Legitimacy Of ICANN?

streak asks: "After listening to a talk given in my Law & Technology class by Karl Auerbach, who is on the Board of Directors of ICANN, I started to question the legitimacy of it. It seems that ICANN just kinda sprang up out of nowhere and stated that they have the right to administer the internet. But does anyone hold them accountable?" With the recent news of their fight with the IETF, is it finally time to question ICANN's authority?

"ICANN is really a government no matter how much they deny it. They create laws that affect people internationally and levy taxes in the form of fees for doamin registration. It can control anyone's presence on the internet by taking away your domain name and your IP address as they see fit.

The popular opinion of ICANN seems to be that they serve to exclude people rather than include them. This was exemplified by the fact a the most recent election that only 5 seats were up when there should have been a lot more (apparently some members self-lengthed their terms from 1 to 4 years)...

So as I understand it, ICANN was just sort of created by the Commerce Department without regards to any outside opinions. It seems like the Commerce Department is extending governmental rights to ICANN since the Commerce Department pretty much goes along with whatever they say. Why should ICANN receive so much weight in the mind of the Commerce Department? Perhaps we, as Internet users, should petition the Commerce Department for changes we want to top-level domains and other naming issues. To this end, I think we should question the foundation of ICANN.

I am not saying that the Internet shouldn't have a governing body, but perhaps it should have been created through a system that drew on input of Internet users, instead of shutting them out."

Comments

ICANN is a recent creation of a dishonest lawyer

[isdnip]

ICANN dates back all the way to 1998 or so. Before then, the generally-accepted authority was Jon Postel at IANA. Jon died suddenly. Shortly afterwards, a lawyer with IBM connections named Joe Sims showed up, claiming that Jon had hired him to create a body to oversee Internet names and addresses.

Sims set up ICANN, giving the top job first to newsletter writer Esther Dyson, and appointing the "interim" board. Most of them are still there, "boardsquatters"! ICANN made a deal with Ira Magaziner at the White House, who got DoC to accept them as the new authority.

Thus Joe Sims is the Melvin Dummar of the Internet. (Mel had a forged Howard Hughes will, giving him a share of the late zillionaire's estate. His phoney story made a funny film, "Melvin and Howard".)

Legally, their authority is only what you believe in. Anybody can set up a DNS server and anybody can set their resolver to whatever server they want. ICANN replaced Dyson with MCI Worldcom's Vint Cerf, keeping its UUNET (the largest ISP) on its side. But a grassroots movement can, in theory, give power to an alternative root. New.net is the latest one to have some credibility.

Vint himself, of course, is the Chauncy Gardner of the Internet. (Chauncy was the retarded protagonist of "Being There", whose simpleminded mumblings were confused with brilliance.)

For more info, you all might enjoy http://www.icannwatch.org/