RE: [ga] RE: Antitrust Violations: Fact versus Fiction

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@palage.com>]

Thanks for this reminder Michael.

I believe when you look at the actions of the Registrar Constituency they
actual serve as a potential safeguard to the potential problems you raise in
your article, i.e. ICANN imposing questionable policy as an unchecked
regulator. The Registrar Constituency is only looking for proper
representation to prevent questionable policies from being imposed on
contracting parties without proper consensus outreach and documentation.
Although I have not agreed with every Board decision to date, I believe they
have gotten it right more often than not. But this safeguard alone is not
enough IMHO.

I believe that it is critical that the ERC include a safeguard mechanism to
prevent policies from being introduced to the GNSO that have no right of
being there in the first place. Moreover, I do not agree with the proposed
veto mechanism to over ride ICANN's recommendation on whether something is
or is not policy. These mechanisms if properly enforced keep ICANN focused
on its core mission and prevent it from expending resources chasing policy
ghosts. The key goal for ICANN must be achieving the benchmarks set forth in
the recent MoU. If ICANN fails to meet these goals, the sandbox which so
many like to play simply goes away, in which case most of us lose.

Finally, as I told the registrar constituency in Amsterdam, there is nothing
preventing ICANN from modifying our contracts to remove the 66% budget
approval or requiring the registries to collect our fees. If at large
elections fell by the way side what absolute power do we really have? The
choice is simple, work constructively within the current/proposed ICANN
structure to make the ICANN process work, or sit on the side line and be a
stick in the mud and lose our voice in the process. I personally find little
or no honor in being a martyr. As long as I continue to serve as the chair
of the ICANN registrar constituency I will continue to work with all
stakeholders to make the ICANN process work, because I have yet to see a
viable alternative.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ga@dnso.org [mailto:owner-ga@dnso.org]On Behalf Of Michael
Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 8:49 AM
To: ga@dnso.org
Subject: Re: [ga] RE: Antitrust Violations: Fact versus Fiction


http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann-antitrust.pdf

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