[WEB4LIB] Re: neustar.us and lib.ny.us

[Michael McCulley]

Josh,

See
http://www.ala.org/oitp/gov/comments.html
for 2000 for some comments and contacts on the .us domain TLD. ALA would be a good start, at the OITP. See also http://www.ala.org/oitp/icann/ for a note on the governance issues.

Latest RFC related is at
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1480.html or http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1480.txt
and appears that the RFC part has remain technically "unchanged" as other aspects --like registrar and expansions, etc. and commercialization, have proceeded in the last few years.

As for the neustar side of things, they are the registrar (a "government contractor") at this time (April 2002, by our own Dept of Commerce), but they have a council (see http://www.neustar.us/policycouncil/index.html) with an ALA representative, Claudette W. Tennant, whom you might contact with concerns and issues, re: competent management of .us.

There's also at least one major group I've heard of, see http://www.cdt.org/dns/020429dotus.shtml
which is active in this area, Center for Democracy and Technology. Their section covering domain names, at http://www.cdt.org/dns/, is a good place to keep up with this. It looks like a 4-year contract was done with neustar, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/press/2001/us_102901.htm

Hope this helps... it's a pretty rocky quicksand to get a handle on these days.

Best,
Michael

P. Michael McCulley
mailto:drweb at earthlink.net
San Diego, CA

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