Why it's time to rein in ICANN

It is extremely clear from the piece that its author, Arrison does not comprehend the technical issues.

Sitefinder, because it breaks the end-to-end principle, represents a genetic poison to the internet of today and, if allowed to continue, would mutate the internet and severely impair its ability to grow and evolve.

She equates sitefinder with the name lookup tools of a much more benign nature - Internet Explorer's "search" and Google. Those are more begnin precisely because they do not break the end-to-end principle.

The article's conclusion - that ICANN might have to be removed - is valid. But not for the reasons the article uses.

And I do not agree with the article's assertion that governmental powers should be exercised by private bodies - to my mind that train wreck of an ideology has shown for years that it is a fast-track path to abuse, manipulation, and injury to the public intererest.

On the IETF mailing list, ICANN's Chairman has been trying to explain to the IETF how powerless ICANN is. That would be nice if it were true. ICANN has been telling the exact opposite story to businesses and governments, and ICANN's obligation to have such power is written right into ICANN's bylaws and its contract, oops, MoU with the US Department of Commerce.

Imagine if ICANN were to stand up before WSIS next week and tell WSIS exactly what it has been telling the IETF - that ICANN has no power whatsoever over the operations of the DNS root servers or the IP address allocation system, that those functions are in the hands of people who can do as they chose and are subject to no enforceable obligations, no publicly created policy, and no review. My guess is that this would create a stampede to move not merely ICANN to the ITU but also to nationalize the root servers and the RIRs.

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Re:Arrison doesn't understand the issues
by dmehus on Tuesday December 02 2003, @06:29PM (#12712)
User #3626 Info | http://doug.mehus.info/

I also disagree completely with her reasons of why ICANN needs to be replaced and how to go about it. I also disagree with the notion SiteFinder is beneficial. However, I thought the piece should be posted so that all viewpoints are heard.

You do raise an excellent point Karl, and something I've wondered for awhile. Why do governments "pussy foot" around words like "contract"? I've seen governments and political parties use words such as "agreement-in-principle" and "memorandum of understanding." In addition, they use words like "letter of intent," "request for proposals," and "request for expressions of interest." Why can't they call it what it is -- a contract? It makes no sense to me.

It's like in B.C. The right-leaning BC Liberal government that we have in power provincially has signed a so-called B.C. Rail Investment Partnership with CN to acquire BC Rail. While they're maintaing the railbed, track, and right-of-way, they're selling 100% of the shares of BC Rail and its subsidiaries to CN. They call it a "transaction" or an "partnership," but I see it as a sale -- plain and simple.

Cheers,
DougDoug Mehus http://doug.mehus.info/ [mehus.info]

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