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ICANN Bucharest Meeting Comes to a Close
ICANN has been meeting in Bucharest this week; as this story goes live (assuming I handled the time zones correctly) they'll be starting their last day of meetings. Highlights of the day will almost certainly include the ICANN Board voting to eliminate the public participation that they were charged with implementing and have fought against for the last several years, and ICANN implementing a domain name tax to fund their operations. ICANN dismisses cynics who complain about taxation without representation. You can view the webcast online, assuming that the volunteers doing it manage to keep it up. If you prefer text, you may like Roessler's weblog or the ICANN blog (highly recommended), which also has many links to news stories, not that the reporters generally understand the issues very well.
Apparently you can sponsor ICANN, they use this money for meetings, etc. . .
Here's the levels from their site -
Three Levels of Sponsorship are available:
Top Level: US$15,000
Second Level: US$10,000
Third Level: US$5,000
My question is who in their right mind is sponsoring them? Normally a sponsorship would give you a little bit of influence, and ICANN seems to do whatever the hell they want. So the question is why would you sponsor these guys?
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ARIN, RIPE, and APNIC are getting pissed at them, and have publically suggested that ICANN restrict its role to whatever it is they're supposed to be doing and leave tech admin to organizations capable of doing it. <p?Their budget is spiraling and for that, we get the same kind of root administration we've been getting from Verisign and probably could get from another vendor with better results and for a fraction of the cost.
Their only real products appears to be hot air and bullshit.
Whether you're a US taxpayer or you're a domain name holder anywhere in the world... we're paying for this, what the hell are we getting out of this?
A domain name dispute resolution process universally regarded as unfair outside the Fortune 500? It would be more cost effective and equally fair to require disputants to disclose their net worths and award the domain to the party with the greater net worth.
It's time for some Congressman to carry a bill to unplug their funding... and resume contracting with Verisign to run the root via NSF pending figuring out a better solution.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Don't many dictatorships end in some kind of revolution?
Usually it takes extreme circumstances-- If the dictatorship becomes too oppressive, sooner or later they will be overthrown.
What would it take to overthrow ICANN? I think it would be a tremendous number of egregious crimes that affect a majority of Internet users.
What would an ICANN revolution look like? I don't know. A non-violent overthrow would need a viable replacement, and so far Alternet and new.net don't seem to be getting the traction they need.
Perhaps someone needs to come up with a whole new idea in naming and identifying computers and systems that is technically and practally superior to the current system-- something so compelling that people will choose to use it over ICANN.
I'd be interested in reading suggestions-- what would it take to overthrow ICANN? The Internet is so good at routing around central authorities. So how to bring the power back to the people?
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You should be complaining about how ICANN is run, not how it is funded. The taxation scheme is just a change to how they are funded, and is probably more logical than the previous system - given that they're a non-profit organisation, it's unlikely they're changing drastically how much they're funded.
I don't like how they're run either - but I couldn't care less how they bill the registrars (which is all this is).
[OT]: "No taxation without representation". Is this just a famous quote, or actually part of the US constitution? If it is, do children, criminals, madmen, and foreigners working in the US really not pay tax?
and have no representation in congress; no senator and no voting representative. It's not like we don't pay federal taxes or anything like that. Worse yet, D.C. residents pay District taxes and guess who decides how the money is spent? The U.S. Congress. Do I have a say? No.
Am I a U.S. Citizen? Yes, born and raised. Taxation without representation... what's new?