Mr. Love,
The "major power" of ICANN is not necessarily their potential control of
the A root server. If there were a "free market" root zone, one where
there were alternative gTLDs and competitive "root zones" from which to
derive DNS services, ICANN would be relegated to what most believed it
should be: a coordinating entity, not a governmental agency.
There are several models which have been proposed to accommodate this. All
have been rejected by ICANN without consideration. In fact, most groups
and individuals who have suggested consideration of these open approaches
have been excluded from nearly any level of participation from ICANN.
ICANN appears to have a hidden agenda which is closed in its approach.
Open discourse, open proceedings and open selection process for
participants seems to be beyond their charted course.
Gene Marsh
Diebold Incorporated
anycastNET Incorporated
Top Level Domain Association
+++
Hi James Love, you wrote on 7/2/99 6:37:19 PM:
>Pete Farmer wrote:
>> Can ICANN establish a fee on domain names to cover administration
>costs?
> Yes -- that's within its charter. Can ICANN impose a fee whose proceeds
> would be used to bring Internet access to schools and libraries in
> sub-Sahara Africa? I don't think so -- it's clearly outside of ICANN's
> charter.
>
> What "charter" is that? Becky Burr says after next year, ICANN
>will be a free agent.
>
>
> It might "encourage" the governments to act in this way. Possibly ICANN
> could even play a role as significant as that of the National Conference
>of
> Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, which draws up the Uniform Commercial
> Code (UCC) in the US. But the UCC isn't law unless the states decide to
>let
> it be law.
>
>
> Isn't the major power of ICANN related to control of the A root
>server,
>and the conditions that it can place on anyone who wants their domain
>identified?
>
> If it was impossible to replace the A root server, than this would
>give ICANN the power to anything it wanted. If it is merely hard to
>replace the root, then it would have considerable power, but not
>unlimited.
>
>
>
> I recognize that reasonable people have reasonable concerns about ICANN.
>My
> impression of Mr. Cook's contributions, however, is that they simply play
>to
> people's paranoia of back-room conspiracy. (In another time, we could
> substitute "Trilateral Commission" or "Elders of Zion" for "ICANN.")
>
> It's a seductive way of maintaining the status quo -- and NSI's monopoly.
>
>
> I look at the NSI like Bell Atlantic or other poorly regulated
>monopolies --- something to worry about, perhaps an opportunity for
>more accountability or some competition, but mostly about money,
>for that firm.
>
> I look at the ICANN process a little differently. It isn't really
>a substitute for NSI as much as it would be a substitute for the
>government.
>
> I can imagine good or bad things coming from this new cyber
>goverance organization. Suppose, for example, that ICANN actually
>gave ordinary people the abilty to elect the board of directors,
>and it could not be controlled by big corporate interests.
>Suppose further that privacy advocates ran a successful campaign
>to elect board members who promised to require every .com
>domain to post its privacy policy. I actually asked
>ICANN if this could happen, and I believe the answer is yes
>(not that such an effort would succeed, but simply that
>the board could elect to do such things, if it wanted to.
>
>So much will depend upon who will control this organization, and
>how much "lock-in" occurs around the main root.
>
>Ralph Nader and I are meeting with Esther on Wed, and we'll be
>talking about these things further.
>
> Jamie Love <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>--
>James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
>I can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED], by telephone 202.387.8030,
>by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org
+++++++++++++++++++++
I'm very happy @.HOME(sm)
Gene Marsh
president, anycastNET Incorporated
