Hi Hank, It's a pity you cannot be at the RIPE meeting since people with input are always most welcome. FYI some of the points you raise may be answered in the various presentations given at the tld-wg, and these should be available on our web site (tld-wg web page) on the MOnday following the meeting. Maybe I can answer some of your points now however: Hank Nussbacher <hank at ibm.net.il> writes: * At 02:06 PM 1/21/98 +0100, Marcel Schneider wrote: * >... * >> - in the ntld doc you should mention rfc1591 and that iana and ntlds shou * ld * >> work according to this rfc (in regards to transfer of ownership, etc.) * >> - I think a set of docs need to be created by the ntld WG for any nTLD th * at * >> is sued. IL has just been sued in the Supreme Court by a cybersquatter. * An * >> excellent resource used to be: * >> http://www.digidem.com/legal/domain.html * >> which compares many policies of ntlds - but we need to have something tha * t * >> continues to be maintained. When someone dislikes your authority in your * >> country over your ntld - they will sue you and not iana. For that we nee * d * >> to be prepared. * > * >Hank Nussbacher's comment is certainly valid. Please refer to * >the famous Haiti case: * > * >http://www.mids.org/mn/712/reht.html * > * >I am in complete agreement with John Quarterman's remark at the * >end of above article: * > * >"Perhaps regional NICs such as RIPE <URL:http://www.ripe.net/> in Europe an * d * >APNIC <URL:http://www.apnic.net/> in Asia Pacific, probably plus the * >eventual African and ALyC NICs, should consider going further than just * >funding IANA and assigning IP address space, and proceed * >to devolve more IANA functions to the regional level." * > * >RIPE CENTR could be the body to handle all nTLD matters within * >the territory of RIPE. Distributed, decentralized authority. In * >accordance with DNS and IP/AS number assignment. * * How would the RIPE CENTR be any benefit from a legal standpoint? Someone * will come forward and say "What gov't or treaty organization granted you * authority?" RIPE CENTR would say IANA and we are back to square one. If * IANA can attain some legal status that would help us. I have scanned most * english rules for domains in Europe. Only Finland has its rules according * to the gov't. All the rest are NICs and academic organizations that put * together rules (there may be others that will have gov't legalized rules in * the future - but so far only Finland has taken that step - and they even * mention IANA!) * You are quite correct Hank the question of the granting of legal authority is as present tenuous to say the least! RIPE CENTR is in itself, as you rightly point out, is not the solution. I do see it however as a crucial link in the solution as a whole. In order for a credible authority line to exist between IANA and an individual nTLD registry then it is essential that IANA is an independant stable legal entity, as not a well meaning but hard to pin down function of the University of Southern california. This has been seen by IANA and those involved in the IANA chnages, as a crucial aspect and is being worked on. I am confident that when the final structure on IANA is agreed upon and make public this legal standing will nomlonger be an issue. Once a legally identifiable and stable IANA exists then I see that the role of RIPE CENTR will be very valuable as a conduit between IANA and the individual nTLDs (obviously in addition to the other cooperation, coordination activities that RIPE CENTR could undertake). If the RIPE CENTR is to be of any benefit it first has to have some major * legal standing and not just our consensus (meaning those on this list). * RIPE CENTR will have legal standing and will be independantly funded by those nTLDs that determine its policies. Even if RIPE CENTR is intially a project of RIPE NCC (as my proposal document ripe-177 details), it will still have legal standing due to a project contract between the individual nTLDs and RIPE NCC. Regards Paul * -Hank * * > * > * >Marcel * > * > * * -------- Logged at Fri Jan 23 23:31:15 MET 1998 ---------