-------- Original Message -------- Subject: RE: ICANN partying like it's 1999 Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 18:20:35 +0100 From: <richard.hill@private> To: <declan@private> Declan, With reference to your article > > http://news.com.com/ICANN+partying+like+its+1999/2010-1071_3-5495758.html > > ICANN partying like it's 1999 > December 20, 2004, 4:00 AM PT > By Declan McCullagh > Here are some comments that you may, if you wish, post publicly. As you know, ITU does not charge a per-number fee for administering E.164, E.212 and/or Q.708 naming and numbering resources. Nor do most national regulators (although practices vary nationally). But I don't know whether that is relevant or not. For interest, the American Heritage dictionary gives the following as its second definition of tax: "a fee or due levied on the members of an organization to meet its expenses" Separately, I note that you state "some inchoate process involving the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union." My dictionary defines inchoate as "1. In an initial or early stage; just beginning; incipient. 2. Immature, imperfect". Now the ITU is surely not perfect, but its processes are surely neither immature, nor just beginning, nor at an initial or early stage. On the contrary, as most people recognize, the ITU's processes are stable and predictable. And work well for many topics. Also, the ITU's processes and procedures for substantive matters are independent of those of the UN, and ITU's work program, priorities, etc. are determined by ITU's membership using ITU's own processes. On the other hand, salary scales and certain staff regulations are common to the entire UN system. Best, Richard ----------------------------------------- Richard Hill Counsellor, ITU-T SG2 and SG4 International Telecommunication Union Place des Nations CH-1211 Geneva 20 Switzerland tel: +41 22 730 5887 FAX: +41 22 730 5853 Email: richard.hill@private Study Group 2 email: tsbsg2@private Study Group 4 email: tsbsg4@private _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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