More steady off-the-record hints that an FCC regulation is on the way. My article, "The Biology of the Broadcast Flag," will be coming out in Hastings COMM/ENT in a few (weeks?) (months?). When you read it, you'll understand why the FCC shouldn't act.

In a nutshell, the FCC doesn't have jurisdiction to do this, there isn't a problem now (because of bandwidth issues), this wouldn't fix the problem (because of the analog hole), and this will cause lots of other problems -- including freezing innovation, putting studio gatekeepers in charge of consumer electronics and IT products, and generally contributing to a monoculture of access and law. The studios believe that the continuing existence of analog is "unnatural," and that we need to protect evolution towards a secure, digital world. But they haven't listened to the importance of chance in evolution -- in fact, they'd like to make sure that they can keep new creatures from appearing (unauthorized machines) and keep their own creature (their business model) from becoming extinct.

On Monday, Oct. 20 at 1:30, Judge John Walter of the Central District of California will hear the preliminary injunction motion made by the DJC in the WLS matter -- Dotster v. ICANN. ICANN's arguments look strong, and I am hopeful that the injunction request will be denied. I look forward to whatever information comes out about the hearing. It seems to me that not allowing WLS to go forward will cause harm to a group of people that is larger than ICANN -- the registrars who want to adopt WLS, the registries who are waiting to roll out WLS-like services, and the registries and registrars who want to be able to innovate without asking permission from their competitors.

I'm also hopeful that VeriSign's sale of NSI will help smooth the way to a quick resolution of the WLS dispute. If the driver behind the DJC's concern about WLS was that NSI (and thus VeriSign) would be advantaged, surely that concern has been diluted.

Finally, it seems to me that ICANN should both want to win this suit and avoid future lawsuits. If ICANN stops pretending to have the power to stop Sitefinder (in the absence of an emergency board policy to the contrary), that would be a good outcome. ICANN should stay true to its limited powers and contractual roots. If ICANN truly believes that Sitefinder is destabilizing, then an emergency Board policy should be next.