Mailing List Archive

Carl says:

At <http://www.netsol.com/announcements/MYTHS4.html> NSI says:

16. Myth: In April 1998 there will be significant changes
to the .com, .org, and .net registration process.

Fact: There will be no operational changes to domain name
registrations in .com, .org and .net. Registrations and
updates in these registries will continue as they
are today with the likely addition of new service offerings.

I don't know how NSI can state this as a fact, given that under the terms
of the contract that will expire in April 1998, NSF has the power to
require NSI to hand over *everything* necessary for someone else to
administer .com, .org and .net.

Cook: Disclaimer - I am not an enemy of NSI. I consider it a decent
company run by decent people. *BUT*

If this is the only entry in their prospectus I consider this a very
misleading description of reality.....so misleading that some one ought to
come out to force a change.

The possibility that you list is correct. There are two other
possibilities that i can think of that are also correct.

1. The prospectus does or does not say anything about the NTIA issued NOI
of July 1? This noi was disclosed in my newsletter of june 24 and
basically means that the US government is embarking on its own course of
action to consider whether to redesign DNS. The exact decisions resulting
from this process may become known by the end of this year. Depnding on
what they are, they may create a situation where the NSF is *FORCED* to
extend the cooperate agreement by at least another year to allow them to
be implemented.

2. one posible outcome would be to force .com under .us. The idea of
GLOBAL top level domains seems to be a poor one.... one that will bring a
LOT of work to a LOT of lawyers. I suspect that feedback from the NOI
will be designed at putting .com out of business at least as a global
domain. also there have been suggestions that .com might be phased out
entirely over five years.

NSI has a valuable business based on .com NOW. The idea that it will
have this business *AFTER* april 1 of next year is I believe way less than
50/50.

If NSI has other assets than .com to use an IPO to raisemoney with fine.
(I believe they do have other assets.) To be doing an IPO founded in ANY
way on their status as the proprietor of .com seems to me to be
questionable.

************************************************************************
The COOK Report on Internet For subsc. pricing & more than
431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA ten megabytes of free material
(609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) visit http://cookreport.com/
Internet: cook@cookreport.com On line speech of critics under
attack by Ewing NJ School Board, go to http://cookreport.com/sboard.shtml
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From someone I know who is in a mamangement position with NSI I just
received the following:

Gordon,

take a look at the S-1 document at:

ftp://www.sec.gov/edgar/data/1030341/0000950133-97-002418.txt

and you'll see that the risks are very clearly stated. The
document Carl quotes is not from the S-1.

Cook: this person sent this to me privately rather than to the list. As
far as i can tell high level NSI management has instituted a prohibition
on lower level NSI management from posting to these lists. Now if they
did a good job of doing it themselves, this might be ok. But point of
fact is they don't do it, and when they do it is too late, too little and
too defensive. Witness the fiasco during the just concluded weekend on
the updates of the root nameservers and david holtzmans belated reply.

At the very top it is my opinion that NSI is being run by the old line
corporate control types who don't have a clue about the internet or the
standards of communication expected from an internet company. Its a
DAMNED shame because NSI is not a think an evil company. However by its
general lack of communication....too little to late, it is cutting its
throat with the net community.

If it continues to operate this way it will only make its current problems
worse. And no Chris Clough has not been an acceptable effective
communicator for NSI. Would any NSI person recieving this response do me
the favor of forwarding it to Don Telage and Gabe Batista?

I should not need to be the relay for the url above.

************************************************************************
The COOK Report on Internet For subsc. pricing & more than
431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA ten megabytes of free material
(609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) visit http://cookreport.com/
Internet: cook@cookreport.com On line speech of critics under
attack by Ewing NJ School Board, go to http://cookreport.com/sboard.shtml
************************************************************************


On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, Gordon Cook wrote:

