On 3 July the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a Request for Quote (RFQ) pertaining to the administration of the .us TLD. The language of the RFQ conveys the sense that there is but a single stakeholder in the .us namespace, and that sole stakeholder is the U.S. government. The RFQ makes it clear that USG alone sets the policy for .us -- an example follows: "The Contractor shall implement a process for accrediting registrars to register names in the expanded usTLD. Such process shall include a contract with each accredited registrar prohibiting proxy and anonymous registration services." The situation is particularly troubling in view of the fact that the current administrator of the namespace saw the dissolution of the .US Policy Council over four years ago. In all that time, the .us TLD hasn't even enjoyed the pretense of community-based policy input. This heavy-handedness on the part of the U.S. government is part of the reason for the embarrassingly poor uptake of the .us TLD that languishes with just a little more than 1 million registrations (by comparison Nominet has just reported it's six millionth registration in .uk). The .us privacy policies are repressive, the kids.us namespace has a mere 20 active websites, thousands of locality-based delegated managers remain unknown to the current TLD manager, and community-based policy guidance has disappeared. This sad state of affairs requires an intervention from the American community that should be insisting on a formal public comment period concurrent with the RFQ. The RFQ may be read here: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/vendors/usTLD_RFQ_070707.pdf I would recommend that each American on this list consider the values offered by CIRA's policy and privacy approach in .ca, and commit to writing to the U.S. DOC to advocate for a saner approach to the management of .us The DOC contact address follows: Kalika Boulware, Contract Specialist at kalika.m.boulware[at]noaa.gov. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles. Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center. http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/