Domain Name Rights Coalition

The Communications subcommittee of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is holding a hearing on ICANN today, July 31, 2003. at 2:30pm EDT. You can listen in via http://www.capitolhearings.org/ (scan down for the appropriate item for Room SR-253). I'm not sure where the written materials will be posted - I'll post the URL when I find out. I was a witness at the two prior hearing, one in 2001 and another in 2002 - it's quite an experience. My submission to this year's hearing is online at http://www.cavebear.com/rw/senate-july-31-2003.htm What's going to be said by the witnesses? I don't know. But I have some guesses: ICANN will once again try to make us believe that it is responsive to the public. NTIA will once again threaten to pull the contractual plug on ICANN. CDT will present its usual - an extremely competent and extremely reasonable position, wrapped in... [CaveBear Blog]

Posted by mikki at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Andrew Odlyzko, author of such gems as Content Is Not King, has a new paper available: Privacy, economics, and price discrimination on the Internet.

Perfect price discrimination has long been raised as one of the justifications for DRM (price discrimination depends on preventing arbitrage, that prevention may be enforced by DRM-backed no-resale clauses); Odlyzko suggests that consumers tend to rebel against overt price discrimination, and will therefore be subject less to DRM than to more covert forms such as bundling. I'm not sure that reduces the dependence on DRM, since DRM and anti-reverse engineering law often enforce the bundling. Price discrimination is one explanation for Lexmark's strategy: Selling printers at a loss but making it up on toner cartridges enables Lexmark to charge use-based pricing on the package.

I think we'll also see trusted computing called into the service of perfect price discrimination. With trusted computing, everyone may be able to get (only) a customized version of software or media, at a "custom" price if a vendor chooses.

The non-monetary privacy costs are high, however. Price discrimination demands the ultimate "know your customer." We trade personal data for frequent flyer discounts, but also for an identification that may allow sellers to charge us more when they recognize we need a product or can afford to spend more. The more price discrimination becomes part of the fabric of online transactions, the less we'll economically be able to opt-out of identification schemes.

Posted by mikki at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CDT Associate Director Alan Davidson will testify July 31 at a Senate hearing on domain name management and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN.) CDT supports ICANN's coordination of key Internet naming and numbering systems, but believes it demands greater public accountability and continued government oversight. CDT is also issuing a new report on July 31 suggesting how to measure ICANN's performance over time. July 30, 2003 [Center for Democracy and Technology]

Posted by mikki at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)