ICANN Ditches Public Participation

Ziest writes "The AP is reporting that ICANN, who is meeting in Shanghai, has voted to eliminate direct elections to its board of directors." See also does-not-exist.org. It's not as if this is recent change -- just the last step in a long process.

OpenNIC

[yerricde]

a parallel namespace run in true freeware style.

You mean like OpenNIC [unrated.net]?

Rumbles and grumbles

[No_Weak_Heart]

Some related items: there are rumblings of possible alternatives [idg.com.hk] and here is a paper [cdt.org] presented by the Centre for Democracy and Technology [cdt.org] to the Shanghai conference yesterday, which outlines a few suggestions as to how things might be improved.

Re:Can anyone explain why this is significant?

[Fnkmaster]

Well, I'll assume you mean this as a legitimate question. I am not the most qualified person to answer the question, but I'll tell you what I do know. The ICANN ultimately sets up procedures and policies for registering domain names and controlling the allocation and deallocation of all TLDs (top level domains, like .com). Why do they control this? Because everybody has always agreed that they do. So to say you are connected to "the Internet" you really need to be pointing to a DNS server that syncs up with the root DNS servers approved by ICANN.

When does this get relevant? Well, when somebody disagrees about who owns a domain. It's nice that there are standard procedures for disputing these things. And remember when it used to cost some ungodly amount per year to register domains? Then along came OpenSRS and lots of registrars that pushed prices down, opening the web up to further colonization. This had to be approved and initiated by ICANN. The problem? ICANN already operates essentially without answering to any government or external authority, and the "citizens" of the Internet have no real voice in what goes on at ICANN. What if ICANN decides to go back to granting register.com a monopoly on new domain registrations? Well, they won't because the backlash would be huge, I imagine, but I am trying to give an example of what they theoretically could do.

Also little issues like the transition to IPv6 are governed to some extent by the ICANN, and that matters too - I for one would like my toaster and household appliances to have IP addresses in my frigging lifetime. I'm sure you can find more things the ICANN is responsible for at their website. Or do a Google search. Then tell me if you think maybe the users of the Internet who ultimately pay for its growth and the taxpayers of the nations that set up the original infrastructure for its growth ought to have some say in how it is managed.

That was Monday's Karl Auerbach story

[billstewart]

They never wanted public participation; it was always pretty much for show, and the way they treated Karl was partly because they never wanted public participation and partly because he'd not only been elected by the public to push them into letting *actual*Internet*users* have some influence over ICANN's directions, which (as I believe I may have mentioned) they didn't want, but went beyond that to actually *try* to have some influence over ICANN, or at least force some shadow of openness or accountability onto ICANN, which they also didn't want. So when they got rid of him, they made it clear they didn't want him to be replaced; this is just formalizing it.

Artificial Scarcity

[Elentar]

DNS is flawed. When designed, it no doubt made sense to limit the system to a fixed set of TLD's and root servers. Technology wasn't available at the time to allow for much else. Creating an artificially limited namespace was a necessity driven by the cost of implementation. And as a balance to that, there was no fee to register a domain.

That was a long time ago. Today, this artificially limited system has resulted in an entire commodity market driven solely by the decision to allow companies to profit by controlling the growth of the system.

It's privateering, plain and simple. Those administering the system have no incentive to expand it. ICANN and the other groups act as thugs enforcing the status quo, while users are forced to deal with the inflated costs created by artificially limited supply. The thugs occasionally throw a few improvements out to appear generous and justify their existence.

Let's review: The change to a laissez-faire market resulted in DNS being subject to normal economic pressures. With a focus on profit instead of service, DNS suppliers quickly recognized the potential in encouraging demand while not providing for any growth in supply.

Now, for a great many of you reading this, capitalism and democracy mean the same thing. A lot of you DO know the difference, however, and haven't really thought about whether you consider yourselves capitalists or not. And a few of you, who undoubtedly read Kuro5hin, have strong opinions one way or the other about capitalism.

Me, I hate it. While capitalism _is_ true to human nature, it does not encourage noble behavior. There is no incentive for suppliers to produce more simply because it serves the common good, and no incentive for purchasers to pay more money simply because the supplier's values are more respectable. The government attempts to simulate these things by taking money from everyone and using it to reward those individuals and organizations whose values coincide with those of the bureaucrats in power. Values like multiple children, home mortgages, a spouse without a career.

Enough ranting. If you actually read this far, then you can surely find more drivel like mine - just Google for 'Libertarian'...

-Elentar

D'oh, missed link

[Sloppy]

Templeton's writings are here. [templetons.com]