I intended to go into a longer rant about how the internet has become a commons, and this move is one of many attempts by private corporations to horn in and privatize what had previously been a shared resource.
It bears a disturbing resemblance to the economics of pollution -- one can increase quarterly profits of a small corporation by shifting the costs onto the public.
An analogy: the USA Mining Act of 1872 (I think this is the one). The government, in the name of promoting business and homesteading (and, er, relocating those pesky indigenous folk), encouraged speculators to buy up land very cheaply for the purposes of "exploitation".
In the process, millions of acres of land have been devastated by open-face mineral extraction -- cyanide pools, strip mining, etc. Didn't do much good for the First Nations, either, especially since they weren't interested in the "exploitation" of their sacred lands, even if they had been allowed option to buy, but a few corporations got very very rich at the expense of the public -- the expense being the loss of 90% of the Black Hills and the destruction of the enormous ecological zone known as the American Northern Plains. Even though some people got very rich off this, the net added value to the nation and the world seems like it's a loss to me.
Here, ICANN, with the urgings of the US Department of Commerce, has opened up the privatization of the top-level-domains (TLDs), ostensibly because competition will make things better. (and since it worked so well for Enron... :p ).
Verisign stands to make a large profit -- but, once again, at a public expense far larger than even their projected profits. Domain name resolution has a NXDOMAIN-NOT-FOUND response for a reason.
One user (I think I saw it on NANOG) brought up the point that since all misdirected email will go to them as well -- and bounce around in queues for hours if not days before the domain has a chance to reject it! -- the Department of Justice will have a field day subpoena-ing these as well.
Well, I seem to have worked the rant in after all. :)
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Date: 2003-09-25 06:34 am (UTC)I intended to go into a longer rant about how the internet has become a commons, and this move is one of many attempts by private corporations to horn in and privatize what had previously been a shared resource.
It bears a disturbing resemblance to the economics of pollution -- one can increase quarterly profits of a small corporation by shifting the costs onto the public.
An analogy: the USA Mining Act of 1872 (I think this is the one). The government, in the name of promoting business and homesteading (and, er, relocating those pesky indigenous folk), encouraged speculators to buy up land very cheaply for the purposes of "exploitation".
In the process, millions of acres of land have been devastated by open-face mineral extraction -- cyanide pools, strip mining, etc. Didn't do much good for the First Nations, either, especially since they weren't interested in the "exploitation" of their sacred lands, even if they had been allowed option to buy, but a few corporations got very very rich at the expense of the public -- the expense being the loss of 90% of the Black Hills and the destruction of the enormous ecological zone known as the American Northern Plains. Even though some people got very rich off this, the net added value to the nation and the world seems like it's a loss to me.
Here, ICANN, with the urgings of the US Department of Commerce, has opened up the privatization of the top-level-domains (TLDs), ostensibly because competition will make things better. (and since it worked so well for Enron... :p ).
Verisign stands to make a large profit -- but, once again, at a public expense far larger than even their projected profits. Domain name resolution has a NXDOMAIN-NOT-FOUND response for a reason.
One user (I think I saw it on NANOG) brought up the point that since all misdirected email will go to them as well -- and bounce around in queues for hours if not days before the domain has a chance to reject it! -- the Department of Justice will have a field day subpoena-ing these as well.
Well, I seem to have worked the rant in after all. :)