[ga] Pros and cons of the Lynn plan

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

Looking at the excellent diagram at
http://www.icannchannel.de/lynn-proposal.pdf of the proposal (says
something that the volunteer GA Alt Chair produces info in a much more
useful format that then $10 mil/year actual ICANN) I've got some
thoughts on the Lynn proposal.

Firstly taking the effects of the proposals as a whole I have to agree
with Karl Auerbach that it actually creates an ICANN II which will
have little to do with ICANN I except the same staff and possibly a
DOC contract.

Basically ICANN II would be a benign dictatorship.  The Board would
effectively appoint itself.  Now this is not automatically bad and a
number of organisations do this.  Examples include the IOC, the
Catholic Church and the ICRC.  The theory behind this usually is to
protect an organisations from nationalistic politics so it seems
strange to have govt reps on there.

The main problem with so called benign dictatorships is that they
rarely stay that way.  With the best intentions in the world, the lack
of representativeness and accountability to some sort of electorate
fosters arrogance and aloofness.  A basic test of democracy is does
one have the ability to remove a board which is not performing.  Under
ICANN II it would be nigh impossible and would rely on the Board to
clean itself up.

This is not a theoretical situations.  A couple of years ago there
were major problems within .nz and things just got worse and worse
until the internet community basically rose up and sacked the vast
majority of the board and council of the registry and its owner.  If
the community had not had the ability to do so then the deplorable
situation we had back then would probably still be in place today.

But looking at the details of the proposal there are some interesting
aspects which are worth commenting on.

Abolishing Protocol Council - good - does nothing

In GNPC the suggestion that there is no specialist IP council rep is
good - as is having an individuals grouping and a small business one

Also the idea of not having formal constituencies is one Karl A has
pushed - just have informal groupings.  

Very bad is the idea of making ICANN into a mini UN.  If one does this
I can almost guarantee that mission creep will become mission sprint.
Any thoughts of limited co-ordination is out the window.

Also bad is that having tried to bully, stall, and blackmail the
ccTLDs (we will not change your contact details in the database unless
you sign a non negotiable contract) ICANN now turns to government
coercion rather than ever having given meaningful negotiations a
chance.  

Ombudsman and Manager of Public Participation are very good ideas if
given resources and authority.  However not a fair swap for removing
at large representation.

Asking Govts to fund ICANN is basically turning it into a semiUN
quango.  Why would it not be more efficient to have the ITU take over?
Quite seriously where is the cost benefit study?

Cutting down on the expensive travel the world meetings is a good idea
but keeping all others meetings secret is not.

Claiming one needs US$33 million to run ICANN is just out of this
world.  The sad thing is if ICANN II does go ahead I can guarantee
that even this amount within a couple of years will be found to be too
small and ICANN will grow massively year after year.

DPF
--
david@farrar.com
ICQ 29964527
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