> Carl says:
>
> At <http://www.netsol.com/announcements/MYTHS4.html> NSI says:
>
> 16. Myth: In April 1998 there will be significant changes
> to the .com, .org, and .net registration process.
>
> Fact: There will be no operational changes to domain name
> registrations in .com, .org and .net. Registrations and
> updates in these registries will continue as they
> are today with the likely addition of new service offerings.
>
> I don't know how NSI can state this as a fact, given that under the terms
> of the contract that will expire in April 1998, NSF has the power to
> require NSI to hand over *everything* necessary for someone else to
> administer .com, .org and .net.
>
> Cook: Disclaimer - I am not an enemy of NSI. I consider it a decent
> company run by decent people. *BUT*
>
> If this is the only entry in their prospectus I consider this a very
> misleading description of reality.....so misleading that some one ought to
> come out to force a change.
>
> The possibility that you list is correct. There are two other
> possibilities that i can think of that are also correct.
>
> 1. The prospectus does or does not say anything about the NTIA issued NOI
> of July 1? This noi was disclosed in my newsletter of june 24 and
> basically means that the US government is embarking on its own course of
> action to consider whether to redesign DNS. The exact decisions resulting
> from this process may become known by the end of this year. Depnding on
> what they are, they may create a situation where the NSF is *FORCED* to
> extend the cooperate agreement by at least another year to allow them to
> be implemented.
>
> 2. one posible outcome would be to force .com under .us. The idea of
> GLOBAL top level domains seems to be a poor one.... one that will bring a
> LOT of work to a LOT of lawyers. I suspect that feedback from the NOI
> will be designed at putting .com out of business at least as a global
> domain. also there have been suggestions that .com might be phased out
> entirely over five years.
>
> NSI has a valuable business based on .com NOW. The idea that it will
> have this business *AFTER* april 1 of next year is I believe way less than
> 50/50.
>
> If NSI has other assets than .com to use an IPO to raisemoney with fine.
> (I believe they do have other assets.) To be doing an IPO founded in ANY
> way on their status as the proprietor of .com seems to me to be
> questionable.
>
> ************************************************************************
> The COOK Report on Internet For subsc. pricing & more than
> 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA ten megabytes of free material
> (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) visit http://cookreport.com/
> Internet: cook@cookreport.com On line speech of critics under
> attack by Ewing NJ School Board, go to http://cookreport.com/sboard.shtml
> ************************************************************************
>
>

At 10:15 AM 07/07/97 -0400, Gordon Cook wrote:

>Carl says:

>At <http://www.netsol.com/announcements/MYTHS4.html> NSI says:

> 16. Myth: In April 1998 there will be significant changes
> to the .com, .org, and .net registration process.
>
> Fact: There will be no operational changes to domain name
> registrations in .com, .org and .net. Registrations and
> updates in these registries will continue as they
> are today with the likely addition of new service offerings.

>I don't know how NSI can state this as a fact, given that under the terms
>of the contract that will expire in April 1998, NSF has the power to
>require NSI to hand over *everything* necessary for someone else to
>administer .com, .org and .net.

>Cook: Disclaimer - I am not an enemy of NSI. I consider it a decent
>company run by decent people. *BUT*

>If this is the only entry in their prospectus I consider this a very
>misleading description of reality.....so misleading that some one ought to
>come out to force a change.

A minor point -- the "Myth" quotation is from NSI's web site, not from the
prospectus.

>The possibility that you list is correct. There are two other
>possibilities that I can think of that are also correct.
>
>1. The prospectus does or does not say anything about the NTIA issued NOI
>of July 1?

Well, the prospectus is dated July 3, 1997. I did a text search on the SEC
filing and did not see any mention of the NTIA notice.

>This noi was disclosed in my newsletter of june 24 and
>basically means that the US government is embarking on its own course of
>action to consider whether to redesign DNS. The exact decisions resulting
>from this process may become known by the end of this year. Depnding on
>what they are, they may create a situation where the NSF is *FORCED* to
>extend the cooperate agreement by at least another year to allow them to
>be implemented.

That, or maybe NSF would get forced to write The Letter (the one that says
NSI has to hand over the database to some new administrator) some time
prior to April of 1998.

>NSI has a valuable business based on .com NOW. The idea that it will
>have this business *AFTER* april 1 of next year is I believe way less than
>50/50.
>
>If NSI has other assets than .com to use an IPO to raisemoney with fine.
>(I believe they do have other assets.) To be doing an IPO founded in ANY
>way on their status as the proprietor of .com seems to me to be
>questionable.

What's more is that NSI didn't invent or otherwise originate .com. NSI
merely landed a five-year contract to administer it, and happened to be
standing there when it became trendy. As I recall, .com was previously
administered by SRI.