ICANN At-Large Study

perp writes: "ICANN has published the draft of its At-Large recommendations. It's long, but it looks like they're trying to raise the bar for at-large membership by requiring at-large members to a) pay a fee and b) be a registered domain holder. Their comments about all the non-committed at-large members who "enrolled only because it was easy" gave me a laugh; it took three days of trying for me to register." The draft also proposes slashing At-Large board members from 9 to 6. But there are some good points in there about organizational issues.

Re-evaluation of domain names

I think that the issue of domain name registration is very problematic and needs to be completely re-evaluated.

Here is the issue: I wanted to visit classicgaming.org, spelled it wrong, and ended up with so many ads that I had to kill my browser. What does a million banner ads have to do with classic gaming?

Everyone has stories like this, and the issue here is deception. There has been no reprimand for deceiving people with domain names. If I create a website like www.guinnessucks.com, Guiness sues me, but there is no consumer watch organization that looks out for situations that clearly interfere with usage of the internet.

This consumer watch organization should be the ICANN. No more of this "do what you want with it" philosophy. If I create a website called clasicgaming.com, it better have something to do with the words in it's title, or lose my domain name. Registering a domain name should be like registering a Trade mark or a radio station, but just more streamlined.

In the name of civil liberty and through obscure definition of Free Speech, people are letting serious violation of a user's rights pass on the Internet. We are even defending this in fear that they'll come after us. It's time to realize that communities need policing, and usually the cops don't bust your door down if you're not breaking the law. It is time for regulation.

Abuse of power

Isn't the assignment/registration of domain names ICANN's sole responsibility? If ICANN strays from this responsibility to exert influence on other areas, then ICANN is abusing its power and must be opposed.

At least you MANAGED to get registered...

...I tried numerous times, repeatedly, and couldn't in over a week of random attempts. ICANN's "legitimacy" to me is ALWAYS in question when they pull stupid stunts like this. If anything, it should be administered as the United States political system is-- each netizen can vote for a person to represent their part of the world, and each part of the world is given up to X many reps to represent them. (This would more closely model the U.S. Senate I suppose.) These same netizens would also elect a Director or President which would have veto power and be able to try to define the tasks ICANN tackles.

As it is right now, ICANN isn't much more than a government (DoC) mandated farce.

(Forgive me if this seems flame-like, but I'm sincerely unhappy with ICANN (on so many levels this post probably only hit the top one or two things I dislike about them).)

From the report

ICANN represents an effort at global self-regulation that, if successful, has great merit in a number of different ways and if it fails, it has the potential to fuck up our lives in a number of different ways. I don't think that making it less accountable is likely to make it more successful.

First they allow NSI to screw around and now...

First they allow Network Solutions to screw around with policy and now they're trying to make it more difficult for indeviduals to have a voice. This is truly outragous. Unfortunately, there aren't that many alternatives as far as influencing the process. At this point, what level of governmental oversight is there for ICANN? (I should know this but I'm getting old - memory isn't what it used to be... :)

--CTH

A Self Perpetuating System

The reccomendation that the at-large membership be comprised of domain-name holders rather than the broader internet user population is setting up a conflict of interest.

Domain names are primarily valuable currently because they are a scarce resource. By creating an at-large membership comprised entirely of domain name holders, they are setting up an entrenched interest that will oppose the proliferation of gTLDs, as Karl Auerbach has been pushing for.

Clearly, they hope that this action will not lead to his re-election, but will place someone more 'reasonable' in his place.

This is just another tactic aimed at maintaining an artificial scarcity of domain names, and sharpening ICANN as a tool to manufacture and maintain this scarcity. ICANN is looking more like the diamond cartel every day.

For the record, I currently own 35 domain names.

Evidence?

The ALSC is concerned by some evidence that the very low entrance barrier in last year's At-Large election may have resulted in a large enrollment of people who were not actively interested in ICANN, but who enrolled only because it was easy, or who were "encouraged" to do so simply because of nationalistic competition. Membership fees may help address this problem, as well as contribute to a reduction in fraudulent registrations.

Anyone know what the evidence they mention is? Or is this actually just pure speculation instead an actual reference to evidence?

I'm not aware of ICANN doing anything to research whether that speculation is true or not. All I really know is that they haven't asked me why I signed up.

ICANN is illegitimate.

