>Fast forward to 28 January 1998, the ADNA board meeting attended by
>Luke Carruthers, Peter Gerrand, Mark Hughes, Kevin Dinn, and Stephen 
>Baxter (by phone).


I think any decision that Stephen Baxter in the past has had a vote on
should be recounted.  He had motivation of a serious conflict of interest.

I also question the eligability of Luke Carruthers being that he is a
director and shareholder of a company that does sell Domain Names to it's
clients.

Is Luke an Associate Member as MIT are or is Luke a Full Member with voting
rights?

>Peter Gerrand moved:
>   1. that ADNA endorse the eligibility criteria for com.au being
>        extended to include existing Australian trade marks; and
>   2. that ADNA endorse the creation of a new 2LD tm.au, 
>
>Both motions LAPSED because of a lack of seconder.

Well that's pretty sad.

>*** Why did they lapse?  Why did ADNA not carry out the expressed
>    preferences of the community they had consulted? ***

Because it doesn't serve the interests of the ADNA members Kate.  Haven't
you seen this yet.

I've been told recently that I shouldn't "beat around the bush" or "hint at
an issue", that I should "come sraight out in vivid words."

I'm doing that now.  ADNA does not have the interests of the community at
heart or it would open itself fully to community input.  It woudl encourage
and seek members for the board that might provide a wider community input.

instead it chose - by one of it's members - to tell me a list submitted
"was less than useless."

The people have since been notified and take serious objection to the
statement.  I wan't say who in particular, I'm sure it's pretty clear.

>PG then proposed: 
>   3. that ADNA endorse the creation of a new 2LD pr.au, designed to 
>      support visibility of Australian products and services on the Web.
>
>This motion was carried.
>
>*** Why? ***

Because MIT and CCA have no control or interest and ADNA can appoint it's
members as registrars in a monopolistic manner.  Even if IINET and say
SENET were appointed as the only Registars, they are in terms tied close
enough together to be one and the same and not really be compeition to each
other.

Add in Luck and Magna Data and you have the three sea borders covered quite
nicely.  I'm sure the territorial fights will resolve themselves quickly.

This makes perfect sense to me.  Some ADNA members are in the game for the
Quick Cash sale of Domain Names, not the interest of the community.  

I'm tempted to call for a complete disclosure of all material interests of
all ADNA board members.  ADNA should pass a motion that no sitting board
member can have a direct or indirect financial interest from the sale of
domain names.

Just like whatshis name the minister that had a Family Trust that had
Mining shares "he didn't know about".

Under this condition, I, myself, could never accept a nomination to the
board as I have interests in three companies actively in the DNS market.
However one role is Policy and dones not beift from the sale of names,
another role is development of the software, and of course my menial not
making much money Registrar process, which I'd gladly give up to see
someone else market it better.

>What support did it have from the trademark community? 

It wasn't discussed with the "community".

>What rationale did ADNA have to do this, when they HAD a strong mandate to
>implement at least one of the other two proposals that they did not carry?

As above, there is no profit in selling something that someone else has
already.  You need a unique name to sell flat out.

>The introduction of pr.au was then folded neatly into the timetable to
>create a shared registry system to allow competition in the commercial 2LDs.

Yeah, we've seen this before. It was called the IAHC.  First they were
after COM and NET, then when they realised they weren't getting their mits
on COM and NET they started getting the ITU involved and announced seven
new gTLDs.

Then the fight was on to stop the possibel unfair introduction of seven new
TLDs when hundreds of requests for TLDs had be made prior.

What gives the IAHC any more precedence over anyone else?

So in effect, ADNA, as I've been explaining to people for over 6 months
now, is really no different to the IAHC, and in fact ADNA mimiced the
REGISTRAR policy and application process.

I wonder if ADNA thought os a Lottery Draw to select the Registrars
initially?  Or was the $1.something million dollars made from the 88 CORE
members who formed out their $10,000 each just too much to resists!

>This task is going to be difficult enough anyway, why add to it something
>that the community specifically said it didn't particularly need or want?  
>Who DOES need pr.au?  Why didn't they vote for it if they needed it?  

Gosh. PR.  Makes me think of "Pathetic Ripoffs" more than anything else.
We spent half the day discussing what it might have been till we read the
policy.

>Introduction of shared-registry software is only a minor part of the
>problem: what about getting the commercial 2LDs together to agree to
>compete?  That hasn't even been worked on yet, here's the latter part

Sounds like a far better place to start.  Use those who are already fairly
OK with their processes.

Incidenlty there are other Commercial Registrars in Australia.  It would be
unwise to not permit them entry at the same time.  Coudl be seen as a
Restrictive Trade action.  Or Market Power.

>The REAL problem is getting the commercial registrars to agree to open
>up their business to competition.  (The software to do this is just the
>first step.)  Combining this with setting up a 2LD that nobody asked for
>will just delay real solutions.

The current entities really don't want to open themselves to competition.
That's a clear fact.  If they did, they would be rtying hard to create the
compeition by getting anyone remotely interested involved in the direct
process.  Like many of the TLD registries world wide are.

Instead they are doing the NSI and trying hard to keep it private.


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