A.M. Rutkowski wrote:
<snip>
> Furthermore, ICANN's Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws
> were written in such a fashion as to obligate ICANN's Board of
> Directors to "...carry...out its activities in conformity
> with relevant principles of international law and applicable
> international conventions..." as "advised" by ICANN.
Sounds sensible to me. (Do you mean as advised by GAC?) I suppose ICANN
could carry out its activities in contravention of relevant principles of
international law and applicable international conventions, but entities
which do so find that they can't do it for long. Maybe your point is that
there *are no* relevant principles of international law or applicable
international conventions, not that they should be contravened.
> How does it feel to be under the boot of GAC?
Ah, fine imagery. Reminiscent of CATO's "while we sleep, ICANN is creating
a mechanism to subdue the Internet." If the complaint is that GAC has too
much direct influence over ICANN's decision-making, then I might be with
you, but if the complaint is rather that there is a GAC at all, that nations
have any involvement with Internet governance, then I disagree.
I am yet to hear an explanation of why something as important as the
Internet should operate outside the oversight of public authority. No one
ever seems to be able to explain how the Internet community could ever have
forced competition in the registration of .com domain names without the
intervention of the NTIA, either. The same phenomenon can be seen in the
software industry, where regulation is anathema, yet everybody pleads with
the US DoJ to "do something" about Microsoft. Same thing in the ISP
industry. "Don't regulate the Internet. Don't regulate the Internet. Oh,
but could you force AT&T to open its cable networks to us?" How does an
AT&T/AOL merger sound? As far as I can tell, that's the logical next step.
AOL goes free too, advertising supported, and ISPs that don't own or control
their own networks are screwed. Or how about AT&T/NSI? Sorry, a little too
much doom and gloom for a Friday.
I'm suggesting that there are instances in which government ain't that bad a
thing, particularly in infrastructure-based network industries. The GAC
folks (the majority of whom I agree probably don't have a clue) are just
looking out for the public interest, which is, I'd venture to claim,
relevant here.
Craig McTaggart
Graduate Student
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
