Subject: Iperdome Relinquishes Claims to .PER; To Seek Reparations from ICANN

From: Jay Fenello <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 14:10:43 -0400 (EDT)

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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