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

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Mon, Jan 15, 2001 at 01:35:05AM -0800, Roeland Meyer wrote:
> > From: Bret Busby [mailto:bret@clearsol.iinet.net.au]
[...]
> > > is called "peering agreements". Those are privately 
> > brokered deals. None of
> > > us gets a vote there (well, almost none of us).
> 
> > I see. So, it is the ISP's,that make the rules, that govern 
> > the Internet
> > (as far as domain names are concerned), and, are responsible for the
> > registration, and, administration, of domain names.
> > 
> > I had believd that it was ICANN.
> 
> If the ISPs chose to use an alternative root-zone, different from that
> controlled by the ICANN, there's nothing the ICANN could do about it. The
> individual ISPs could also get together and build their own IP address
> registry. Actually, so could the ccTLDs. Some of them are national ISPs
> (jp?).
> 
> > So, ICANN has no responsibility, and, no role, and, just sits 
> > there and has nothing to do.
> 
> ICANN has not yet been handed control of the root-zone, so they don't even
> have that much. It is still with /USG/DOC/NTIA. The whole point of this
> excersize is to get things where we DO have a say.

The ISPs will never agree to ICANN control over the root zone or
anything else unless they have a strong veto power over anything that
ICANN does.  This is true for other entities in the ICANN orbit, as well
-- governments want veto power over ICANN actions, registries want veto
powers over ICANN actions, etc.  The cold fact is that ICANN sits in the
middle of a bunch of entities who own their own stuff, and don't really
have to pay attention to ICANN.  ICANN will only get somewhere if it is
*useful* to the ISPs, registries, governments, and so on. 

That is, there is no mechanism by which ICANN can "give us a say", if by
that you mean "give us some control" (ICANN can of course provide a
forum, but it already does that).  But the bottom line is that ICANN
doesn't have the power to give any control to the end users.  This is a
very fundamental misunderstanding that people have about the nature of
ICANN -- they think that they need to get in and restructure ICANN so
that they can get control.  But that power isn't available to ICANN in
the first place. 

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