Legitimacy Of ICANN?

streak asks: "After listening to a talk given in my Law & Technology class by Karl Auerbach, who is on the Board of Directors of ICANN, I started to question the legitimacy of it. It seems that ICANN just kinda sprang up out of nowhere and stated that they have the right to administer the internet. But does anyone hold them accountable?" With the recent news of their fight with the IETF, is it finally time to question ICANN's authority?

"ICANN is really a government no matter how much they deny it. They create laws that affect people internationally and levy taxes in the form of fees for doamin registration. It can control anyone's presence on the internet by taking away your domain name and your IP address as they see fit.

The popular opinion of ICANN seems to be that they serve to exclude people rather than include them. This was exemplified by the fact a the most recent election that only 5 seats were up when there should have been a lot more (apparently some members self-lengthed their terms from 1 to 4 years)...

So as I understand it, ICANN was just sort of created by the Commerce Department without regards to any outside opinions. It seems like the Commerce Department is extending governmental rights to ICANN since the Commerce Department pretty much goes along with whatever they say. Why should ICANN receive so much weight in the mind of the Commerce Department? Perhaps we, as Internet users, should petition the Commerce Department for changes we want to top-level domains and other naming issues. To this end, I think we should question the foundation of ICANN.

I am not saying that the Internet shouldn't have a governing body, but perhaps it should have been created through a system that drew on input of Internet users, instead of shutting them out."

So don't point your DNS at ICANN's root servers.

No one forces anyone to use ICANN for DNS resolving. I can forsee some large ISP, say AOL, offering its own internal TLDs (.biz, .fun, .kids, etc.) This would not impact the net outside of AOL. They could, though, allow anyone to point to their DNS servers. If enough do, we will have a new controller of DNS. Then, if they become corrupt, people will move again. There is a chouce here, people. Don't like ICANN? Don't use ICANN. Use ALTERNIC [alternic.org]. There are maky others out there too.

Time to hit the big reset button?

The entire mess of the DNS system has become so fscked up that it almost seems to me that we need to completely remove what we have and start over, implementing rules that we now know that we need. In particular: forcing the use of country codes, declaring given domains as either "trademark areas" or "non-commercial areas" where trademarks cannot be contested, respecting first come-first served, avoiding artificial scarsity in the (now) second-level domains, and well written rules for any possible arbitration in the 'trademark' areas. Mind you, there does need to be some sane bit of transition: I would allow anyone with existing .com, .net or whatever to maintain those domains, but now under the right country code, and with the stipulation that they may be charged with trademark violations if appropriate, or they can transfer their domain to a non-trademark area.

Of course, this probably goes over about as well as a dead duck.

ICANN is a dictatorship

ICANN is just like a third-world, third-rate countries with tinpot despots screwing their fellow citizens for their own financial and power gains.

And like those despots, the only way things are going to change is for the people to revolt. If you want change, ICANN must be overthrown.

But a revolution requires mass public support. Despots don't typically get dethroned by a single person, nor even by a few hundred rabid guerillas.

And if there's one thing there ain't on the Internet, is a mass public that's informed enough to understand why it's necessary to overthrow ICANN.

Heck, there ain't even a mass DNS-controlling population that's got enough of a clue to understand that they can get root name serving from an alternative source.

Which basically means y'all are fscked. No revolution is going to happen until all the domain controller guys are educated as to why they should abandon ICANN name resolution, and go with someone else (OpenNIC).

And given that most people don't ever want to have to think, I think educating them stands a snowball's chance.


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Re:The reason

DoC is tehcnically illeterate (sic)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology [nist.gov] (NIST) is part of the Commerce Department [doc.gov]. There are a lot of smart people at NIST. They have been involved in computer and network technology for many years.

Your understanding is wrong

...as I understand it, ICANN was just sort of created by the Commerce Department without regards to any outside opinions.

This is untrue. There was an extended process of consultation [domainhandbook.com], involving meetings in Geneva (which I attended), Singapore [isoc.org], and Buenos Aires.

It seems like the Commerce Department is extending governmental rights to ICANN since the Commerce Department pretty much goes along with whatever they say.

Well, and what else are they going to do? If the United States Government tried to control Internet governance, the rest of the world would not be very pleased, to put it mildly. Face it, the Internet changes things, and makes national governments less and less relevent. We have to develop new ways to govern the Internet, and ICANN is an experiment. Personally I preferred it's predecessor [isi.edu], and I agree that the current lawyer-driven ICANN is a bit of a mess. But we're learning.

Perhaps we, as Internet users, should petition the Commerce Department for changes we want to top-level domains and other naming issues. To this end, I think we should question the foundation of ICANN.

What has the government of one nation got to do with it? How can the United States government change things? If you want to change things, join ISOC [isoc.org] and come to Stockholm [isoc.org] next week. If you come to my tutorials [isoc.org], I'll even stand you a beer!

