News coverage of ICANN meeting this week:
ICANN Pressured On Public Participation
Sep. 10, 2001 19:35 ET
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/169935.html
'Dot-Info' Opens To Public On Wednesday
Sep. 10, 2001 17:35 ET
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/169933.html
ICANN Board Squeezes Squatters
Sep. 10, 2001 16:45 ET
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46680,00.html
Panel: Internet suffix `.org' isn't just for non-profits
Sep. 10, 2001 05:45 ET
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/org09.htm
ICANN meets to discuss its policy
Sep. 9, 2001 16:02 ET
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/09/09/story/0000102220
-Declan
*********
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 20:46:16 -0400
From: Gordon Cook <cookat_private>
Subject: as you observe the Montevideo ICANN meeting some things to think about
The Real ICANN, by Gordon Cook and Dave Hughes
cookat_private daveat_private
The Australian Smoking Gun
With .com .org .net and all the other GTLDs under its firm control, the
Real ICANN is now snuffing out independent country code domains and putting
them under the same contractual assurances that GTLDs are.
This has just begun with the Australian country code domain that has been
taken away from Robert Elz, an Australian university professor who had done
the task for free for more than 10 years. It has been taken without cause,
without hearing, and without due process.
ICANN has established a ccTLD Sponsorship Agreement. According to Michael
Froomkin's analysis <see the url below> the door is wide open for any group
of people in any nation to form an organization to run that country's
country code domain name. Such a group can then seek the government's
blessing and, by telling ICANN, it will subscribe to the agreement, it has
likely reason to believe that ICANN will certify it if the government
agrees. With this pledge of fealty from the newly formed ICANN country
code compliant entity, ICANN can then take the domain name away from the
current administrator and give it to the new entity that wants to run it on
behalf of ICANN. The government then is presented with the opportunity to
agree to the ICANN action, which the Australian government has done. The
result is collusion between the ICANN and the government that permits ICANN
to effectively internationalize a formal national resource and by saying
that it is just following ICANN's request, execute an end run around any
existing due process constraints.
With the .us country code domain the Real ICANN has accomplished that same
goal through Karen Rose who has been positioned in NTIA by ICANN's
corporate founders to give US government blessing to do what the extra
legal forces behind ICANN want. Karen has executed a bid for an
administrator of the US country code domain. You can bet the winner will
agree to play by the ICANN rules of the ccTLD Sponsorship Agreement. From
every thing that we can tell by talking to numerous sources Karen
effectively has become an unsupervised agent operating largely on behalf of
the entities she is supposed to regulate. Her 'charges' tell her what they
want and generally they get it. The agreement of the US government to the
actions of ICANN has been reality for three full years.
Bottom line is that in this instance ICANN, in a series of lawless actions,
is about gain the ability to dictate the terms under which both American
citizens and citizens of other countries can hang out a cyberspace address
shingle for a web site.
The REAL ICANN versus the Public ICANN
The public ICANN is being sold as a democratic organization, founded on the
basis of California non profit law, respectful of it broad consensus of
support by Internet users. This public ICANN is a deception that is
presented to distract attention from the real ICANN.
The Real ICANN is acting on its own authority without the backing of
national law or international treat to take control of the Internet's
naming system and thereby gain a strangle hold over the ability of
individual people and small businesses to work, live and express themselves
in cyberspace. Having no legal authority to take away the property
rights inherent in the Australian country code domain it has nevertheless
just done so.
How could this happen? It has happened as the result of three years of
gradual accretion of power by its staff -- Stuart Lynn as President, Vint
Cerf Chairman of the Board, Andrew Mclaughlin as chief policy officer and
by counsel Joe Sims and Louis Touton and ex president Michael Roberts as on
going consultant. ICANN's Board is there as window dressing and is
informed by staff after-the-fact of decisions that are expected to be
rubber stamped.
Let us step back and look at the big picture. That big picture shows that
the Real ICANN is WTO done on Internet time. The innovation behind the Real
ICANN is that it is an international, supra governmental organization that
doesn't have to be based on international treaty like the Hague Convention
or WTO -- which treaties take too much time to pass.
The real ICANN fools outsiders by clothing itself in a " legal" structure
to which it gives only lip service, a board of directors which it ignores,
and by laws that it ignores or changes when it pleases.
It gives lip service to expected 'democratic' requirements like acting on
alleged consensus which means nothing more that what ICANN staff chooses to
say it does at any time and can be and is changed on a whim.
Indeed it is a totally new kind of organization ostensibly wearing legal
clothing but in fact free to ignore or change its dress as convenience
dictates. It is succeeding because its area is arcane and highly complex
and specialized. Media does not have enough time, understanding and
resources to verify whether ICANN is telling the truth or lying. Since we
have never before had an organization that is founded on and operates on
blatant deception, media, not knowing any better tends to believe ICANN.
The real ICANN is about centralized control of the Internet on behalf of a
handful of global corporations that want uniform global control of their
intellectual property and corporations that also want uniform national
conditions for global e-commerce. Governments that fear the consequences
of the Internet's ability to ignore global boundaries will be willing to
aid and abet ICANN's intentions.
