ICANN vs. ccTLDs in Geneva

Gallowglass writes "The Register is reporting on an interesting meeting in Geneva. To quote from the article, 'Why the huge fuss? Because the meeting threatened to turn into a caucus where rising resentment against ICANN and its attempt to stamp ultimate authority over the Internet could have escalated into international agreement and action.' Didn't quite, but the natives are restless. The article has links to all presentations given at the two day meeting, and also an audio of the event at the bottom of the article. It's also a good summary of the controversy and of its history."

Comments

Re:BRING DOWN ICANN

[Sheetrock]

What's the alternative? We need a central authority on domain name issues to ensure that standards are kept and every country is on an equal footing when disputes occur. ICANN, like any other organization that is in ultimate control of a resource, can't please everybody, but as mentioned in the article breaking it up would make the domain name system more worthless than IP addresses.

I think there are a lot of people with business interests in getting a piece of ICANN for themselves, but giving it to them would hamper the interests of everybody who enjoys a stable Internet. Most people who dig beneath the anti-ICANN arguments to look at the facts and logic behind the situation come to realize that it is a necessary evil to cede control to one entity rather than trying to run DNS by committee.

Down with ICANN... but what next...

[MosesJones]

Okay what do _you_ want to see replace ICANN, what would make _you_ happy.

Then look at the real players at this event and think. Is the issue that ICANN has too much control or that...

These people, corporations and goverments want a slice of the pie and to dictate it all themselves.

Now given how these things tend to go I wouldn't bet large amounts of Turkish Lira, let alone Dollars, Euros or Pounds that if ICANN is toppled that the resulting quango isn't just a collection of "interested parties" aka "the usual suspects" who try and define the rules for themselves. Lets face it this goes in with the copyright issues in the US, the WTO "screw the 3rd world" and corporatisation of politics and policy.

ICANN might be total and utter nutters and a total pain in the arse. But are you REALLY sure that what comes next won't be worse ?

ICANN's reputation

[Alcohol Fueled]

"ICANN has achieved the goal of expanding and encouraging the Internet but at huge cost to its reputation."

Okay, this doesn't make much sense. If they expanded and encouraged the Internet, wouldn't that be a good thing? It seems to me that if they expanded and encouraged the Internet, they'd be seen as good people. That sentence from the article makes it sound like it's a bad thing. The Internet gives people access to a wealth of information and helps them do their shopping, banking, etc. It's just my opinion that if they've helped more people get that ability, they shouldn't have this whole "huge cost to their reputation" thing.