Danny and all, Thanks Danny! As a side note, I thought the more important and relevant parts of this public comment were as follows: We note that the PSC papers touch on several of the key areas listed above, including long term stability, accountability, responsiveness and stakeholder participation. However, ensuring continued private sector leadership, increased contract compliance and enhanced competition are minimally addressed, if at all, in the Transition Action Plan. The Department believes that these issues require affirmative and concrete actions on ICANN’s part, as it seeks to increase the confidence of the ICANN community in its structure, policy and decision-making processes, and, ultimately, its long term stability. In addition, as the PSC papers refer to a “root-zone transition agreement” the Department believes it is important for its views to be on the record. First, it is important to note that the IANA functions contract was not part of the JPA mid-term review and the Department views these as two discrete instruments. As the community is aware, the IANA functions contract covers the performance of a series of currently interdependent technical functions that enable the continued efficient operation of the Internet, including processing requests to change the authoritative root zone file. Implementation of changes to the authoritative root zone file are performed by VeriSign under the terms of a separate agreement with the Department. Danny Younger wrote:

[excerpt]

"The Department believes strongly that it is important to clarify that we are not in discussions with either party to change the respective roles of the Department, ICANN or VeriSign regarding the management of the authoritative root zone file, nor do we have any plans to undertake such discussions. Consistent with public statements made by the United States government starting in 2000 and reinforced by the 2005 U.S. Principles on the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System, the Department, while open to operational efficiency measures that address governments’ legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD, has no plans to transition management of the authoritative root zone file to ICANN as suggested in the PSC documents." http://www.ntia.doc.gov/comments/2008/ICANN_080730.html

Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!) "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" - Abraham Lincoln "Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt "If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL." United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947] =============================================================== Updated 1/26/04 CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC. ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com My Phone: 214-244-4827