The real ICANN is carrying out its mission via control of the DNS - the
ability of people to have an address that allows them to do business in
cyberspace. ICANN will squeeze out independent voices by raising the cost
of domain name registration and turning names over to private contractors
with the obligation to fund ICANN at a rate of 15% inflation per year.
From Control of Namespace to Control of Content
And control of websites and expression of diverse opinion is what the game
is all about. Witness for example the recent statement by WIPO that
governments ought to force non WIPO compliant websites to put warnings to
that effect up on their home page.
The homogenization of websites into messages safe for governments and
multinational corporations is the end goal because we predict that in
ICANN's eyes control of content will soon become as important as control of
the alleged single root for the stability of the Internet. We cannot of
course prove that we are correct in the prediction, but observation of the
continued concentration of media into fewer and fewer hands and into the
hands of corporate conglomerates benefiting from the emergence of supra
national ICANN like authorities makes it seem eminently fair to raise this
question. The Internet revolution gives everyone a printing press. This
reality makes life more complicated for those who want only to sell the
alleged benefits of globalism. By the time that we can be proven right or
wrong about ICANN and content, it will be too late. The battle about
address space is a battle about control. Control is worth having because it
gives the possessor a lever to clamp down on content. To those who say
well you can still hang out a web shingle as gcook1875at_private or
dhughes1172at_private, we reply under what conditions and at what
expense? AOL is not a staunch defender of free speech.
ICANN is on the verge of getting enough money for itself to be financially
independent of any national base. When Karen Rose either gives her ICANN
sponsors the ROOT or ICANN takes control of the root on its own, ICANN can
be free to move off shore and will no longer be under the reach of US
law. It is imperative to act and to create and sell to congress a
structure to replace it with. The move has almost succeeded. Given
continued complacency it will succeed. It is time for people more powerful
than we and with access to more resources than we to act in California and
federal courts and in the halls of congress.
The real ICANN is the test mechanism for global economic interests being
able to avoid national legislative processes entirely as well as accepted
processes of treaty agreements.
Appendix: The Australian ccTLD Take over
http://www.icannwatch.org/essays/dotau.htm
How ICANN Policy Is Made (II)
A. Michael Froomkin
ICANNWatch.org
In a watershed moment in Internet history, ICANN declared this week that
the ICANN staff can re-assign the .au ccTLD at will, without a finding of
misconduct, without a public comment process, and despite the opposition of
the incumbent ccTLD manager. In so doing, ICANN in effect simultaneously
declared that it can redelegate a functioning ccTLD over the opposition of
the current delegate; that controversial dictates of the so-called ICANN
Government Advisory Committee (GAC) will be treated as ICANN policy even if
they have never been voted on by any other part of the ICANN machinery;
that a major change on redelegation policies will be made in secret,
without any public discussion; that a major decision on the governance of a
functioning TLD will be taken unilaterally and secretly by the ICANN staff,
without either a publicly documented comment period or a vote of the DNSO
or the ICANN Board. that it's ICANN/GAC policy to support the creation of
national mini-ICANNs as an end-run around ordinary government procedures.
All this from one report recommending the redelegation of .au? Yes. Even if
you like this outcome, and there are reasons why you might or might not,
there's quite a lot to be concerned about how ICANN got there and what this
tells us about where ICANN is going.
[Snip]
here is the conclusion by Froomkin:
Why This Is Serious
ICANN now takes the view that if a government wants to take a ccTLD, or
wants it delegated to its mini-ICANN, "IANA" can do that, without a finding
of fault on the behalf of the existing ccTLD operator.
There are three grounds for concern in this story. The first, as I've
suggested in this narrative, is that ICANN persists with the fiction of
IANA to the detriment of open processes. This is dangerous. The second,
also set out above, is that ICANN creates new policies on the fly -- this
time with the added bonus of turning GAC's advisory role into one of pure
policymaking, unmediated by any other ICANN body. This too is dangerous.
The third is that ICANN's new policy essentially puts governments in
control of ccTLDs. That's complicated, but subtly dangerous too.
Ultimately, I think governments can, and should be, allowed to exert
control over ccTLDs designed to serve their nations. RFC 1591 requires that
the ccTLD operator have a local presence, and that means that governments
will always have the power to regulate (or even jail) the ccTLD operator.
But in democratic governments, regulatory decisions have to be made
according to established and legitimate processes. Taking a functioning
ccTLD from someone against their will is not something a democratic
government would necessarily find it easy to do. Similarly, all sorts of
ccTLD regulations -- the UDRP comes to mind -- may only be possible if
enacted through ICANN, or a series of mini-ICANNs.
ICANN was already a means by which the US government did an end-run around
ordinary government procedures. Now ICANN's taking the show on the road.
Useful links
Story in The Australian
http://it.mycareer.com.au/breaking/2001/09/03/FFXQIBM55RC.html
slashdot discussion
Sydney Morning Herald story
Later on September 5
It seems that the auDA will be the first ccTLD to agree to ICANN's new
ccTLD Sponsorship Agreement. There is, of course, no connection between
this item and ICANN's approval of the auDA's application to take over the
..au ccTLD in violation of ICANN's own rules.
http://www.icannwatch.org/article.php?sid=339&mode=nested&order=0
--
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