The so-called Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a fraud foisted upon the world by thieves trying to steal from humanity the greatest communications mechanism in human history: the Internet. The U.S. Department of Commerce has been an accomplice in the give-away of the publicly developed Internet to provate, corporate interests. The chicanery behind ICANN, which is similar to the corruption of the American Supreme Court, whose chief hoodlums Rehnquist and Scalia partisanly awarded a Presidential election in A.D. 2000 to the losing side, points to an organization of inept bunglers like "the gang that couldn't shoot straight" or erstwhile movie fame. Once democracy in America is restored, the ICANN privateers may find themselves subject to prosecution and federal imprisonment under the laws of the American democracy -- along with military officers prosecuted and imprisoned for "following orders" issued by the cabal that includes the illegitimate Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appointed by the illegitmate American President.

Acronym brekdown

I Can Assimilate (yet) ANother Nickle.

-S

Not as bad as first appears?

At first I thought this was just a power grab by the corporate interests which already dominate ICANN. But then I came across this in the document (note I didn't read the whole thing, just skimmed).

"We propose the At-Large user "community" include institutions, but only individuals may vote. Institutions already play a greater role in the existing Supporting Organizations, so this seems an appropriate balance. We encourage your input on this issue. "

Further down they discuss the issue of multiple domain names and the possibilities of fraud. Since it is relatively inexpensive and easy to register a domain name these days, I don't think that the individual net user is necessarily locked out of the process.

It can't be any worse than the system they used in the last election. I never did receive the snail-mail that was supposed to give me my password. I got many e-mails telling me it was coming, but apparently they sent it via the Pony Express.

--

Fees are the way to go

It is a valid concern that members be Real People and not just throwaway email accounts one someone's machine, so physical snail mailings should remain a part of the process.

Physical snail mails, especially to many thousands of people all over the world, cost real money.

Requiring that members have a registered domain name is a sneaky way of keeping ICANN from being the entity that pays that money -- instead the registrar handles it, and the expense actually gets covered when domain holders pay for their domains. It seems like a nice idea at first, but as others have pointed out, it does create a conflict of interest.

IMHO, the best thing to do is to charge fees to cover the mailing and administration expense. This really does solve the problem, and it is superior solution to requiring domain registration.

The question is whether it'll be ten bucks or a thousand. When I see the dollar amount, I'll know if ICANN is still trying to maintain an appearance of legitimacy.

In a related story...

...only land-owners will be allowed to vote.

OpenNIC

The OpenNIC [unrated.net]is a user owned, international Network Information Center alternative to the traditional Top-Level Domain registries. OpenNIC was started in reaction to the growing concern about the lack of democratic control within the ICANN. The best thing you can do to help this initiative is to point your root-nameserver(s) and/or your resolving configuration to the OpenNIC nameservers. You'll still be able to resolve all the traditional ICANN TLD's, but you'll also have access to the new TLD's.

"Scooby Doo is essentially about casting the light of reason
on corruption cloaked in mysticism" - Scrymarch

DebianLinux.Net [debianlinux.net]

You, sir, are full of shit.

Some of the alternate roots did establish an 'all.your.base.are.belong.to.us' domain as a joke, around the time of the ICANN Melbourne meeting (March?). OpenNIC did not. We discussed the matter, decided we had no authority over the .us TLD, and decided not to do it. You have us confused with another root, apparently.

We are not breaking the old DNS. We agree completely with ICANN on the importance of the stability of the inclusive namespace. We absolutely will not touch a TLD or domain that is outside of our purview.

Our root.cache file is here [unrated.net] (or here [opennic.glue]). See for yourself. There are no .us domains in it whatsoever.

The OpenNIC claims only 5 TLDs [opennic.glue]. We have over 500 registered members - growing fast - and many more users.

Finally, pointing resolve.conf at ANYONE gives that party control of what you see. I think the OpenNIC is more worthy of user trust than any other root, including ICANN/VGA. This is because the entire organization is governed by the vote of its members, much like the Debian people. So nobody's cutting deals behind the scenes.

Get it straight, Cleatus. You're embarassing yourself.

Let me guess...

The 3 board seats they are removing, won't be the corporate members, will they? Ha ha.

Fuck ICANN. The AlterDNS Project beta is going well, and we'll have 3 broadband root servers before we go live. You'll run bind like you should be doing anyway, and we won't take over the entire "." root zone, like orsc or alternic does. As a matter of fact, you'll just as easily be able to add them, should you suddenly be struck dumb and tasteless. And our rules reflect our belief that DNS is a community resource, not a hostage that corporations hold over us.

