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more on American dominance of the Internet, redux
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 18:43:00 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Dan Lynch <dan () lynch com> Date: October 16, 2005 6:29:39 PM EDT To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Cc: Esther Dyson <edyson () edventure com> Subject: Re: [IP] more on American dominance of the Internet, reduxEsther has it right: what we have with ICANN is the best we could hope for -- a slightly illegitimate overseer of some technical functions that make the Internet glue stick when it should stick. Jon Postel used to do that just fine, but he died and we knew that day would eventually come and we all knew Jon was a benign dictator with a huge intellect and no committee could ever replace his wisdom. So, as Esther suggests, leaving it twisting in the
wind is good for all of us ordinary Netizens. Dan On 10/15/05 3:39 PM, "David Farber" <dave () farber net> wrote:
Begin forwarded message: From: Esther Dyson <edyson () edventure com> Date: October 15, 2005 5:24:20 PM EDT To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] American dominance of the Internet, redux Another take on all this... (primarily for those following the issue closely, because it leaves out a lot of background) I'm planning to post it, but I may change it if I learn something new in the meantime. Esther ICANN - In praise of illegitimacy One place I am *not* going, however, is Tunisia… despite all the excitement over WSIS, which stands for World Summit on the Information Society <http://www.itu.int/wsis/>http://www.itu.int/ wsis/, taking place in Tunis November 16 to 18. But of course, WSIS is more than just an event. It’s a series of “processes,” the term bureaucrats use for meetings and conference calls. The main thrust of WSIS is that ICANN <http://www.icann.org/>www.icann.org – which sets policy for the Domain Name System and which I chaired in its start-up phase, 1998-2000 – is fundamentally US-dominated and should be brought under proper, legitimate, international control, accountable to all the people of the world. I beg to disagree. You can argue about the details, but yes, ICANN is to some extent under US control, even though it has a thoroughly international board and lots of other checks and balances. It mostly acts on its own but it does have a contract with the US government tat gives it what little authority it has… plus general agreement by most domain-name registrars and registries to follow its rules for lack of any other authority. You may think that's a slightly unstable situation, and indeed it is. The US would *like* to give up control (ICANN is a hot potato), but only to an organization it trusts. There’s the rub. The US doesn’t – and personally I don’t – trust any other organization to take over ICANN, although we have different reasons. (I also know that if the US tried to impose its will on the Internet more broadly through ICANN, it would meet proper, quick and strong resistance.) Indeed, the very whiff of illegitimacy around ICANN is its saving grace. Suppose some body emerged that was generally considered to be legitimate, and that could tightly control the DNS through ICANN. If it was legitimate, what would stop it from doing much more? It could quickly set new, broad rules governing “appropriate” content, intellectual property rights, “suitability” for domain name ownership… and because it was legitimate, it would be hard to stop it. The biggest danger for ICANN is indeed that it become “legitimate” and way too powerful. Its current slightly off-kilter authority keeps it from amassing power and from attracting the inevitable power-hungry forces that would abuse that power. In short, I’m not so much in favor of US control as I am in favor of the current status quo of uncertain, dis-armed control. Esther Dyson Always make new mistakes! Editor, Release 1.0 CNET Networks 104 Fifth Avenue (at 16th Street) New York, NY 10011 USA +1 (212) 924-8800 When 2.0 Workshop, Stanford, California, December 6: http:// www.release1-0.com/events/current status (with pictures!) at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ edyson/------------------------------------- You are subscribed as dan () lynch com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ipArchives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- people/
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