VICTORIA DISTRICT REGISTRY
V 176 of 2001
BETWEEN:
LEN LINDON
Applicant
AND:
INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS
First Respondent
LOUIS TOUTON
Second Respondent
VINT CERF
Third Respondent
ESTHER DYSON
Fourth Respondent
ICANN MELBOURNE MEETINGS HOST COMMITTEE
Fifth Respondent
au DOMAIN ADMINISTRATION LTD
Sixth Respondent
TONY STALEY
Seventh Respondent
GREG CREW
Eighth Respondent
CHRIS DISSPAIN
Ninth Respondent
PROFESSOR PETER GERRAND
Tenth Respondent
AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION
Eleventh Respondent
MICHAEL COSGRAVE
Twelfth Respondent
JUDGE:
GOLDBERG J
DATE OF ORDER:
9 MARCH 2001
WHERE MADE:
MELBOURNE
> => the merits are not only technical, the Internet simply
> doesn't work with an incoherent root zone.
I agree with you. I'm only an observer of what's happening.
> I think one needs to reflect on the implications that
> a few of the world's largest ISPs appear to have made
>
> => the I for these ISPs no more stands for Internet.
History is full of examples of ISPs (e.g. AOL) who attempted
to "garden wall" customers. Offering "enhanced" DNS is likely
to be just one more business tool they use. It's just an
observation - one may think it's wrong but that doesn't
necessarily stop them from doing it.
> If this percentage continues to grow, ICANN's ability to
> control what goes into the DNS would seem to be constrained.
>
> => as a French-speaker I have still troubles with the word control
> (French meaning is subtlely different)... So what is control
> in your statement?
It means that with any significant user base under an alternative
root TLD, ICANN may be constrained from entering that TLD in the
root - e.g., see http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,42373,00.html
"During recent ICANN meetings, Cerf said that the existence of new
"unauthorized" domains could lead ICANN -- in order to reduce potential
ambiguity -- not to approve any similar domain name itself."
> => what about a parallel phone numbering system? (:-)
Sovereigns control the allocation of the E.164 numbering plan.
Robert
--
Robert Shaw <robert.shaw(a)itu.int>
ITU Internet Strategy and Policy Advisor
International Telecommunication Union <http://www.itu.int>
Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
> Despite the stated technical merits of a single root,
> I think one needs to reflect on the implications that
> a few of the world's largest ISPs appear to have made
> a business decision to use a superset of the ICANN/US
> Department of Commerce's root zone.
>
> Which big ones? I've never seen any official message about this.
See www.new.net/about_us_partners.tp. Earthlink and Netzero
have been listed as the US' second and third largest ISPs
(according to http://www.ispworld.com/isp/TRI_census.htm).
That's not even counting Excite@Home.
>
> It's claimed that the US had about 100 million Internet
> users in December 2000. According to New.net's numbers
> (which needs to be confirmed), about 16% of those can now
> use their alternative root.
>
> I've seen various claims by various alternative root operators. None
> have been confirmed by independent research as far as I know.
New.net claims that 16 million users can resolve their TLDs based
on their partnerships with ISPs (like I said, this needs to be
confirmed independently).
16 million of 100 million is 16%.
Robert
--
Robert Shaw <robert.shaw(a)itu.int>
ITU Internet Strategy and Policy Advisor
International Telecommunication Union <http://www.itu.int>
Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Despite the stated technical merits of a single root,
I think one needs to reflect on the implications that
a few of the world's largest ISPs appear to have made
a business decision to use a superset of the ICANN/US
Department of Commerce's root zone.
It's claimed that the US had about 100 million Internet
users in December 2000. According to New.net's numbers
(which needs to be confirmed), about 16% of those can now
use their alternative root.
If this percentage continues to grow, ICANN's ability to
control what goes into the DNS would seem to be constrained.
Robert
--
Robert Shaw <robert.shaw(a)itu.int>
ITU Internet Strategy and Policy Advisor
International Telecommunication Union <http://www.itu.int>
Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
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>To: nanog(a)merit.edu
>From: Hank Nussbacher <hank(a)att.net.il>
>Subject: Statements against new.net?
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>
>
>Do any ISPs or web hosting companies have publically available statements on their web sites stating that they will not support the new new.net domains and why they won't? I am getting more requests from users to change our DNS root servers to support this and wanted to see what others tell their users. Any IETF/ICANN statement available?
>
>Thanks,
>Hank
>
>
