[ga-icann] Legitimacy Of ICANN?

["Patrick Corliss" <patrick@quad.net.au>]

http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/01/05/29/2312213.shtml

Posted by Cliff on Wednesday May 30, @06:34PM
from the ignore-the-man-behind-that-curtain dept.

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."


--
This message was passed to you via the ga-icann@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga-icann" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html