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* ICANN NAMES COMPETITIVE DOMAIN-NAME REGISTRARS
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN) announced on 21 April the five companies that have
been selected to participate in the initial testbed phase of
the new competitive Shared Registry System for the .com,
.net, and .org domains. They are America Online, CORE
(Internet Council of Registrars), France Telecom/Oleane,
Melbourne IT, and register.com. While currently the
registration services in the .com, .net, and .org domains
are provided solely by Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), the
five participants will be the first to implement the new
system for competition in the market for domain name
registration services in those domains.
See http://www.isoc.org/internet/issues/dns/990421.shtml

* EU TO LEGISLATE E-SIGNATURES
A draft directive to govern the use of electronic signatures
has been agreed upon by the telecommunications ministers of
15 European Union member countries and will now pass to the
European Parliament for review. The ministers unanimously
agreed that electronic signatures should be given equal
legal weight to those written by hand, though the validity
of electronic signatures will be subject to certification by
a third party. The draft document outlines guidelines for
establishing a network of certification
authorities.(Reuters, http://www.reuters.com)


* SPAIN INTRODUCES FLAT ACCESS RATE
In a controversial move that may be meant to spur business
on the Internet, the Spanish government approved a flat rate
for Internet access. Qualifying for the rate of USD33
requires an ADSL connection, prompting concern that the flat
rate benefits businesses over individual users. Only 30
percent of Spanish households have access to ADSL
technology. The remaining 70 percent of homes will not be
rewired until 2000 and 2001 by the Ministry for Public Works
and the Economy. See
http://www.internetnews.com/intl-news/article/0,1087,6_88641,00.html

NEWS FROM THE IETF, IAB, and IANA

* RELIABLE MULTICAST TRANSPORT WORKING GROUP FORMED
The Reliable Multicast Transport (rmt) working group has
been formed in the Transport Area of the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF). The purpose of the working
group is to standardize reliable multicast transport. Chairs
are Allison Mankin (mankin@east.isi.edu), Roger Kermode
(ark008@email.mot.com) and Lorenzo Vicisano
(lorenzo@cisco.com).


-- 
Howard Flack        http://www.unige.ch/crystal/ahdf/Howard.Flack.html
Laboratoire de Cristallographie               Phone: 41 (22) 702 62 49
24 quai Ernest-Ansermet             mailto:Howard.Flack@cryst.unige.ch
CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland                   Fax: 41 (22) 702 61 08

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