----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2001 12:41
PM
Subject: [ga-icann] On being
technology or consumer driven
Great
cartoon in the Parade (a U.S. Sunday Supplement pub) magazine today.
Two little kids are staring at a refrigerator with various drawings
on the door,
and down below it says (to the effect -- I don't have
it in front of me), "Sure
wish we had the money so we could really
communicate things." I have used
Veronica and the grandchildren's
refrigerator art as issues in Federal Court
with some modicum of
success (my client got his domain name back). In
ICANN, whether in
the GA or anywhere else, people with those concerns
have no voice
whatever. And here is what I think is the reason:
Many of the high tech business involved folks here will recognize the
distinction
between the technology and the consumer driven
company. The former is the
birthplace of vapor ware, the
whizzy computer named after the girl friend that
out in the market
drops a terrible bomb, the electronic wizard who comes up
with the
ultra technology, forms a company, and then the company heads for the
bottom of the pile until the Board replaces the inventor-techie CEO
with
someone who knows how to run a business, and so on. The
automobile
industry exemplifies the latter -- whatever the consumer
wants. The whole
business plan is run on marketing surveys,
and good and progressive new
technology that would really benefit
the consumer if used never sees the
market place because the
consumer has not actually asked for any of it.
So what it boils down to is that the public I'm talking about wants a
consumer
driven internet, while ICANN is technology driven. It
does not, and likely
never will, understand the function of a public
interest organization with respect
to the needs of the little guy.
It performs an extremely essential service in what
it does with
regard to roots, cc TLDs, etc., but those are not the things that the
little guy knows or cares about. The effect is that, whether or not
with malice
aforethought, ICANN has become a service organization to
NSI/Verisign and
the general public has been murdered. (Someone with
more time than I have
should run a comparison between what the
Articles of Incorporation say that
ICANN should be doing and the
"research contract" that NSI/Verisign is now
touting to see how they
match up.)
So my conclusion is that I will battle with every bone I have to
ensure the
continued functioning and good fortune of ICANN -- what
it does could
not be done by any other kind of organization. The
quibble I have is that
is should stop pretending to be something
that it is not.
At the same time, I think that ICANN cannot do the things that
we've
been talking about lately that in fact are oriented
towards the "consumer,"
and will never be able to, hence
something else is needed. Marilyn Cade
and others are
discussing such needs, and something may come of that
yet.
"Live in hope and die in dispair," they say, but I don't think so.
Bill Lovell