On Monday, May 18, 1998 2:05 PM, Scott Averbach[SMTP:saverbac at hway.net] wrote: <snip> @ @If you enjoy inventing things and seeing people communicate why not come up @with a proposal of your own for addressing issues rather than pointing @fingers? Wouldn't that be along your lines of thinking as stated below? @ Scott, You seem to be missing some key background information. You seem to be making the assumption that all of the Internet Governance issues are in the private sector and the U.S. Government has decided to stick its nose into these matters. This is not the case. For years, and still to this day, many people and companies are operating with U.S. Government contracts and funding. They derive their "authority" from the U.S. Government. Do not let them tell you otherwise. Also, note that they are gaining financially from being U.S. Government contractors. They never seem to want to mention that. They somehow have people fooled into thinking they are non-profit volunteers with a strong dedication to the Internet. This is hardly the case. All discussions are currently focused on the U.S. Government and its policies. This is being done because the U.S. Government does not always have a good working knowledge of the Internet. They allowed their contractors to get too far afield without the proper oversight. That is now going to change. How that changes and what the final result looks like will be influenced by all concerned citizens helping the U.S. Government find the best approach any collection of people can develop given the time alloted, which has been years. If the U.S. Government's solution is a 100% withdrawal of all funding, contracts, influence, etc. then I think that you will see a very different set of discussions. Until the time (which is reported to be soon) that the U.S. Government develops and states their position we have to operate under the assumption that all companies enganged in IPv4 allocations and Domain Name sales and service are part of the U.S. Government's arena and as such are subject to public scrutiny and the extra laws that many companies do not have to be concerned about. Just because you might desire to paint a picture that one or more companies or people are outside of the U.S. Government's boundaries, does not make it so. Also, because companies have not paid for the U.S. Government assets they are using, they have no right to claim those assets in case the U.S. Government decides to pull out of the Internet 100%. Those assets should be sold and are subject to all of the U.S. Government laws regarding the disposal of assets. I am sure that people from the U.S. Government will make this clear to companies that may think they are going to walk away with the assets without government supervision of a sale, even if it is a fire-sale and no one else bids. It still has to happen. - Jim Fleming Unir Corporation - http://www.unir.net IPv8 - Designed for the Rest of the Human Race AM Radio Stations ---> http://www.DOT.AM -------- Logged at Tue May 19 03:21:42 MET DST 1998 ---------