FC: Jamie Love replies on ICANN and e-democracy project

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[I don't think that Jamie and I are all that far apart. For instance, he 
and I agree that there can be multiple namespaces with thousands, and 
perhaps many more, top level domains. It's true that a few large 
corporations appear to have a lot of influence over ICANN, but I've been in 
Washington long enough to realize that putting the U.S. government in 
control -- or worse yet, the UN or ITU -- isn't going to improve the 
situation. More competition will. --Declan]

**********

Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 04:24:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: James Love <love () cptech org>
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
cc: ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com, Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: IP: Civil liberties groups launch e-democracy, ICANN project

I don't think Declan is quite right.  First, ICANN isn't a private
"company." Its a non-profit organization.  I think this is better than,
say, giving the control over the Internet to a single private company
(think of the possibilities, AOL, Microsoft, NSI, IBM, etc).  I agree
that there are not enough safeguards on ICANN -- for example, there is
no obvious limit to ICANN's potential expansion of its mission, and the
whole thing is set up to be controlled by big business interests (for
example, businesses have practical control over six of seven (including
ccTLDs) ICANN approved DNSO constituencies).  But to say it isn't
privatized enough ignores the problems of most privatization schemes --
too much control by businesses, where only shareholders have votes.
Governance in cyberspace is a tough issue, and ICANN isn't a pretty
sight.  But we need to be realistic about the challenges of governance.
More and more privatization by itself isn't a solution, if the public
loses its voice.

Jamie

On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Dave Farber wrote:

> BTW I agree with Declans comments DJF
>
> >Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 11:43:36 -0400
> >From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
> >
> >[The problem with ICANN, or at least one of the problems, is not that the
> >corporation has taken over "privatized" government functions. The problem
> >is that the functions are not privatized enough. With ICANN, you have an
> >inherently unhealthy situation: A private company that's under the thumb
> >of government regulators, without the open-government and due-process
> >protections you'd have if it were a true government agency. --Declan]
> >
> >*********
> >
> >Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 11:22:54 -0400
> >To: declan () well com
> >From: Barry Steinhardt <Barrys () aclu org>
> >Subject: New Internet Democracy Project
> >
> >Declan,
> >
> >
> >I thought you would be interested in this release announcing the creation
> >of the new Internet Democracy Project which is designed to marshal the
> >forces of non-governmental organizations to work on establishing civil
> >society principles for Internet governance bodies like ICANN.
> >
> >Barry Steinhardt
> >
[snip--DBM]

=============================================
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367        | http://www.cptech.org
Washington, DC 20036  | love () cptech org
Voice 202/387-8030    | Fax 202/234-5176
=============================================

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