ED Ventures: On Monopolies and Moral Courage: "Last month the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organization that sets policy for the Domain Name System directory service, lost face in a battle with VeriSign Inc., the company that manages the registry of .com and .net addresses...."

Nice to see Edventures has a blog....and a Blogware blog at that!

Brian Cute, who no longer reports to Verisign: "Yesterday marked an important event for Network Solutions and, in a real sense, for the Registrar Constituency. Pivotal Private Equity, a private equity firm based in Phoenix, Arizona, announced the completion of its acquisition of the Network Solutions registrar business from VeriSign, Inc." This makes a lot of sense for everyone, though it's sort of ironic after all of the machinations in 2001 to allow Verisign to keep Netsol in the first place. I wonder whether the price now is any better than the price Verisign could have gotten back then. Certainly the names under management has continued to drop since 2001.

Scarlet Pruitt has the news story here.

Paul Kane: "The time is fast approaching when all Registrars interested in supporting ICANN and industry self organized regulation should contact their Ministers or senior government representatives attending WSIS...."

The Washington Times: World Summit on the Information Society could lead to content regulation on the Internet.

A reporter called yesterday to ask a few questions about blogging and the workplace. How do you mix the two? Where can and should the employer draw the line between the company and the public? We talked for a while about all of the issues that employers and employees are facing with the sort of personal publishing that weblogs make possible. Then I read Scripting News this morning, and I realized that, once again, Dave Winer was way ahead. By going into academics, he nailed the area where personal publishing could really take off, right now and without limits. Students aren't constrained in what they can say. The same is true with faculty (well, tenured faculty anyway).

Having been in a law firm environment for the last 15 years, this is the way new technology always makes its way into the stodgier enterprises. Students become accustomed to certain technologies in school and then create the demand for them when they enter the workplace. And by the time that happens for weblogs - five years from now? - employers will have figured out some of the policies for blogging in the workplace.

Kieren McCarthy: "There are always defining moments in anything's lifetime and the Internet is no exception. A meeting in Geneva on 10-12 December promises to be one of them..."

Pictures.

Thomas Roessler suggests that the idea of 'a Shadow Board' is a "far less interesting exercise than it may seem." I'm not so sure. The idea of a publicly elected Board that debates the issues put before ICANN actually has an equivalent within the current structure: the ALAC. Rather than make this a purely academic exercise, the ALAC might think of tracking the issues before ICANN and making its own judgment about whether the Board, and its individual members, are supportive of the ALAC's views on the substantive issues. In other words, what's the "ALAC rating" of the ICANN Board? How often does the Board vote the way the ALAC thinks it should?

In the United States, interest groups do similar things for elected politicians. Groups like the National Rifle Association and the Sierra Club rate policiticians on their votes -- how often do they vote the way you would like to see them vote? That sort of information would be interesting, and I think we'd see some surprising results.

From ICANNfocus.org: "Because of the importance of ICANN's Strategic Plan to their global internet community, ICANNfocus.org will monitor, analyze and report on their progress and compliance. To assist us in this task, ICANNfocus.org will be actively soliciting the views and comments of internet stakeholders on ICANN's Strategic Plan."

A great idea: The Shadow Board. I wonder whether the ALAC could become this sort of "shadow" booard.

Here's an article from the National Post that shows just how far the WSIS has gotten from the real world. For example, in arguing that another entity should assume ICANN's functions, a technology reporter claims that "ICANN has no real right to hold the power it has been given over the day-to-day operations of the Net." What power? Don't get me wrong, what ICANN controls is important but it's not the sine qua non of the Internet's "day-to-day operations." Another quote from the story claims that ICANN controls "how e-mail is sent for the world's more than 550-million Internet users." Huh? Even worse is the claim that governments should have a bigger role over the resources under ICANN's management in order to combat "hate speech, child pornography and unwanted advertising, or spam." Underlying all this "blabber" is a fundamental misunderstanding of what ICANN is, what it has the power to do, and what governments would be able to do if they were to replace ICANN. Someone's feeding the delegates to the WSIS a bunch of hooey.

This is just domain names and IP addresses, folks. Speech, pr0n and spam can be regulated by other (and better) means, if that's what you're trying to get at. ICANN's the wrong vehicle for such ambitions.

The Washington Times: "Governments spearheaded by China, Brazil, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia are trying to place the Internet under the control of the United Nations or its member governments, a move that the United States and other developed countries are determined to resist."

Personally, I can't see a single advantage to Geneva instead of Marina del Rey or the ITU over ICANN. And I can see many disadvantages for Internet users.

South African President Thabo Mbeki wants the administration of domain names to be discussed at next month's World Summit on the Information Society because "otherwise the world continues to be governed by California law." Where did he get that idea?

From Register.com's Latest 10-Q (page 12): "We are currently evaluating strategic alternatives for our RegistryPro subsidiary...." As a reader noted, when a company is seeking "strategic alternatives" it usually means it is looking for a buyer.

U.S. District Judge John Walter issued his opinion yesterday on the preliminary injunction motion in the Dotster, et al. v. ICANN litigation. The ruling, denying the registrars' request for a preliminary injunction, (available as 400K TIFF file or a 2.3 Meg PDF file) is a significant victory for ICANN. As I read it, the Court adopted ICANN's view on every issue. The opinion examines the meaning of key provisions in the RAA and discusses when "consensus" is required for new initiatives, and it is well worth reading even if you're not specifically interested in the WLS.

I found one phrase near the end of the opinion especially important for ICANN's long-term viabilty and independence: "In this case, the proposed preliminary injunction would interfere with the comprehensive scheme devised by the Department of Commerce to administer the Internet. Such interference should not be undertaken lightly." That language suggests that courts should grant some deference to ICANN's decisions when it comes to evaluating what is in the public interest. That's big.

Copies of the pleadings in the case can be found on the ICANN web site.

UPDATE: ICANN has issued a press release here.

Two weeks ago, Former Astronaut Buzz Aldrin filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against a commercial publisher of educational software, claiming that the publisher had violated his "right of publicity." At issue is the famous "visor shot" (pictured here in the right margin of Aldrin's NASA biography), in which the Apollo lander and fellow Astronaut Neil Armstrong are mirrored in the visor of Aldrin's spacesuit. Aldrin claims that unlicensed commercial uses of this photograph violate his "rights of publicity," a common law and statutory right in California. This presents interesting questions. Does a government employee, acting in his capacity as a government employee, have a private "right of publicity" in a photograph taken by another government employee in the normal course of carrying out his job responsibilities? The photograph in question is in the National Archives and, therefore, in the public domain. Can California's "right of publicity" trump that? I find it hard to believe that the answer could be 'yes.' The case is Aldrin v. Encore Software, Inc., et al., Los Angeles Superior Court, Civil Action BC305356, filed October 31, 2003 (online docket here).

P.S. The printing press picture in the right margin also comes from the National Archives.

The Motley Fool takes on The Domain Name Game.