ICANN Excludes Plebes, Officially 25
Nofsck Ingcloo writes: "
Reuters is reporting that ICANN voted on Friday to exclude ordinary Web surfers from its board in a move critics say allows mainstream interests to tighten their grip on the online world. ICANN unanimously passed the resolution at its quarterly meeting.
(The last /. article I saw on this only mentioned it as a probable coming attraction.)"
Now we're done for (Score:3, Interesting)
Want a personal website? Think again. If it's not in the best interests of a commercial Internet, it ain't going to happen.
And we can throw any sustainable hope of p2p file sharing out of the window too. When the corporations take over the Internet entirely, there won't be a damn thing we can do about it.
Re:Now we're done for (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Now we're done for (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations took over the entire Internet long ago. The current crisis is that completely evil corporations with very short-sighted profit motives are beginning to push out the well-rounded corporations that understood how important the Internet's ideals are.
big deal (Score:4, Informative)
This is a shock why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me get this straight. A group of nut monkeys with all the power and money voted to keep everyone else out.
I am just shocked out of my bean on this one. Paint me stupid but what did you expect?
Re:This is a shock why? (Score:2, Funny)
drawn? (Score:3, Interesting)
Drawn, sounds like a lottery. I'm guessing chance has nothing to do with who sits on the board.
Re:drawn? (Score:4, Funny)
not so crazy? (Score:2, Insightful)
But rather than participate in this perfectly reasonable whoring opportunity, I'm going to risk a few points here to point out that barring ordinary web users from the ICANN board is not a bad idea.
I mean, we're talking about the unwashed masses here. Most of them access the web through AOL or WebTV or (choke, gasp) MSN, for heaven's sake. These are the people who call tech support lines complaining that "their Internet is broke." They use only Microsoft apps, propogate virii, and think there's nothing funnier than that video of the monkey drinking his own pee.
These are not the people we want making decisions on domain names or anything else. The Internet is a great experiment in true democracy, but that could prove to be its undoing if we aren't careful.
Definitely Crazy (Score:1)
By barring plebes from their board, ICANN is setting up a precedent by which they can ban just about anyone: "haven't been in the industry for 7.5 years? Sorry!" "Oh, you use linux? That's too unpopular... Sorry!" Who would be qualified?
So I'm going to say it: ICANN can go to hell! Information wants to be free!
Re:Definitely Crazy (Score:2)
Okay, I've heard this one to many times, and am sick of it. Information does not want to be free. Information doesn't want anything. It is just information. _You_ want information to be free. BigCompanyInc wants information to be theirs.
I agree, ICANN has some major problems, and needs to be killed and replaced. But informatin wanting to be free has nothing to do with, or with anything else.
(Yeah, I just hit the KarmaKap half an hour ago so I don't care anymore. Mod me down.)
Information does "want" to be free (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, I've heard this one to many times, and am sick of it. Information does not want to be free. Information doesn't want anything. It is just information.
"Information wants to be free!" is a geeky way of stating a rather obvious truth, one that was apparent two hundred years ago when Thomas Jefferson criticized the notion of patents and copyrights, long before the "information age" (i.e. the Intenet) ever dawned, to wit:
In the absence of profoundly draconian laws, and letigious thugs (IP lawyers) who go around over-reaching even those laws, information will almost always tend to flow widely and freely.
The entire concept of copyright was created by the British to counteract exactly this tendency by facilitating widespread and draconian censorship of the printing press (how easier can it get if you legislate printing monopolies from the outset and keep the press out of the hands of the unwashed masses
The founding fathers of the United States bought this justification hook, line, and sinker, empowering tremendous forces to limit and control the flow of information ever since. The free press (which isn't so free) acted as a minor counter force for a time, but as anyone whose carreer has been shitcanned by the recording industry, or anyone whose book has been privished by their publisher, will tell you, it aint much of a countering force when it puts the freedom in the same hands as those who have been granted control of the information through government fiat anyway.
Information, in its natural state, does tend to flow freely.
We've created an entire genre of draconian, invasive law (so much so that we have a different class of lawyers, who take a different bar exam, just for the genre of law. Yes, I'm talking about IP lawyers) to limit and prevent the free flow of information. The reason the laws are so complex, so pervasive, so draconian, and so invasive is precisely because information does tend to otherwise flow so freely. This has always been the case
Um, yes, it is crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are savvy enough to be aware of the elections, that pretty much means you are informed enough to vote on them.
Which is not to say that there couldn't be problems with the security-through-obscurity approach (a massive publicity campaign by an evil corporate entity, a "vote here" check box at your AOL log-in screen or something). But whether or not someone may have abused the system is something we will never know, because the system was never given a chance to work.
ICANN Moto (Score:2)
Unanimous (Score:4, Interesting)
Officially, as opposed to just practically (Score:2)
- First, they just refused to hold the elections of "at large" board members.
- Then they reduced the number of the "at large" board members.
- Then, they instigated a messed-up "registration" system, so it became very difficult for anyone to be eligible to vote.
- Then, after they finally do hold these messed up elections, and a couple outsiders do manage to get into the club, they thwart every move of those members, including refusing to show ICANN budget documents to some of the people who are ostensibly reponsible for said budget.
This final blow is simply a fait accompli. ICANN has effectively kept the internet-using public from having any say in their doings from the get -go.Re:Officially, as opposed to just practically (Score:1)
After all the rest of the governments in the world pretty much play mock-up games with concepts like "Democracy". Even democratic countries like the US lock out the commons through "representative democracy" whereby professional politicans can play games with corporate interests for fun and profit at the expense of the people (Enron, WorldCom, every one...all we are saying, is give us a hamsterdance at the taxpayers expense).
So, when something international like ICANN is playing by the rules of the international community, we should look at this as a preview to anything resembling a world-government...and by no means do they think our democracy is anything more than an idealists corporate playground.
The bottom line here is that the "old world" plays politics much differently than we do in the states. They don't have the incentive, desire, or need to change their game. That's why we don't always try to win political battles with other countries, we simply subvert their youth and sell things to them, we co-opt their cultural mindshare. Eventually we'll win, and repealing the laws and decisions of several generations of assholes is going to be tough, but hey, that's why we rock--they're going to pay us to do it.
I think George Orwell understood politics better than most. He understood the use of boots and faces.
Ok, that was an interesting ride but..... (Score:1)
The danger, of course, is that it will be replaced with something that will suck more.
BBC on ICANN (Score:4, Informative)
Net body accused of bullying tactics [bbc.co.uk]
Net body under pressure [bbc.co.uk]
Reforming the running of the net [bbc.co.uk]
Officially perhaps but probably not literally (Score:1)
See also plebiscite, something that ICANN would never countenance.
They can't have COMPLETE control though (Score:1)
Arpanet was designed to withstand any single point of failure, and in the same way it can't truly be completely controlled. Call my naive, but I still believe this to hold true.
Re:They can't have COMPLETE control though (Score:1)