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Karl Auerbach Wins Right To Inspect ICANN Records

Posted by timothy on from the some-kind-of-wonderful dept.

Siobhan Hansas writes: "Karl Auerbach was in court today fighting for the right to inspect and copy documents he first asked to see in 2000, shortly after he became a member of the Board of Directors. Salon have the AP story. Auerbach won the right to inspect documents, but not to copy them, and was required to give ICANN 10 days notice of release of any information marked "confidential" to give them the opportunity to seek a court order stopping him." M : A first-hand report from the hearing makes good reading.

9 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. remind me... by skydude_20 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    remind me again why we have to have these kinds of legal battles with the orginization that is "running" the Internet? Doesn't it counter the "priciples" of the 'net? (openness, sharing of knowledge, etc..)

    --
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    1. Re:remind me... by Oculus+Habent · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We have the problem of equating the Internet with a truly distributed, open system controlled by no one and belonging to no one.

      Too often we forget that DNS is completely dependant upon 13 central systems, and much of the networking is commercially owned.

      That last part has come to mind recently, due to the troubles of KPNQwest and WorldCom.

      --
      That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
  2. ICANN is trying to stomp out the public interest by dh003i · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ICANN has -- as we all know -- hindered Mr. Aeurbach and others representing the public interest since elected. Now, they're finally forced to give him access to all documents -- though he should also be given an unequivicol right to copy them and make them publicly available.

    It would be in character if ICANN went through before Friday and labelled all of their documents "confidential". These guys are crooks just like the people at Enron and Global Crossings.

    ICANN obviously realized what a mistake they made in "allowing public elections", as critics were elected. They're revoking elections so they can retain their totalitarian control. Fucking nazi's.

    Auerbach should have a permanent seat. No one on ICANN has done a better job than him. All the rest of them -- aside from that European elected fellow, allied with Auerbach -- are crooks.

    --
    social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
  3. 10 days so they can do... what? by kelnos · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "...required to give ICANN 10 days notice of release of any information marked 'confidential' to give them the opportunity to seek a court order stopping him."
    oh really? or might this be the 10-day period of "oh shit let's see what we can cover up and hide in ten days so he doesn't find out?" while that is of course illegal, i wouldn't put it past them if there really is anything incriminating in those records. granted, they've had plenty of time to do so...

    does this seem to anyone else as just a pitiful bid for extra time? auerbach has been working for two years to get ahold of these documents. what could an extra 10 days possibly do for ICANN? they're just trying to be difficult on principle...
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  4. Re:Karl hasn't got long... by kcbrown · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...which means that he won't get very far, because ICANN will of course attempt to get a court order to stop him from releasing any information to the public, and he'll be prevented from doing so until the court renders its opinion one way or the other. And that's for every separate instance. ICANN will of course make sure that each attempt to get a court order takes as long as possible.

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  5. So what happens next? by ukryule · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Great. So he gets to read all the documents - one assumes that all of them will be marked 'confidential' (if they're not, then why didn't they let him see them in the first place?). So assuming that he'll then try to publically question some of the reports, ICANN will seek a court order to stop him releasing confidential information.

    So are we just in for another round of legal battles?

  6. Re:You want OpenNIC by btempleton · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, I am not talking about opennic or new.net or similar. A splintered net is useless, which is why nobody uses these extra TLDs. I have yet to see any of these extra TLDs appear in a URL, ad, billboard or E-mail address, and for good reason.

    There is a natural monopoly in the root. We all have to use the same root, or I can't tell you my e-mail address and expect you to be able to e-mail me with it. Or I have to tell you which root I use, which means a super-root that lists roots, in otherwords a shared root once again.

    Attempts at alternate roots will fail both because of this, and because most of them so far have just tried to be a different ICANN. They still wanted to hand out TLD monopolies to people and create TLDs with inherent meaning.

    A really workable system has to have all TLD operators (and thus the 2lDs under them) on an even footing. If they are not on an even footing you get artificial scarcity as people try to own meaningful words and phrases ahead of everybody else. Then you get conflict.

    Nobody has done this.

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    Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
  7. Re:You want OpenNIC by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But the flow isnt 2 way. What happens to the AOL user who can resolve your domain? This is why most splinter DNS NICs dont work.

  8. ICANN doesn't think of itself as public... by dpbsmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought this was very interesting: (from http://icann.blog.us/stories/2002/07/29/auerbachWi nsCourtCriticize.html cited above:)

    "ICANN responded that it didn't see Microsoft or IBM putting their general ledgers and charts of account on the web, but the Judge quickly intervened with this: Court: 'As a non-profit, public benefit corporation, you have a duty to the public -- the international public in this case -- that is very different than Microsoft or IBM. This is a public benefit corporation.'"

    That's just the problem. ICANN keeps forgetting that it's public, and keeps falling back into the private, corporate mindset.

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