On Sun, Jul 04, 1999 at 12:51:31AM -0400, Michael Sondow wrote:
> Kent Crispin wrote:
> >
[...]
> > Many people are under the delusion that ICANN's bylaws and articles
> > of incorporation provide control. They do not. People also think
> > that membership and representative structures provide control. They
> > don't, either.
>
> No, huh? Gee, ya coulda fooled me. I thought that's what dat stuff
> was there for. I mean, what's the point of havin these bylaws and
> this here membership jazz if they don't mean nothin?
It makes the deluded people who insisted on them happy, I guess. I
certainly didn't argue for them. Postel didn't argue for them. The
people who argued for them were people who think this
> Sounds like a scam, baby,
Nope. It's wishful thinking on the part of people who want to see
this as "government". I certainly have said over and over again
that the emphasis on the details of the bylaws was a waste of time.
Certainly Jon Postel or Joe Sims made no representation that the
bylaws gave any kind of oversight. Why, I see I said as much already:
> > The elaborate bylaws and representative structures were implemented
> > because people insisted on it, not because they are actually
> > effective. They are not effective, and, intrinsically, they cannot
> > be effective, for the following simple reason:
> >
> > From the point of view of the "governed" (the Internet at large) an
> > out of control ICANN board is absolutely indistinguishable from an
> > out of control ICANN membership. And given the almost inevitable
> > small size of the ICANN membership (even a few thousand would be
> > incredible) the membership is unavoidably susceptible to capture by
> > special interests, demagogues, and mob thinking. Even more, even if
> > a very large membership were created, there is simply no guarantee
> > that a large membership would be competent.
>
> Huh? What's that, Kent? Man, you lost me there.
Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been. Let me try again:
ICANN has absolutely no power and no significance, except through
the contracts it may sign with various entities -- in particular,
the gTLD registrars and registry, the address registries, the root
server operators, and the protocol organizations. With the
exception of the registrar accreditation agreements for the
.com/.net/.org registrars, all the contracts are in the form of
MoUs, or joing operating agreements, or CRADAs. The interesting
thing about these kinds of agreements is that they have almost no
penalty for dropping out. ICANN has no power to make any of these
entities do anything at all.
In the case of the .com/.net/.org registrars, ICANN did produce a
contract with some teeth. But those teeth come from the fact that
the USG signed an agreement with ICANN designating it as "NewCo".
That is, ICANN has precisely the power that the USG delegated to it,
and no more. ICANN and the USG are obviously working very
closely together in this matter, ICANN can't do anything that the
USG doesn't approve of.
> > This may seem to be a terrible state of affairs, but in fact it is
> > largely irrelevant.
>
> You kin say that again, Kent, baby. Irrelevant is bein too kind.
>
> > The real controls over ICANN will remain governmental in nature,
> > primarily in the form of anti-trust laws. The US DoJ, the EU's
> > DG-IV, and anti-trust authorities around the world will be watching
> > ICANN very closely. ICANN is a California non-profit, so in
> > practice, US anti-trust law is the most prominent, but in fact ICANN
> > simply cannot afford to do anything that will irritate any of these
> > anti-trust authorities.
>
> Well, just one minute here. Let's see, you mean if somebody cud make
> out that this ICANN was doin stuff to stop competishin, like lettin
> secret clubs like yer CORE buddies fix prices or be the sole
> suppliers of domain names, then maybe the DOJ would come down on
> yous?
Yep.
--
Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be
[EMAIL PROTECTED] lonesome." -- Mark Twain
