So while Paul Twomey and others warn that the consequences of an ICANN
failure is government intervention, I say *great*. At least we'll have the
protection of law that keeps governments in check, and responsive to their
citizens.
The threat of government intervention has long been a
canard for proceeding with schemes that could not for
all practical purposes be effected by government. No
government agency or intergovernmental organization could
effect the far reaching Internet jurisdictional, regulatory
and tax regime that ICANN has pursued. To even head in that
direction, they would need to successfully surmount about
30 years of regulatory and trade policy. And they would be
doing so in the face of an Internet service provisioning and
user community that would be fighting them every step
of the way.
Recall that these same folks tried to force these regimes
into place de jure for the past 20 years and lost the battle
at every turn of the road to the Internet. They should all
retire to the OSI old age home in Geneva and live happily
ever after communicating to eachother with X.400 over
CLMP using their F.401 domain names that they can acquire
for $1000 apiece - complete with their WIPO approval.
--tony
