On Sat, 3 Jul 1999, Michael Sondow wrote:
> > ICANN in its present form is an accident, a monstrosity, a thing
> > potentially of great power, but without any practical understanding of
> > the Internet or any vision of where it should go.
>
> This is a entirely erroneous analysis. ICANN is no accident. It is
Unless you are suggesting than Jon Postel's death was no accident,
then you are simply wrong. Postel was supposed to be ICANN's brain.
Take away the brain and you get the shambling farce that we have
today.
> the carefully laid plan of a coalition lead by the big Internet
> businesses that control ISOC (MCI and IBM primarily) together with a
> combine of second-tier telcos and registrars in CORE. These people
> know everything about the Internet. Many were involved in its
> creation. ICANN is their political creation and cover for taking
> control, or taking back control, of a runaway successful Internet
> that has gotten out of their hands and threatens their continued
> businesses.
I know how much fun this sort of conspiracy theory is. But if you
look carefully at the numbers, there is nothing to back up the
theory.
ICANN's annual budget wouldn't warrant five minutes of discussion
at an IBM board meeting. The kind of funding ICANN gets is the
kind of discretionary spending that middle level managers have for
marketing budgets, the kind of money that goes into sponsoring
_single_ trade shows.
Look down the list of contributors to ICANN. There are very few
contributors and none has put in a great deal of money.
> All these naive statements about ICANN being an "error" or an
> "accident" just play into their hands. It's what they want you to
> think, which is why Joe Sims and Becky Burr repeated over and over
> in the hearings last October, and repeat ad infinitem until you
> weaken and start to believe them, that the selection of the Board
> was indiscriminate.
I haven't suggested that the selection of the board was indiscriminate.
What I have said is that ICANN lacks all legitimacy because of the
way in which the board was selected.
> that has conspired to gain control of the Internet infrastructure.
> That goes as well for the GAC, the Root Server Advisory Committee,
> the DNSO constituencies, the Names Council, and every other
> structure within ICANN. They are not comprised of a representative
> cross-section of international Internet interests. They are all,
> every one of them, directly controlled by members of the team that
> has conspired to put ICANN in place.
We don't need this. We don't need a secret cabal formed by all-powerful
dark forces. The reality is sufficient: ICANN was formed by a secret
process and continues to cloak its proceedings in secrecy. It has no
mandate from the Internet community. There is no legal basis for its
claims of vast authority. Its board as a group knows precious little
about the Internet. We don't need 007 and Blofeld to explain what's
going on. Simple incompetence, no legitimacy, no authority for their
actions -- that should do nicely.
--
Jim Dixon Managing Director
VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316
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Member of Council Telecommunications Director
Internet Services Providers Association EuroISPA EEIG
http://www.ispa.org.uk http://www.euroispa.org
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