Ronda Hauben on 3 Aug 2000 14:31:59 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Complaint to US Dept of Commerce on ICANN abuse of users |
I sent the following to Becky Burr a few minutes ago as a formal complaint about the ICANN abuse of users My proposal is online at the Dept of Commerce NTIA web site and also at http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt I welcome comments and discussion on the issues raised by the letter I have sent to Becky Burr and on the actual problem that has to be solved to protect and scale the vital functions of the Internet in the public interest. Ronda ronda@panix.com ---------- >Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 11:57:34 -0400 (EDT) >From: <ronda@panix.com> >To: bburr@ntia.doc.gov, msondow@iciiu.org, tom.bliley@mail.house.gov, vcerf@mci.net >Subject: Formal complaint of abuse of users by ICANN Becky Burr NTIA U.S. Dept of Commerce Washington, D.C. Dear Becky Have you tried to register for ICANN's membership? First the membership is an ill conceived notion to try to hide that ICANN has been formed to deny the public interest with regard to the Internet's names, numbers and protocols. It's an effort to make it seem that a non profit corporation can be entrusted with the ownership and control of vital functions of the infrastructure of the Internet. A nonprofit corporation can't be entrusted with this. These are vital social and public resources and they can't be put into a private sector entity. However, rather than the US government making it possible to examine the problem of how to protect the vital functions of the Internet and to scale them in the public interest, ICANN was empowered by the U.S. Department of Commerce with unbridled powers and a limited provision was created for so called "membership" of users, i.e. some limited right supposedly to vote for certain so called at large directors. Well, people are now trying to sign up for that membership, for that limited right to vote and it is clear that the ICANN folks are not even making any access available to that. The version to sign up at the ICANN web site requires frames. So people who don't have a browser with frames are not able to even use that part of the web site. And an alternative web site set up in another country gives a message of "We are sorry. The database is currently overloaded. Please try again when the system is less busy." when I tried to sign up. Clearly the whole ICANN model is not appropriate for the needs of the Internet and its users. I did propose a different model, and a prototype to build this model to you before ICANN was given the U.S. Dept of Commerce contract. Clearly it was crucial that you explore other models and try to determine what was the best proposal for the problem the U.S. government was faced with, namely how to protect the vital functions of the Internet from vested interests and to make it possible for them to scale. It seems that the U.S. government wasn't even interested in trying to identify the problem that had to be solved, let alone in trying to determine how to solve it. I am formerly objecting to the whole process of the creation and development of ICANN by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and requesting that you find a way to have the proposal I provided the Department of Commerce implemented. My proposal provided a means to create meaningful online participation by users and for computer scientists supported by their governments to create an open process that would utilize the Internet and its interactive processes to create the cooperative form needed to safeguard the vital functions of the Internet's infrastructure. That is what is needed not an institutional entity to encourage the "vested interests" to fight over power and control over vital functions of the Internet. I am sending this to you as a formal complaint of not being allowed to register with ICANN and asking that you take the necessary means to stop the abuse of users and the Internet that ICANN represents. Sincerely Ronda Hauben 244 West 72nd Street Apt 15D New York, N.Y. 10023 U.S.A. (212)787-9361 ronda@ais.org _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold