IP: pgMedia sues NSI and NSF for antitrust violations

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

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http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0%2c1042%2c1995%2c00.html


time.com / The Netly News
May 15, 19098


       While everybody was sitting and waiting for nothing to happen in
   Washington yesterday, they missed the other antitrust lawsuit. A      
   company called pgMedia wants the right to create its own top level  
   domains (TLDs) for the Internet, to rival .com, .edu. and the four    
   other generic TLDs (gTLDs) controlled by Network Solutions Inc. and
   the National Science Foundation. pgMedia argues that there are "no
   technical or functional barriers" to opening up the "root server file"
   where gTLDs are listed. Paging Spencer Tracy.
       
       pgMedia makes the case that the gTLDs constitute an "essential
   facility," and therefore that NSI and NSF are obligated under      
   antitrust laws to make the root servers open to all comers. Not a new 
   argument, certainly, but a potentially powerful one. Just ask Intel: A
   court recently ruled that its microprocessor architecture was an  
   "essential facility," like a railroad switching yard. NSI does have
   some legal recourse, however: Antitrust law says that "the court   
   must take proper account of the monopolist's justifications for  
   denying or restricting access," according to "Antitrust Law and
   Economics" by Ernest Gellhorn and William Kovacic. In other words, NSI
   could claim that a gTLD free-for-all would result in sheer chaos.     
   (Forget about netly.com, how about netly.netly?).               


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