In your previous mail you wrote: Despite the stated technical merits of a single root, => the merits are not only technical, the Internet simply doesn't work with an incoherent root zone. 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. a business decision to use a superset of the ICANN/US Department of Commerce's root zone. => the survival of the Internet should not be a tool in a battle against ICANN/US DoC... 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 don't believe these numbers. New.net is a player in this silly game and is biased. 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? International Telecommunication Union <http://www.itu.int> => what about a parallel phone numbering system? (:-) Regards Francis.Dupont@enst-bretagne.fr PS: about the deep question: there is not enough free time to enter in these silly games.