Australia has expressed its formal opposition to the Clinton administration's plan to regulate the Internet, complaining that the still-to-be-announced domain management effort would hurt competition.
"It is more likely to lead to anti-competitive outcomes, such as price gouging and customer lock-in," Prime Minister John Howard told the US Commerce Department in a letter today, expressing his nation's problems with the White House Green Paper, which proposes a private, US-based, not-for-profit organization to serve as the Net's traffic cop. "Without appropriate measures to ensure adequate rights to non-US interests, this could unduly benefit US-based stakeholders."
But Australia did applaud the United States for its approach in seeking to "disengage from the governance of the domain name system."
"We believe that the strategic priorities expressed in the Green Paper are generally well based and worthy of support," Howard's letter read.
The White House Green Paper says a new management system, which will end the government contract with Network Solutions Inc., should be based on four principles: Internet stability; competition; a private-sector coordination process; and representation by the Net's diverse users.
The White House is expected to release its plan next week.
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FTC plans Net, email guidelines: The Federal Trade Commission said today that it plans to issue guidelines on how its rules should apply to the Internet and email.
While most consumer protections should apply online, the FTC said it wanted to reduce any uncertainty and called for public comments by 7 July.
Existing rules on advertising and marketing cover 40 subjects ranging from environmental claims to credit practices. Most of these rules contain references to "printed" and "written" materials, which the FTC wants to clarify for online communication and CD-ROMs as anything that can be preserved in readable form.
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Yeltsin in cyberspace: Boris Yeltsin will make his cyberspace debut on Tuesday, giving an interview on the Internet. The Russian president's press service said today that Yeltsin will answer questions about the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
An aide did not say where on the Net the interview would be posted, but said Yeltsin is now accepting questions via mailto:[email protected].
