> .... ICANN is hardly operating "under the vague auspices of
> the Commerce Department;"
It is far better to say that the Commerce Department is acting under vague
auspices of authority, that it is unclear that the DoC has the power to
charter or empower ICANN to do what ICANN is doing.
(The DoC's enumerations of authority have been, when inspected, lacking,
being more of a hodgepodge of partial authorities that don't necessarily
add up.)
But that's not ICANN's problem except to the extent that ICANN depends to
rely on government derived powers transferred to ICANN by contract,
"cooperative agreement", or other means.
--------------
> You go on to say that
> "records of their meetings are not public;" this is simply not true, and
> the fact that you were apparently told this should make you worry about
> accuracy of the other things that NSI or its agents told you. The minutes
> of all meetings are made public; all Board meetings are preceded by an open
> public meeting that deals with all items on the Board agenda; and the Board
> holds a press conference to announce decisions and take questions from all
> comers, press and others, immediately following its meetings.
The "public meetings" are essentially a silent board listening. Nobody
can tell what the board members are thinking, whether they understand,
whether they have concerns that could be addressed.
The ICANN board meetings essentially black. The minutes are nice, but
they fail to indicate anything more than a gloss. There is no way to tell
what the boards concerns were, whether members understood the issues,
whether there were matters that could be resolved by a bit more input to
the board, etc.
By-the-way, NSI-agents don't tell me this. Actual experience tells me
this.
> "the Board
> holds a press conference to announce decisions"
Right, the board doesn't post a notice of proposed actions, it simply
imposes.
Overall, the ICANN board operates more like the board of a for-profit
corporation than an "open", "transparent", and "accountable" body of
internet governance.
And when we finally, if ever, have elective board members, the elective
process would be rendered nearly meaningless if the voters can not observe
the behaviour of those who have been elected.
For a body that is founded on the express obligation to be "open",
"transparent" and "accountable", and which is required to have open
processes to the maximum extent feasible, ICANN is doing a very, very poor
job.
> Finally, the
> "Internet tax" canard: what do you call the fee that NSI charges to accept
> a name registration
A fee.
But the $1, being a mandatory and unavoidable charge imposed by a
government backed monopoly (ICANN), is a tax.
By-the-way, I'm glad to see that the board imposed this tax without asking
the DNSO. I'm glad to see that the "advisory committee" notion is being
actually applied.
So, can you say when is ICANN going to impose a similar tax on IP
addresses?
--karl--