Re:No taxation without representation

Seriously, though, ICANN was created by a few folks back before most country codes were even used, and may have outgrown itself.

I was using the Internet with a .uk address in 1985, which is to say seventeen years before ICANN was founded. It was created (as I've detailed in another post) following an extensive open international consultation process [domainhandbook.com] in which I took part - and you could have, too, if you'd been bothered. Certainly it's a mess; certainly it needs to be changed. Join ISOC [isoc.org] and campaign!

Re:Telephone analog

Unlike the Internet, telephone networks are strictly regulated, having been largely developed under government-imposed monopolies. Country codes are assigned by the ITU. Numbering within the United States is supervied (area codes given out) by NeuStar (nanpa.com), under an FCC contract.

It's not a model for the Internet, with its textual names, trademark claims, etc.

ICANN is a recent creation of a dishonest lawyer

ICANN dates back all the way to 1998 or so. Before then, the generally-accepted authority was Jon Postel at IANA. Jon died suddenly. Shortly afterwards, a lawyer with IBM connections named Joe Sims showed up, claiming that Jon had hired him to create a body to oversee Internet names and addresses.

Sims set up ICANN, giving the top job first to newsletter writer Esther Dyson, and appointing the "interim" board. Most of them are still there, "boardsquatters"! ICANN made a deal with Ira Magaziner at the White House, who got DoC to accept them as the new authority.

Thus Joe Sims is the Melvin Dummar of the Internet. (Mel had a forged Howard Hughes will, giving him a share of the late zillionaire's estate. His phoney story made a funny film, "Melvin and Howard".)

Legally, their authority is only what you believe in. Anybody can set up a DNS server and anybody can set their resolver to whatever server they want. ICANN replaced Dyson with MCI Worldcom's Vint Cerf, keeping its UUNET (the largest ISP) on its side. But a grassroots movement can, in theory, give power to an alternative root. New.net is the latest one to have some credibility.

Vint himself, of course, is the Chauncy Gardner of the Internet. (Chauncy was the retarded protagonist of "Being There", whose simpleminded mumblings were confused with brilliance.)

For more info, you all might enjoy http://www.icannwatch.org/

A Single point of failure.

.. is unacceptable.

Governments want the ability to shut off the net at will. Sorry, but I flat-out don't trust *any* government when they say they have compelling reasons why I can't talk to you.

-jcr

Do you REALLY want to change this?

I know people get upset over ICANN, but things could be a LOT worse. At least ICANN pretends to be doing the right thing.

Instead, how about if domains were handled like frequencies, or any other semi-commercial venture. You know, auction off domain names to the highest bidder, trademarks be #$%&ed. Who needs .org anyway, when we're talking about commercializing the Internet and can't make anything but pr0n pay? Bunch of freeloaders!

As bad as ICANN may be, it can clearly get worse.

The Guys At Work were griping about their offices and furniture a few weeks back. I suggested they not gripe too hard, because the OBVIOUS solution to their office/furniture problems would be .... cubicles.

This is...

http://www.media-visions.com/icann.htm a very good analysis of why ICANN is bad and what we can do about.

With the change in the Senate

I suppose that someonem in Non US government should contact someone in the democratic side of the senate to conduct an investigationinto the conduct of ICANN.

After all, in a weird way it is trying to impose US sovereignity over other nations. I am sure that someone can make a big stink over this.

I am sure that these concerns should at least be looked at and sorted out by international treaty, instead of ad hoc for the benefit of the members.

Consider the panic if Bill Gates were a member of the ICANN board. or one of his underlings. Obviously Gates would never personally belong to such a low level organization, but you get the idea.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

ICANN or the UN?

A point that folk have been missing is that the DoC invented ICANN because the reactionaries in the Senate would have exploded if they had tried to give the task to the UN.

The ITU is now a part of the UN but predates it by a few decades. It is the body that hands out frequencies, telephone country codes, satelite orbit slots, that sort of thing. It exists to do exactly the sort of beureacratic pen pushing that that type of task requires.

The advantage of having the UN control the root would have been that as a treaty organization it would be imune from the onslaught of lawsuits that the trademark owners threatened.

ICANN does not have immunity, nor does it have the funds to fight lawsuits. So it is little surprise that they act as the craven suplicants of the trademark owners.

The ITU is not exactly without critics but by and large it has far fewer critics than ICANN despite performing far more controvertial tasks.

The US invented ICANN to attempt to keep control of the Internet root. However in practice an attempt by the US to do something derranged would simply cause the root to pass out of their control. Imagine if the US decided to drop .uk or .de out of the root, the non-US ISPs would switch to an alternative root very quickly and most of the US ISPs would follow.

The only reason for keeping the root small is that it preserves this ability to switch the root over should that be necessary. If the root had 2,000,000 names in it it would not be possible to transfer it.