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ICANN Releases Reform Plan
If you've followed the history of ICANN at all, you know that it was originally set up to have substantial representation from the general public (known as At-Large representatives) - 9 of 18 board members. The original unelected board immediately set about undermining that, only electing 5 members and keeping on four "board-squatters" from the original unelected bunch.
The elections of the five At-Large members had two flaws from the point of view of ICANN's unelected board:
- There were assorted technical issues with the voting process, due apparently to incompetence from the contractor who handled it.
- Two of the five new board members who were elected did not represent the same corporate interests as the rest of the board.
Of these two flaws, the second was by far the more severe. The board risked losing control of ICANN to people who might run it for the public good rather than for the good of the corporations represented on the board. They started backing away from having any sort of elected representation whatsoever. In February 2002 ICANN President Lynn floated a reform proposal which would eliminate the At-Large representation - or rather, it would keep something called "At-Large", that would no longer be elected by the general public but instead appointed by the Board itself. Instead of the general public picking new ICANN Board members, the ICANN Board would pick new ICANN Board members. This was followed by a vote which confirmed ICANN's commitment to eliminating elected representation.
Now the reform proposal is out. There would be two classes of board members:
- approximately eight ex-officio members (members holding the board seat due to some other title or position they hold)
- approximately five to eleven members picked by a Nominating Committee (the Committee to be chosen by the current Board) and perhaps confirmed by the Board
It is important to note how thoroughly captured this process is. Many of the ex-officio seats accrue from positions that are selected by the ICANN Board. So the ICANN Board picks someone to be chief dogwalker, and the chief dogwalker gets an automatic position on ICANN's Board.
The seats selected by the Nominating Committee are also extremely vulnerable to capture. Let me use a real-life example of how nominating committees work to show what I mean: my credit union.
My credit union has a board structure very similar to the one proposed for ICANN: several ex-officio members, and a number of seats elected by the general populace (everyone who has an account at the credit union). This structure is actually more flexible than that proposed for ICANN, since ICANN does not plan any direct elections at all. However, the credit union membership picks from among candidates selected by a Nominating Committee. Every year or two, I get a ballot in the mail. I can choose from among all the candidates selected by the Nominating Committee, and I can check boxes for the candidates that I prefer, up to the number of open seats available on the Board.
I never return these ballots. Why, you might ask? Because the number of candidates is usually identical to the number of open seats. Three empty seats, three candidates to choose from. Six empty seats, six candidates to choose from. I think one year they might have had more candidates than open seats, but it was an aberration.
This system apparently works well for credit unions: would you believe that they pay interest on my checking account? What it does guarantee is that all future Board members will represent the same biases that are present in the Board at the instant the system was instituted. In my credit union's case, this guarantees "fiscal responsibility" or "fiscal conservatism".
For ICANN, what it would do is institutionalize the biases currently present. Whatever biases are there right now, will be there forever, as the system becomes a self-reinforcing feedback loop with no external controls.
The Board's current biases are toward:
- expanding ICANN's mission from a purely technical body to one that is willing to govern the Internet - taking on assorted social/political issues as it sees fit
- running ICANN for private profit rather than public benefit
Neither of these two traits needs reinforcing. Karl Auerbach, one of ICANN's At-Large directors, has his thoughts on a possible ICANN structure.
It's been said on here before: the only force that can really act against spam is the government. "There oughta be a law", in so many words. Every day our inboxes are packed to the eyeteeth with ads for diplomas, penis pumps, and vitamins from Korea. No technical solution has proven itself, so it's obvious that we need outside help. I think we're all agreed on that.
But our individual governments can't do anything outside of our borders (some exceptions apply, of course). We need a governing force capable of applying unilateral legislation consistently, without possibility of loopholes, in order to stop offshore spam. Who better than ICANN, really?
I'm with you that we need a couple of seats to represent our interests, but unfortunately we need the entrenched interests to have power to stop the net from collapsing into a puddle of anarchy and unsolicited commercial e-mail. It's not your father's Internet anymore.
If you'd like a domain name without having anything to do with ICANN, look into OpenNIC.
.glue, .geek, .null, .indy, .parody, and .oss However these are not official ICANN domains, so you need to setup different DNS roots for your dns server, and obviously a dns server that supports these domains for users.
You can get free domains, on their tlds,
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
It is strange how the Internet was considered to be the place where the great idea and the little guy could beat the old, hulking, mega-corportation, but now the tide has certainly turned. Losing total control of the ICANN is certainly not the end of the world, but more a symptom of what is happening on the whole.
Linus made a kernel and decided to let other people use it and change it. His name is on it, so anything bad that it does reflects on him. If I were in his position, I would be very selective about what code gets attached to my reputation, too.
ICANN, on the other hand, is supposed have stewardship over a public resource, which they are coopting for personal gain.
