*********** http://pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1155,00.html The Netly News Network (http://netlynews.com) July 10, 1997 The Network $olution by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) It could have been the perfect way to liberate the Net from the much-reviled monopoly of Network Solutions Inc., the company that handles almost all U.S. domain name registrations. Backed by well-regarded groups such as the Internet Society, the seven-page proposal promised to reduce prices, increase choices -- and best of all, really put the screws to everyone's least favorite domain name registrar. But a month before the curtain is set to lift on a host of new domains to supplement .com and .org, the ambitious plan suddenly seems as doomed as the recently extirpated Communications Decency Act. Not only did just one government, Albania, sign the "Memorandum of Understanding" (MoU), but the U.S. actively opposed it. So did Network Solutions, after they realized with gut-wrenching dismay the consequences of losing their lucrative monopoly on .com. Yesterday another group of MoU critics met in Washington to form the Open Internet Congress, which hopes to wrest control of Net governance from "hobbyists" and "volunteers" and haul it into the mainstream. "I don't want a bunch of volunteers playing around and trying to run the show. I don't want petty battles over who's in charge and who's keeping the lights on," says Andrew Sernovitz, the president of the Association for Interactive Media, which organized the summit. Sernovitz envisions a ruthlessly commercialized cyberspace that's safe for companies like IBM, Intel, NBC and Time Warner (Netly's corporate big brother) that cough up $9,000 a year to be governing members of AIM. The talk yesterday was of revolution. Sernovitz spoke about holding an Internet "Constitutional Convention" this fall. He passed out supportive columns quoting from "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine. I even heard folks call the MoU the move that will spark the online equivalent of the Boston Tea Party. (Led, presumably, by firms like Time Warner? Since that media giant also owns CNN, you can be sure the revolution will indeed be televised.) [...]