Re: [wg-review] dndef, 9

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Feb 02, 2001 at 06:05:58PM -0500, Sotiropoulos wrote:
> Just adding a point to my preceeding note:
> 
> Miles B. Whitener wrote:
> 
>  > What I am saying is like
>  > this: if I own a physical network (here, 
> the Internet), then I
>  > can dictate, generally, how services 
> (here, DNS, as run on port
>  > 53) are to be used.
> 
> If the State owns the highway, they can tell 

Yes, but the STATE DOESN'T OWN THE INTERNET.  Hence your analogy is 
meaningless. 

> you what height your
> vehicle can be to use it (due to overpasses 
> etc..).  The State can also
> tell you what type of vehicles they want 
> driven on it (i.e. ones that
> don't pollute, hence, emission controls). 
> The State can also tell you
> how fast you can drive, and can give you 
> speeding tickets if you disobey.
> 
> BUT the State cannot tell you which car (in a 
> perfectly legitimate car
> market) you can or cannot buy.
> 
> **Finally, the State cannot tell you that you 
> do not own the car *you* bought and paid for.

Right, but if it was *your* private road, and *you* owned it, then you
*could* tell someone else what kind of car they could drive on *your*
road.  It is your *right* to be able to control what kind of traffic 
goes on *your* road.  That is the essence of free enterprise.

The Internet is largely owned by private enterprise, and *we* don't have
any right to dictate to other private parties how to run *their*
businesses.  They will listen to us as *customers*, but not as
*regulators*.  That is why this insistance on "control" is so stupid. 
ICANN doesn't have the right or the legal authority to tell private
businesses how to run their businesses.  That's why having
representative government-like structures in ICANN doesn't add anything
to its legitimacy -- we as at-large members of ICANN have no right to
dictate anything to these independent businesses. 

The Internet is not public property.  It is private property.  (With
some small caveats -- in some countries *part* of the Internet
infrastructure is public property. But there is far far more private 
ownership of the Internet than there is public ownership.)

I'm sorry to keep harping on this.  But it is an absolutely fundamental
point, and it is necessary to understand it in your bones before you can
even think of trying to modify ICANN's structure. 

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