[ncdnhc-discuss] U.S. Senate subcommittee holds .kids.us hearing

[DannyYounger at cs.com]

Harold,

I've got two young kids in my household, so this situation affects me 
personally.  In view of the fact that NeuStar recently went through a series 
of layoffs and closed two of their offices (Chicago and DC), I am concerned 
about their ability to manage a number of operations simultaneously.  The 
capital and human resources that they will need to commit to do a proper job 
of namespace management for kids.us (in view of Congressional requirements) 
seems to argue against their bid to also manage the .org namespace, as they 
will not enjoy the benefit of obtaining the VeriSign endowment.  I question 
whether their financial condition is sufficiently sound.  Unfortunately, full 
financial disclosure was not required in the .org sponsorship bid, so I guess 
we'll never know how bad their situation really is other than by reading the 
posts to fuckedcompany.com which don't present that firm's financial position 
in a positive light.

My intent was not to slam NeuStar but rather to draw attention to the 
non-performance of this voluntary body that they have convened, the .us 
Policy Council.  I don't like having policy decisions legislated to the ccTLD 
manager owing primarily to the fact that a Policy Council hasn't done the job 
that they accepted to do.  This establishes a horrible precedent.  Whenever 
possible, governments should be kept at an arm's length away from the 
namespace.  I was counting on the Policy Council to make such legislation 
potentially unnecessary.