Verisign's public opinion play

Tue Oct 7 21:27:42 UTC 2003

At 05:55 PM 07/10/2003, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>On Mon, Oct 06, 2003 at 11:41:14PM -0400, Mike Tancsa wrote:
> > http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5087139.html?tag=nefd_top
> > The article makes me wonder if CNET is the press, or an outlet for press
> > releases.  The Internet community is almost uniform in expressing outrage
> > for numerous REAL reasons, yet CNET says its from the Internet's technical
> > "old guard"....  Sorry, so where is the "new guard" calling for 
> Verisign to
> > come back with sitefinder ?  Also CNET leaves un challenged the 'excuse of
> > the day' that Verisign without site finder "will not be able to protect 
> the
> > Net's critical infrastructure"...
>
>We've been covering the impact of SiteFinder since September 16. I
>didn't write that article (I was in transit from a conference in
>Canada) but I've written about five articles on SiteFinder so far, and
>I'll probably write another today based on the ICANN committee
>meeting.

Hi,
         I think *your* articles are well done and are 
researched.  However, I stand by my original criticism that this particular 
article was merely reporting one perspective on the issue in such as way as 
to make it appear as if it were a conduit for Verisign PR IMHO.  The "old 
guard" label is a loaded term and smacks of judgement by your writer.  Not 
quite calling it a "fringe group" or "special interest group" yet "old 
guard" vs "the network operators who run the Internet" certainly have 
different connotations.

Similarly, this repeating of Verisign claim as fact that its a minority of 
people who disagree with sitefinder and how it was launched is particularly 
maddening.  Sorry, is there some alt NANOG group out there secretly saying 
that "gee, this site finder is great! Why didnt they do it before?"  Or 
perhaps on a-slashdot, or a-IAB ?

>I hope you continue to read News.com.

I will continue to read your articles but in general my estimate of 
news.com has dropped significantly.

         ---Mike 