Re: [wg-review] Clarifications requested from BoD, Staff, NC,TC, Chair prior to co-Chair elections

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Jan 12, 2001 at 11:56:07PM -0500, Sandy Harris wrote:
> > In fact, you would be better off thinking of it as a corporation that
> > offers products (coordination services and anti-trust shielding) to
> > governments, registries, ISPs, and so on.
> 
> Absolutely not.
> 
> The clients for DNS, hence for ICANN's services,

ICANN does not supply DNS services.  In fact, it is explicitly enjoined 
from doing so.

> are millions of
> Internet users and thousands of domain name holders. The object of
> the exercise is to make the net work well for them.

Indirectly, yes.  But the fact remains that ICANN provides no services 
for end users.

> Policy decisions should be based on their needs, and they should have
> enough votes to dominate the process on issues where their interests
> are clear enough to unite them.

The cold fact is that the users can vote whatever they want, but at the 
end of the day ICANN has to *negotiate* with the registrars and the 
registries.  ICANN has no power to take a vote from the users and 
impose it on the registries or registrars.

> Registries and registrars are part of the mechanism for delivering
> those services. They are emphatically not ICANN's clients.

You are letting ideology get in the way of the facts.  Registries and 
registrars have direct contracts with ICANN, and ICANN can't force 
them to enter into those contracts (the USG can be very persuasive, of 
course, but that's the USG, not ICANN).

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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