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At 02:58 AM 5/22/2016, Andrew Sullivan wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">On Sat, May 21, 2016 at
11:13:38PM +0000, Phil Corwin wrote:<br>
> Indeed, there is no definitive determination as to whether property
is involved. <br><br>
What is never clear to me in these discussions is what property
people<br>
think there _could_ be. I don't mean this to be a rhetorical<br>
question.<br><br>
Let me put it another way: suppose there were property there for the<br>
US Government to hold, and they decided to hold it and refuse to let<br>
people in the world use it. What is it that people think would go
away?<br>
SNIP</blockquote><br>
First off, I'm one of those who does NOT think the root zone, or anything
else the US government is 'disposing' of here, is
"property." Property doesn't describe a thing, it
describes a legal relationship between people and things; a clump of
earth, or an idea, isn't "property" unless and until the law
says that someone can take "ownership" of it. Other than
the physical machines running the zone files, there's nothing here that
qualifies as property in that sense, nothing that the USG can plausibly
be said to 'own' - imho.<br><br>
But, to answer your question: suppose the USG decides otherwise,
and says "this is property, and we're not going to dispose of it at
this time." You shouldn't assume that the USG will
"refuse to let people in the world use it" - I think a much
more likely scenario is that the USG does what it has been doing up to
now, which is to contract for the service of making it available to the
world. I think you're suggesting that by deeming it
"property," the USG will go after ICANN and others and
say: Stop using our "property." But it doesn't have
to do that - it can just go back to the status quo, where it bids out a
contract for these services. The current contract holders could get
that, via extension - or USG could reprocure it from some other party.
<br><br>
What "goes away" in that scenario is the only thing that has
ever been on the table in the first place: USG's
"endorsement" of ICANN and the whole IANA superstructure as the
authoritative source of names, numbers, and protocols. That was
incredibly valuable and important in 1998 - not sure how it would play
out today.<br>
David<br>
<br><br>
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<font size=2>David G. Post<br>
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