FYI:
Iperdome Relinquishes Claims to .PER; To Seek Reparations from ICANN
ATLANTA, August 15, 2001 /PRNewswire/ -- Iperdome, Inc. <www.iperdome.com>
today announced that it was relinquishing all claims to .per, and that it
would seek reparations from ICANN.
Background:
Iperdome formed in January of 1997 to offer Personal Domain Name services
under the .per(sm) brand and TLD (Top Level Domain). It was one of the
first companies to offer:
- registrations in a new TLD,
- domain name branding services, including web and email
redirection services.
- discrete domain name assignments (a process that shares
common family names among millions of individuals).
After enjoying initial success, Iperdome`s business model became embroiled
in the public debate surrounding Internet governance. In an effort to `do
the right thing,` Iperdome agreed to support the IFWP, a world-wide process
outlined by the U.S. government to resolve the dispute. For almost two
years, Iperdome fully participated in the process that eventually lead to
the formation of ICANN, the Internet`s new governing body.
According to the Commerce Department, ICANN was to be `a globally and
functionally representative organization, operated on the basis of sound
and transparent process that protects against capture by self-interested
factions, that provides robust professional management, that is fair, open,
and pro-competitive, and that will evolve to reflect changes in the
constituency of Internet stakeholders.`
Experience has shown ICANN to be anything but.
Instead of embracing all members of the Internet community, it instead
pursued exclusionary tactics to marginalize and ignore all who differed
with ICANN`s pre-determined solution. In response, Iperdome suspended
operations on September 24th, 1999 after then ICANN president Mike Roberts
publicly admitted the bias behind ICANN`s exclusionary actions.
Options:
For the last two years, Iperdome has explored both public and private legal
actions, appealed to Congress, the Attorney General, the Justice
Department, the GAO, the ACLU, several non-profit foundations, members of
the media, Washington lobbyists, venture capitalists, angels, several ICANN
board members, and explored legal actions by several Secretaries of State.
The end result of all of these inquiries, is that ICANN is fully insulated
from legal challenges, and immune from any actions Iperdome could possibly
muster. And even if Iperdome were to be awarded .per tomorrow, it would
still have been irreparably harmed by the continued delays and gaming by
ICANN in the name expansion process.
Conclusion:
What`s happened to Iperdome, and enabled the formation of a captured
version of Internet governance, is `Predatory Capitalism` run amok. It`s
a system where the strong and powerful use their money and influence, to
squash weaker competitors. It`s a system where might is right, and how you
play the game is not nearly as important as winning.
It`s a system that is at odds with the very nature of the Internet. For
this reason, Iperdome believes that ICANN will eventually be reformed to
reflect its founding principles as expressed by the U.S. Commerce
department. And even though this may take years or decades, when ICANN is
finally reformed, Iperdome will seek reparations directly from ICANN for
the harm it has inflicted on Iperdome`s investors.
+++
Jay Fenello, Internet Coach
http://www.Fenello.com ... 678-585-9765
http://www.YourWebPartner.com ... Web Support
http://www.AligningWithPurpose.com ... for a Better World
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\"To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world which is doing its
best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to
fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.\" -- e. e. cummings