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ICANN Budget Questioned
Thing I am writes "The proposed 2004-5 budget for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has hit a snag - the rest of the world is refusing to pay its share of the bill. ICANN last week proposed a budget of $15.8m for next year, nearly twice as much as its current annual expenditure."
From the article: "ICANN is relying on the fact that Europe's Internet registries (although CENTR, despite its name, represents far more than just European interests) will want to have ICANN in charge more than they will want an international body controlled by governments (the ITU)"
I'm not getting something. Why would a (I presume) for-profit corporation like ICANN be preferable to a system controlled by governments? Honest question, I'm really curious. What does ICANN offer that this ITU doesn't?
Yup...
It's better than what the UN would charge for this (I shudder to think)
Considering they only need $1 million to do their core duties, I'd be asking for a fairly detailed itemized bill before I fork over twice as much as last year with no increase in operating costs.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
There would be no real problem with ICANN if there was a rational process for appointing it. The problem here is that a constitution designed for a benevolent dictator is now in the hands of a group of people with the outlook of a US CEO.
This is the sort of thing that happened at the New York Stock Exchange.
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Could ICANN be committing suicide the way XFree86 did?
But in the article it also states they are requesting a lot more money for the IANA. Twenty times more in fact. With the RIRs and LIRs taking over more of the duties with respect to number assignment in IPv6, I don't see why the IANA needs so much more money.
Somebody at ICANN needs to wise up, and stop trying so many power grabs. They should be delegating as much as possible to the regional/country authorities. Instead they seem to be on a crusade to be the ultimate ruling body on all matters relating to the Internet. And yet, they have shown they barely have the strength to stand up to a company like VeriSign.
True, $16 million dollars is nothing. So instead of calling people (in this case Europa) cheapskates you should look for other motives. This isn't about money, but control. CENTR obviously doesn't like what ICANN has become, and uses it's most effective way of pressuring ICANN to change.
- These characters were randomly selected.
$16 million is plenty of money. I agree that it very comfortably falls into any "margin of waste" for governments, but it's hardly nothing. For instance, it's roughly the budget shortfall of my old school district that I went to high school in. If I was The World Community and had to decide between a specific appropriation so a bunch of bureaucrats could fly around on private corporate jets at public expense and funding the education of a few thousand children, I'd cut ICANN loose too.
Noob. The Web (invented by Tim Berners-Lee) != the internet.
The US *did* invent the internet: Google for Arpanet (and of course Al Gore's contribution ;-)
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
While I'm never part of the tinfoil hat crowd, it does make me concerned when the most free form of media becomes more and more in control of one country.
"The truth suffers from too much analysis"
And we Brits invented electricity
That's right. Anyone who tells you it existed before that is lying.
Those fish that give you electric shocks only evolved the skill after stealing the idea from the Brits.
Mother Nature, you owe UK plc humungous amounts of money for your unauthorised use of electricity in your 'thunder' and 'lightning' services.
Your type of thinking is the reason you guys are currently up to your ass in the Iraq quagmire
Yeah, I'm glad that there aren't any British troops in Iraq too. *cough*
that and the fact that your incompetent "President" got taken by a ride by Iranian intelligence.
Call me a sceptic, but I see this as more like the WMD thing "not being as good an excuse to invade Iraq as we'd hoped".
And I can't be arsed going into much depth about Tony Blair, save that he either believes the bullshit put out before, during and "after" the war, which makes him an idiot. Or alternatively, that he previously went along with the Iraq thing to preserve Britain's influence with the US; except that it's obvious now that Britain only has influence when they do what the US want them to do- i.e. they *don't* have any influence, and Tony Blair is still behaving like the US's dementedly loyal poodle.
Being a sceptic, I went along with the second explanation, and it's only recently dawned on me how incompetent and one-dimensional Tony Blair is.
Oh, and I am a "Brit" too if you want to call me that.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
We did invent the electronic computer, at least :-)
Actually British scientists were working on networking computers in the late 1960s along with those in the USA. The USA got to a practical solution first, though.
Anyway, none of this really matters unless inventions are so locked down that a country is heavily economically disadvantaged if it doesn't get to inventions first. I'd rather inventions be seen from the perspective of being able to enrich human existence through synergy with other developments, whatever the country of origin. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, after all.
The constitution was designed to have frequent elections of the board members...but they've neglected to ever have one. (It's possible that I have the wrong group here, but I doubt it.)
Personally, I think everyone should refuse to pay ICANNs budget. But I believe that the US govt. has assumed control. In which case, I certainly understand everyone else refusing to pay.
My personal feeling is that the rest of the world should get together and create their own equivalent. Then the US could join as an equal, or could maintain "splendid isolation". But that it's quite unreasonable for the US to expect to call the tunes, and then have everyone else share the bill.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.