More on ICANN

5arah writes: "ICANN is getting together to debate "plans that would help boost revenue to support the activities of the nonprofit Internet governing board, but would also decrease direct involvement by regular Internet users." What it really looks like is ICANN is restructuring its charter. The President of ICANN, Stuart Lynn, unveiled a proposal that cuts out Internet users from the ICANN board entirely and asks for government monetary support." I'd also like to remind people that the meetings are being webcast, and today's meeting is starting right when this story goes live. It's not exciting stuff - think "CSPAN" - but it is important stuff.

More Realistic Domain Governance

[leviramsey]

I was about to submit a link to this, but here might be more appropriate

New.net [new.net] has submitted a proposal [new.net] for ICANN reform into a more market-based mechanism with policies that are only based on voluntary consensus. An interesting read.

No internet users

[Paradise Pete]

The President of ICANN, Stuart Lynn, unveiled a proposal that cuts out Internet users from the ICANN board entirely

No internet users? So who's going to sit on this board then, My aunt Shirley?

Re:No internet users

[5arah]

that's the point...your aunt shirley won't be able to be on the board...only corporations and governments would be allowed to be boardmembers.

Here's ICANN's original mission statement:
"The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a technical coordination body for the Internet. Created in October 1998 by a broad coalition of the Internet's business, technical, academic, and user communities, ICANN is assuming responsibility for a set of technical functions previously performed under U.S. government contract by IANA and other groups.

Specifically, ICANN coordinates the assignment of the following identifiers that must be globally unique for the Internet to function:

Internet domain names
IP address numbers
protocol parameter and port numbers
In addition, ICANN coordinates the stable operation of the Internet's root server system.

As a non-profit, private-sector corporation, ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of the Internet; to promoting competition; to achieving broad representation of global Internet communities; and to developing policy through private-sector, bottom-up, consensus-based means. ICANN welcomes the participation of any interested Internet user, business, or organization."

What they're wanting to whack it back to is "We no longer want to be private sector, we want to be government and business sponsored. No more "internet users"." Pretty much selling out to whoever will give them the $$. The "bad" part about this is that this could lead to some serious corruption in terms of domain name disputes, ie. small guy has big guy's "RIGHTFUL DOMAIN NAME!", big guy pays business guy, big guy wins. Right now its fairly democratic...in the future...it may not be.

Unfortunately

[5arah]

Even though the whole ICANN thing will have serious repercussions on the internet in the U.S., its not as sexy or fun as JoeSchmoe's latest mod on his bawx of l33tness.

Sorry to disappoint...I'm still thinking about dying my hair blue and posting it as a 5arah mod.