Of course, the obligatory IANAL...
But from what I can see Network Solutions looks to be in the clear
here. After reading the legal briefs on Vote Auction's site it appears as
if they are in violation of laws in many US states as well as US Federal
law. From the Complaint posted at Vote Auction:
Title 18, Section 597 of the United States Code (18 U.S.C.
§597) provides, “Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any
person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against
any candidate; and whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such
expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote
shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year
or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined not more than
$10,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
Vote Auction seems to be in clear violation of this statute. While
again, IANAL, I certainly think NSI would have cause for concern about any
link to a corporation or organization utilizing NSI resources to commit a
federal crime. And regardless of wether we like it or not NSI's resources
are definately being used here:
From http://www.icann.org/committees/dns-root/y2k-statement.htm
"The root of the Internet namespace consists of a single
file, the root zone file, which describes the delegations of the top
level domains and the associated records necessitated by the DNS
protocol to implement those delegations. Currently, this file is
maintained by Network Solutions Incorporated of Herndon, Virginia, USA
and is made available to the 12 secondary servers from the primary
a.root-server.net. Change control of this file is held by the IANA with
changes, typically modifications of the name servers for top level
domains, being made approximately once or twice a week."
It's also crucial to note that both NSI and IANA are under contract
from the US Government (specifically the US Department of Commerce) to
manage the .com TLD. Further, note that the Circuit Court in Cook County,
Illinois has granted a preliminary injunction against Vote Auction that
states:
1. Defendants and all those acting in concert with them
are enjoined from:
A. Using or operating any Internet web site that encourages or allows
residents of Illinois to sell their votes to be cast at the November 7,
2000 General Election.
I think it's reasonable that providing RRs (Resource Records for the
DNS deficient, the DNS entries that make domain names possible) could be
seen as 'acting in concert' with the defendants. Therefore I don't see
that it's unreasonable for NSI in this case to remove all
RRs for Vote Auction pending further hearings.
I don't know about anyone else but if I were calling the shots at NSI,
IANA, ICANN, etc. I would have done pretty much the same as they did. Not
because I think it should be illegal to buy/sell votes but simply because
there appears to be a large conflict of interest in a company under
charter from a government organization assisting in violations of the law.
Personally, I'm undecided on the Vote Auction issue and I'm waiting to
see how this all shakes out in the end. What I do think is that this
points out the need for either international control of the DNS root
servers or extra-national (i.e. no nation or governmental organization)
control. If nothing else the Internat has been and I hope will continue to
be a very powerful force world-wide for free speach and I'm very
ambivilent about any nation, the US included, dictating the shape and
content of it.
