This is, of course, ridiculous. What ICANNwatch, and, by the looks of it, most of the people who registered to vote, seem not to realize is that it's just ICANN. The non-profit has nine full-time employees. It operates under strict bylaws that prevent it from getting involved with most of the Net's hot-button issues, such as kicking child pornographers off the Web or protecting privacy. Its authority over domain-name contracts--such as those between you and the registrar of your personal domain-name--only allows it to enforce decisions made by outside judges or arbitrators. And while it's true that ICANN has a process for guiding disputes into arbitration, the uniform domain-name dispute-resolution policy,) it's far from binding. If Verizon used the UDRP to enter arbitration and try to take the domain name "Verizonreallysucks.com" away from the current owner, 2600 Magazine, and lost, the cellular company could simply sue in a federal or international court to get its way.

--tb