RE: [ga] What is ICANN?

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

Good show Kent!

I've been trying to get one of you folks on the record for a while now. BTW,
I hope that it strikes many as odd, that this is NOT what was discussed in
the green-paper, the white-paper, or the IFWP. However, this isn't very far
from what the IAHC tried to do.

You must be feeling real confident, to come out in the open like this. Isn't
it nice to to have to be a double-dealer anymore? I hope that you get
everything that you want.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kent Crispin [mailto:kent@songbird.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 5:33 PM
> To: ga@dnso.org
> Subject: [ga] What is ICANN?
> 
> 
> On Tue, Nov 07, 2000 at 10:43:44AM -0800, Patrick Greenwell wrote:
> >  
> > > 2) we have a perfectly adequate procedure for selecting a chair.
> > > moreover, if one examines the endorsements for board 
> candidates, one
> > > notes a disturbing pattern of *large* numbers of people 
> who have never
> > > participated in the DNSO in any way suddenly turning up to endorse
> > > candidates (for example, Jamie Love had well over 100 
> endorsements,
> > > most of who had never in any aspect of ICANN previously). 
>   While this
> > > might be satisfying to supporters of Jamie Love, it illustrates
> > > perfectly that an election by the GA is terribly susceptible to
> > > capture.
> > 
> > We have thousands of people in the U.S. going to the polls 
> today that have
> > never actively participated in the U.S. government previously.
> > 
> > It's called democracy Kent(well strictly speaking we operate in a
> > republic.)
> > 
> > Get used to it.
> 
> However, ICANN is not, and cannot be, a democracy.  You might as well
> get used to that.
> 
> Instead, ICANN is a small non-profit CORPORATION.  It renders certain
> Internet services on a cost-recovery basis (but still FOR MONEY), to
> certain entities.  You could think of it as similar to one of the
> Internet Exchange companies.  (It is a non-profit to 
> ameliorate concerns
> about anti-trust).  The entities to which ICANN markets its 
> services are
> not "the people" -- the entities are other corporations, standards
> bodies, and so on.  The services in question are coordination 
> of certain
> activities, acting as a central clearing house for number assignments
> and name assignments, management of the root zone (a glop of 
> information
> shared among many of the the corporations for which ICANN provides
> service), managing a process by which names can be added to the root
> zone, etc. 
> 
> This coordination is a valuable service to these entities -- 
> without it
> they certainly face heavy government regulation. (Of course, they may 
> face such regulation anyway, but ICANN at least gives the 
> hope of industry 
> self-regulation.)
> 
> -- 
> Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
> kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
> --
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