If Linus suddenly decides to close the Linux kernel source and sell it under MS-style license, your comparison would be reasonable. Until that happens, you're effectively trying to say that apples are oranges.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
The difference lies in the fact that you can choose what OS/Kernel/distribution you want to use, but you can't choose not to use ICANN if you want to use the Internet. ICANN controls the NANA, which means they control the IP addresses, and they control who manages the TLDs.
If you have a problem with the direction that Linus and the Linux kernel developers are going, you can (1) fork the kernel, (2) use Free/Open/Net BSD, (3) use some variant of Windows, or (4) find something else. If you have a problem with ICANN's policies, you're stuck. They've got a monopoly, and they're using it with an agenda. You may or may not agree with their agenda (I don't), but their proposal for eliminating elected board members means that they're eliminating any hope that you or I could influence their agenda short of completely overthrowing the system.
Even dictators have to pretend to have laws and courts...
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
You *ARE* crazy if you think corporate interests represent stability and strength. That has been, for so many decades, a mere illusion.
With the recent collapse of so many corporations and related scandals, I'd say it's time to have a closer look at what we consider to be stability and strength. With only a glance at the TV you would find that corporations are anything but stable right now... moreover, they're irresponsible and self-serving. Since Microsoft is the popular "bad corporation" example, look at the recent situation with their accounting practices. For some reason there was no fines or formal accusations and while they agreed to change their ways (yeah, right!) they admit to no wrong doing.
Okay maybe I'm just reacting to a troll and... oh well, my bad then... or maybe it was supposed to be funny, in which case, I'm trying to laugh but I just can't.
I know this has been discussed before, but it seems that now is an appropriate time to bring it up again. It seems high time for an overthrow of ICANN.
Yes, we have alternate registrars with alternate TLDs, but I don't mean that. I mean that there isn't anything stopping anyone from setting up an alternative to ICANN, with all its constituent committees and groups. Give the new organization several key features, such as a charter that can't be changed at the whim of the leadership of the day, a clear method of representation for Internet users and a straightforward method for choosing reps, and a progressive method for selecting new TLDs that doesn't take decades to work through. Make it everything ICANN isn't, and then make a play for control of the root nameservers. If the new organization can't get them directly, then it could set up its own. The best part of this strategy is that if the alternate organization starts to gather support, ICANN, the DoC, and Congress would be forced to acknowledge it or risk breaking the DNS system as the two organizations take divergent paths.
This may not work, and it'll probably be messy as hell, but it'll be fun, and it'll scare the hell out of some people and groups who desperately need the hell scared out of them.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
Sure, nobody really supports OpenNIC names. But if you try and fork the kernel, it's not going to have any support from the big names either. In either case, it's going to take serious abuse on ICANN or Linus' part to make an alternative viable.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
ICANN is completely unnecessary. There's only one reform we need to make to the domain-name system, and then it never needs to be changed again.
.com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, and .mil.
.com, etc. to .com.us, etc. Second, allow any .com domain created before 1 January 2003 under the old system to redirect to the new .com.us domain. Third and finally, provide for the dissolution of ICANN as of 1 January 2003, though it can stay around in a limited form to handle redirects until 1 January 2005 (after which all .com, etc. domains will stop working).
.int. And there's really only two groups that would use .int; the UN, and the EU. Both of those groups can be given country codes of their own. The new domains, including .museum and (chicken).coop, are useless anyway should be scrapped along with the other 6.
Eliminate all TLDs except those for country codes.
There is no such thing as a global web site. Every website is headquartered somewhere. The BBC's website is www.bbc.co.uk. The Toronto Globe and Mail's website is www.globeandmail.ca Only the United States, by default really, has no strong country-code, so US websites are run at
ICANN's reform proposal only needs to accomplish three things. First, provide for the immediate migration of
The only three-letter TLD not owned by the US is
All of ICANN's old responsibilities can then be transferred to the owners of the country-code domains.
Repeat after me. The Web is not the Internet. The Web is not the Internet. The Web is not the Internet.
For example, how does google help with email? Do you really want bob@sdoiyfkah12esdc.com?
The one great flaw I consistently see from the Old Men of the Internet is that they are still thinking that DNS is something to be managed as a scarce resource. Domain names and TLDs are NOT scarce! Root servers can't handle another 100 TLDS? Puhleeze!
Instead of trying to invest in all of the political baggage to regulate something, they should be focused on an exit strategy of creating such abundance that regulation is unnecessary.
Stop wasting time writing to representatives or corporations or businessmen that want to make money. When the technology arrives go out and buy yourself a nice wireless access point for around $100-$200 that gives you a broadband wireless connection. And in the mean time be talking with ALL your friends and fellow geeks about how YOU are going to create a wireless net that maps out over your city. If we all do this in all of our cities we'll be able to replace ISPs with our broadband wireless nets for a fraction the cost of the backend equipment. Then just look for software like freenet and the alternate root domains to route traffic. With a little effort and some patience we'll take back the net that was never ours to begin with. Wireless technology bundled with linux will allow you to make a router that routes between wireless access points instead of using the internet as the backbone. And a completely wireless free internet can not be controlled by anyone. But don't listen to me, I don't know anything.