With last week’s International Forum on the White paper (IFWP) being organized in such a hurry, many at the meeting in Reston, Virginia were curious as to who exactly was behind it, as it was not made clear, although we have written about its evolution extensively over the past few weeks. So the start of the second day was devoted to explaining its origins. The chair, Professor Tamar Frankel said that she was initially contacted by one of her ex-students, Domain Name Rights Coalition lawyer Kathy Kleiman, who asked her for comments on the government white paper. Kleiman then asked Frankel to send those comments to Becky Burr, the government lawyer that co-wrote the white paper. Finally, Kleiman asked Frankel if she would chair the meeting. Frankel was then approached by Tony Rutkowski and finally Barbara Dooley, the executive director of the Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX), who took over the organization of the meeting, freezing out Kleiman and Rutkowski in the process, a move that has never been properly explained. Network Solutions Inc was also involved in the initial planning of the meeting, but later moved to the background once Dooley and CIX took charge. John Wood, of the UK’s Prince Plc, who is also a member of the CSSA, one of the trade associations on the steering committee of the IFWP, said the IFWP was a group of trade associations, trying to provide a neutral, facilitating role – no more, no less. He said the group would publish the minutes of its meetings very soon – the meetings were all held via teleconferences. He added: I’d apologize to anyone who thought there was some sort of mystery [behind the IFWP]. The goal of the meetings is, he said, to beat our swords into plowshares.
