Roberto Gaetano said:
<snip>
> It has to do with "administration" but not with ownership.
> IMHO, we need an authority that sets the rules for administration or
> coordination of the domain name space, exactly in the same way we have an
> authority that administers the air space for civil (or commercial) use -
> ICAO.
>
> ICAO does not "own" the air space, but it sets the rules internationally
> accepted for the usage of it (from the definition of the air routes to the
> requrements for the airports, from the security and safety rules to the
> standardisation of procedures and protocols). ICANN is to the Internet
Names
> and Numbers what ICAO is to civil aviation and air space.
The key word in the first paragraph above is *authority*. ICAO enjoys the
official support of most of the territorial sovereigns of the world, and
from that derives its authority. ICANN, regardless of what that oblique
press release from Singapore said, does not enjoy the same kind of support
of the sovereign nations of the world.
It is often said that all the authority ICANN (and ISOC, IAB, etc.) needs is
derived the the "Internet Community" and that it operates beyond the
jurisdiction of any one nation. It has to be recognized that it is
unprecedented for such a 'non-official' body to have the powers that ICANN
purportedly has. As long as ICANN doesn't do anything to raise the interest
of territorial sovereigns, or anything that would require the corrective
intervention of territorial sovereigns in the interests of Internet users,
then the fuzzy authority of the Internet Community just might be enough.
What can ICANN do about NSI's most recent unbelievable exploitation of its
monopoly without the residual authority of the Department of Commerce behind
it? That issue may be unique to the post-monopoly transition period, during
which state authority is definitely required, but once the tethers are cut
and ICANN is sailing on its own, why should anyone listen to it?
Jon Postel's decisions carried a high level of authority in a community that
respected his rules, because they were the only rules the community had ever
known. Is it realistic to expect that 'new-IANA,' as it used to be called,
will be able to hold its own in a world of national governments (beneficent
and vicious), oligopolistic carriers (oh, I mean competitive ;-]) and Web
indexes (oh, I mean portals) with ridiculous market caps that exceed Disney,
Viacom and CBS combined? I'm afraid there just might be too much money at
stake for ICANN to be able to rely on only the "Internet Community" and
(maybe) the vague back-up of the USG to exercise authority over a network of
incredible global significance.
Have these concerns all been dealt with before? Are they overblown or just
wrong? As the DNS game plays on and on, getting more and more complex and,
unfortunately, like the real world at each step, doesn't the need for the
kind of authority enjoyed by the ICAO start to look more real?
Craig McTaggart
Graduate Student
University of Toronto
Faculty of Law
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
