Karl, Before we address the issue of "authority", or the lack thereof, let's put some of the pieces of the puzzle together first. (1) Neustar is party to a contract with the US DOC. (2) The base period of the contract was 4 years. (3) The contract included 2 one-year options. (4) The final option expires on 25 October 2007 In my mind the following questions arise: who is actually the manager of the .us TLD? The IANA lists NeuStar, Inc. Loudon Tech Center 45980 Center Oak Plaza Sterling, Virginia 20166 United States as the sponsoring party. So, is Neustar the ccTLD manager, or is the manager the US DOC via the NTIA? If NeuStar is the manager, will they continue to have management rights if the contract with the USG expires, or if the DOC names another entity to perform the back-end registry work? I have to admit that I'm not delighted with the way that .us has been managed... I point to the failures of the .us Policy Council, the loss of privacy rights in the .us namespace and to excessive governmental involvement in decision-making relative to this TLD. One thing is certain, the heavy hand of the U.S. Government will interject itself into ICANN/IANA matters before long and this TLD will continue to suffer. In my view, it's time to ask the USG to back off. --- Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com> wrote:

Danny Younger wrote:

...

The Department of Commerce/ National Telecommunications and Information Administration issued a "sources sought" notice of an intention to procure centralized management and coordination of registry, registrar (where specified), database, and information services for the usTLD.

From the "synopsis" I do not see that NTIA has indicated that is has a statutory basis upon which it can base any authority to run .us, much less to contract-out for its management.

I did not see any reference to the full non-synopsis as perhaps it answers that question.

However, given that the Congress' GAO has *twice* failed to find any source of authority for NTIA in these matters, the absence of an answer would not be surprising.

A lack of authority would potentially render null and void all of NTIA's agreements including those it has with ICANN, Verisign, and others.

--karl--

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