Those rules are...

#1 No corporate registrations. Your trademarks are not recognized here.
#2 No reselling of domain names.
#3 No cybersquatting. All domains must be used within 2 weeks of registration
#4 No bulk registrations.

On top of that, we've managed to choose aTLDs that are somewhat meaningful, tasteful even. They're free, in every meaning of the word. So really, what's stopping you?

Experience with ICANN @Large

I tried signing up when they first ran the @Large thing. It was a huge hassle and in the end they never sent me the confirmation code so I could complete the process. I tried to use the form on their website to get the confirmation code and it never worked. I gave up after trying a half dozen times and wasting a few hours of my life.
My opinion of them is that they are an incompetent bunch of fools, and are probably dangerous to the freedom of the internet.

Mo Money...

From the (draft) report

To further define At-Large membership, the ALSC recommends the following:

• Each individual who holds a domain name be given the option of becoming an At-Large member and paying a membership fee;
• Individuals who hold multiple domain names are eligible for one At-Large membership (and one vote in an At-Large election);
• Entities, such as ISPs, that may conduct batch registrations should be asked to alert the domain name holder of the opportunity to become and At-Large member; and
• To further focus At-Large membership on individual domain name holders, sub-registrations should be ineligible.

ICANN already gets several million dollars a year in funding, and now it wants more. This particular tax would be attached to domain registration, raising the price of that even higher. And what do I get for this extra money? Less representation.
Personally, I'd like to see ICANN actually do something before I give them even more money. The Open Root Server Confederation [open-rsc.org] looks better every day.

Paying for corruption?

I believe ICANN are corrupt - they know the solution to trademark and domain name problems.

The First Amendment is totally ignored and big business abuse their trademarks - to give themselves a dominant position over others with same or similar name.

Quote from NY Times:

Sun Makes Claims on Domain Names [nytimes.com]

"But among the names on the list are generic terms like "enterprise" and "ultra" -- and for that matter, "sun" -- that could be claimed by other businesses. Indeed, a main reason for introducing new extensions, referred to as top-level domains, is to increase the pool of names available to individuals and businesses and to relieve crowding in the .com domain."

Please visit WIPO.org.uk [wipo.org.uk] for details.

Guarantees An Interest

I'm not sure that mandating owning a domain name is such a bad idea. Sure, it may create a small conflict of interest, but on balence in means that ICANN will be only full of people with a vested interest, thus full of people who (have to) care. Making judgements from the outside based on what we (who don't own a domain) see as The Right Thing is one thing, but making a descision where we have somthing at stake is another.

Think of this as being comprable to voting for your President/Prime Minister/Head of Government; if I wat to have a voice in who the head of the UK government is, I have to be a British citizen (or for some odd reason, a Commonwealth citizen resident in the UK). Think of how screwed up global political systems would be if anyone could vote for any head of government. I interact with the UK (through the world economy and by breathing the same air as they do) in much the same way I interact with the internet - so why is it that anyone (including those who arn't "citizens of the internet" - not owning a domain) can elect people to its highest office? I can't vote for US President, so why should those not invloved be able to vot for mine.

The long and the short of it is that most people who really care and are informed enough to make a competent descision do already own domains - thus they have a vested interest in making sure the system dosen't go to hell. Much like citizens of a given county have a vested interest in the political stability and competency of their leadership.

This isn't a flame, and for the record I own a domain.

Decreasing Board Members

The decreasing of board members from 9 to 6 members should only be allowed if there is a big election of all at large members who can elect the 6 board members. Otherwise the whole democratic process behind the ICANN system is just a fake! I am realy suspicious about the pseudo democratic elections at at-large. Maybe an alternativ root dns server might help, but I am have not too much convinience in that ( i would realy miss the sience servers (universities etc.) but the rest goes up in my ass!). I wonder what would happen if there is a large (lets say a majority of internet users/providers) which make their own regulations organization. I wonder if these laws would been accepted by countries. I think it wouldn't because the big companies lobbys put too much money in the politicans asses! I think it is time to make some real grass root politics in the context of the internet. At least it was our way to freely communicate.

Sorry for my bad english

- Yasa ((Y)et (A)nother (S)tupid (A)lias)