Mr. Ira
Magaziner
March 9, 1998
The White House
Washington, DC

Dear Ira:

On behalf of IBM, I want to thank you and your colleagues in the White House, the Commerce Department and other Federal agencies for the work that you have done in developing a comprehensive plan for the transfer of the central administrative functions of the Internet, including domain name management, to the private sector. IBM is committed to seeing these, and other key elements of Internet governance, responsibly and successfully led by the private sector on an international basis.

We think the plan that was released on January 30th is basically sound and workable. While we intend to file formal comments with some detailed suggestions, this plan unambiguously provides for the management and administration by the private sector of many of the key functions that hold the Internet together : the assignment of IP addresses; the management and administration of domain names; the assignment of IETF protocol numbers; and the operation of the root servers. While we would like to see full, international, private sector management of these Internet functions take place as soon as possible, we understand that a limited transition period is needed.

Any new plan for the international governance of the central administration of the Internet requires the broadest possible support from the Internet community. We believe such support will be forthcoming for this plan. In order to attract and maintain this broad support, the administration's plan needs to be pursued with an utmost sense of fairness and balance for those involved. That means, for example, that no domain name registry or registrar should end up with a position fundamentally more or less favorable than any other.

Similarly, it is important that that the plan be pursued in a way that does not undermine the legitimate intellectual property rights, and in particular trademark rights, of all those affected by the Internet. We look forward to working with you and your colleagues in refining this basically sound plan.

John Patrick
Vice President - Internet Technology, IBM Corporation