[IP] more on ICANN - And here's who will be running the Internet for the next 3 years

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Michael Froomkin <froomkin@law.miami.edu>
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 13:43:30 +0100
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] ICANN - And here's who will be running the Internet for
the next 3 years

2 comments for IP.

1. I hope Russel Nelson is right about how limited ICANN's powers are.
So far alas he's only almost right -- but ICANN's one foray into
non-technical matters (its creation of de facto international trademark
law in the UDRP) shows how it can leverage its technical power into
social and legal issues.  There are attempts afoot to do something
similar with Whois data, and leverage it into, say, a copyright police
database, although it's quite uncertain these will prevail.  (There also
used to be a danger that government officials would point to ICANN as a
model of public-private governance and clone its mistakes into other
areas.  I think that danger is now pretty small, fortunately.)

2.  As an editor of ICANNWatch.org, I think I'm known as something of an
ICANN critic, but even I think Kieren McCarthy's article that started
this thread was a little too harsh.  (Compare
http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/16/1750242).

I certainly agree that the process by which these new Board members was
picked was needlessly closed, secretive and generally dysfunctional and
not in keeping with the public interest.  I also agree that the majority
of the choices are insiders and business figures that can be trusted to
vote with the crowd that captured ICANN.  That said, I think Kieren
McCarthy's article that started this thread was a little unfair to at
least a minority of the people picked.  I don't know them, but from
their biographies I'd think that Veni Markovski and Njeri Rionge are
likely to care about end-user interests.   [And, of the returned board
members, Ivan Campos has shown some concern about the issues I care
about, although more in private than in any way that might really rock
the boat.]  Of course, I could be wrong about all this, and there may be
other 'good guys' too -- although one consequence of a closed and secret
process is that those of us outside the inner circle really have no idea
what some of these new Board members think about anything related to
ICANN.  And, even if I'm right, the people who brought you the ICANN
you've grown to  love have entrenched and reproduced themselves in a
comfortable majority.

So, the situation is bad.  The majority of the people picked are neither
representative of the public interest nor, based on a first look, seem
predisposed to endorse ICANN's more unfortunate policies. They existing
domiant faction disposed of its internal critics, and replicated and
extended its majority.  Perhaps, though, some of the new Board members
will be more open to dialog than some of their very bunkered
predecessors -- although since they've got the votes, they certainly
don't have to listen if they don't want to.

Dave Farber wrote:

>I strongly agree djf
>
>------ Forwarded Message
>From: Russell Nelson <nelson@crynwr.com>
>Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 15:21:45 -0400
>To: Wdimitr@aol.com, GLIGOR1@aol.com, dave@farber.net
>Cc: karl@cavebear.com
>Subject: Re: [IP] ICANN - And here's who will be running the Internet for
>the next 3 years
>
> > And here's who will be running the Internetfor the next three years
>
>I'm sorry, but can we please reduce the nonsense level here?  I keep
>trying to turn the knob down, but it's stuck.  ICANN is in charge of
>the mapping from names to numbers.  That's IT.  That's ALL.  That's
>ONLY.  No more, and no less.
>
>One perfectly reasonably way to publish your web pages is to use a
>numeric-only address, such as http://192.203.178.8, and tell people
>"Google for Crynwr".  Try it.  Lo and behold, the very first match is
>for Crynwr software.  No www, no com needed.  Just "Google for
>Crynwr".  Works for Russ Nelson, too.  "Google for Russ Nelson".
>First hit.
>
>Now, in case you think that Google is just doing a
>www.ALLYOURWORDS.com search, it isn't.  I got my daughter
>"rebeccanelson.com".  Google for Rebecca Nelson and you get some
>actress and a few PhDs.
>
>ICANN doesn't run the net.  They don't even control the only mapping
>of names to numbers.  They only control one such mapping.  You can:
>
>  o Use Google.  Domain names aren't a search mechanism anyway.
>  o Use IP addresses.
>  o Use domain.name/yournamehere.
>  o Use tinyurl.com (or makeashorterurl or whatever).
>  o Configure your nameserver to use an alternative root.
>
>ICANN has no real power.  They can do irrelevant things, like create
>...museum and .coop.  If they try to use the power people have granted
>them, they will quickly find out how little power they really have.
>
>  
>


------ End of Forwarded Message

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