[ga] Fallout From An Exchange of Emails with Esther Dyson About ICANN Disenfranchising Internet Users Right to Vote For the ICANN Board Governing the Internet

[cpart@interaccess.com]

Hey everyone, 

1.  THE HIGH AND MIGHTY ICANN FINALLY BROUGHT ON THE CARPET BEFORE CONGRESS

Nine witnesses, including Vint Cerf, were given five minutes each before the House Energy and Commerce committee on telecommunications and the Internet. 

The press said that the subcommittee "harshly criticized" ICANN's process of selecting new suffixes. 

Rep. Charles Pickering, said that ICANN's selection process was "arbitrary and subjective," and that "If you don't take steps to reform quickly ... the promise and future of ICANN is at risk." 

Rep. Fred Upton said Our goal here is to make sure that this is a fair and open process in every way, particularly for those that have qualified applications, so that they may, in fact, succeed," 

Rep. John Dingell, fumed that ICANN "appears to be accountable to no one except perhaps God Almighty." 

2.  MY MESSAGE TO VINT

Vint Cerf said "I accept the idea that we need to re-examine the procedures that we used," and admitted that ICANN "needs to find more objective ways of making these decisions."

My message to Vint is "Go Screw Yourself"  If you really believe that, why don't you just resign...  It would make a lot of people happy. 

Go apply your great wisdom, analytical skills and judgement to some greater and higher use.  Maybe to someone else's internet... not mine.

3.  SOME RELATED LINKS 

Here are some related news links collected by The Standard.  You can subscribe to their free newsletter at http://www.TheStandard.com

ICANN Under Attack (Network World Fusion)
http://tm0.com/thestandard/sbct.cgi?s=64386407&i=301965&d=1009354 

Getting to Domain Argument 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41683,00.html 

U.S. Lawyers Criticize ICANN (Reuters) 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41699,00.html 

Is It Too Late for Sex.Coop? 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41609,00.html 

ICANN Chairman Responds To House Charges 
http://www.internetnews.com/isp-news/article/1,2171,8_583731,00.html 

Cerf's Up! Congress Grills ICANN Chair on Domain Names 
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2683840,00.html 

3.  ICANN DEBACLE RESOURCES FOR THE PRESS.  

Here is a collection of resources for anyone who wants to learn more about ICANN vs. Internet Democracy.
http://infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/10/02/001002oplivingston.xml (by brian_livingston@infoworld.com) - In my opinion, the best article to date on ICANN's dysfunctional behavior...  
http://www.msnbc.com/news/480700.asp?0nm=T12O  (by Brock N. Meeks brock.meeks@msnbc.com) an critical article about how ICANN has acted in the process for selecting new registrys 
http://www.media-visions.com/icann.htm (Analyzing ICANN - a page with a very good set of links to pages containing well researched and reasoned critical analysis of ICANN)
http://www.ADOR-DOC.ORG/wipoletter.html (you can't understand how outrageous has been  ICANN's behavior with respect to favoring large corporations in domain disputes... unless you read this) 
http://www.news.com/Perspectives/Column/0,176,459,00.html (article by by Brian Livingston of cnet about ICANN bias in domain name arbitration)
http://www.Icannwatch.org (regularly updated website monitoring ICANN activities)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/full_coverage/tech/domain_names_and_registration/ (100s of articles written by reporters who've been covering these issues)
http://www.flywheel.com/ircw/overview.html (an overview of the domain names controversy - starting pre-ICANN with an extensive and thorough  set of related links)
http://www.icann.org  (ICANN's Web Site)  
http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/gao-icann/DNS-Proposal.txt
http://umcc.ais.org/~ronda/ (background on the development of the Internet and the role of the government)
http://www.domainhandbook.com/toc.html 
http://www.iciiu.org/ (International Congress of Independent Internet Users)
http://www.domainnotes.com/ 
http://www.eff.org/ (electronic Frontier Foundation (the ACLU of the Internet)
http://www.media-visions.com/newdom2b.html (links to government and industry leaders)
http://www.media-visions.com/icann-involved.htm (steps you can take to help this problem)
http://www.civsoc.org (the Civil Society Democracy Project has a good set of links on internet democracy and related current happenings)

4.  PASS THE WORD ON.  

Please pass this email along to anyone who might want to be added to the distribution list.

Curtis Sahakian
1-847-676-2774
cpart@Corporate-Partnering.com
http://www.Corporate-Partnering.com/cpi


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