t byfield on Wed, 29 Sep 1999 18:19:23 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> US DoC/ICANN/NSI agreement fact sheet with comments


ronda@umcc.ais.org (Wed 09/29/99 at 08:39 AM -0400):

> >the US Commerce Dept, ICANN, and NSI announced a 'new agreement' today[1]
> >which supposedly will put to rest all that inconvenient squabbling. if you
> 
> The problem with ICANN is *not* inconvenient squabbling. 

um, ronda: 'sarcasm.'

> And though the U.S. media has tried to present the problem with
> ICANN as only a factional fight between ICANN and NSI, that is
> *not* the reality.

the US media is legendary for its failure to produce coherent analyses of
anything, let alone the technical/institutional/ administrative dimension
of a technical medium. note, for ex- ample, its collective curious silence
on subjects such as FCC activities, the 'end-user' aspects of telecom
policies or mer- gers, and the environmental impact of electronics. to
single out the media's failure on the subject of ICANN and NSI is to miss
the point: media coverage has first of all been minimal to the point of
nonexistent and only secondarily incompetent.  which is fine: if media
coverage were any heavier, it would fall squarely on the wrong side. 

> The ICANN structure and conception are the result of serious misconceptons
> about the nature of the Internet and how far certain business interests
> can go to seize control of essential Internet functions, and still
> have the Internet function in a way that will make it possible to 
> continue as an Internet, rather being split apart.

i wish this were so, but business interests can and will go as far as
possible to capture the net's essential functions. ICANN is, above all, a
mechanism of that capture: as long as it exists and functions, it will
advance that agenda. 

> The Internet requires scientific and accountable administration.

neither of which is *necessarily* independent of commercial in- terests;
in the past, they may have been more independent than they are now, but
for practical purposes that testifies only to how porous these
distinctions are becoming. you cannot look to US academia for independence
from commercial interests: it's be- come in very large part a refuge where
financiers can play with billion while wrapping themselves in the mantle
of 'higher edu- cation,' which has a very deleterious effect on oversight.
you can look to various technical-professional voluntary organiza- tions,
but networking is big bucks these days, and they're due to follow the path
of older organizations such as the AMA and the bar associations: more
representative of moneyed interests, less directly accountable to their
rank-and-file members, and platforms for advancing political careers. in
saying that this is what's happening, i'm *not* endorsing it. 

> The U.S. government activity creating ICANN as a way to throw its
> support to certain corporate entities to vie for control of 
> essential functions of the Internet is the opposite of what was needed.

oh, and more and worse: to elevate control to an 'international' level for
which there are few if any mechanisms of accountabil- ity to a
nonaggregated public. 

> The essential functions of the Internet require protection from 
> governments and to be put in the hands of scientific administration
> and developers. 

see above.

> That is the process that made it possible for the Internet to 
> develop. That is the process that needs to be understood for
> the Internet to continue.

to continue *in ways that you regard as legitimate.* again, to make that
distinction isn't to endorse the trends you oppose. 

> So called "private sector" control via a so called "nonprofit U.S.
> corporation" is *not* an entity that can be held accountable to
> protect the essential functions of the Internet from being the 
> continual target of the fight of vested interests. 
> 
> ICANN is under the control of whom? Accountable to whom?

had you come to the conference, you would have heard many very articulate
criticisms of ICANN on precisely these grounds, as well as on many more.
aside from esther dyson, no one, *but no one*, at that conference endorsed
ICANN's activities or argued for its legitimacy. 

> And Ralph Nader's so called proposal to CPSR shows that he 
> has no understanding of the nature of the Internet nor the 
> problem with ICANN. His proposal is intended to prettify what
> has been exposed to the world as a power grab by the U.S. government
> to give certain U.S. corporate entities control over essential
> Internet functions. Having a multilateral agreement of nations
> wouldn't change that as they have no way to have scientific
> leadership and oversight over the essential Internet functions.
> This multilateral agreement would only be a rubber stamp for
> ICANN's dirty deeds.

nader's proposal was a boring set piece developed prior to the substance
of the conference and, appropriately, it was tacked on at the end as a
sort of afterthought. it's a bit like, as someone said a few years ago, a
nineteenth-century solution to a twentieth-century problem.

> There is *no* basis to give the essential functions of the 
> Internet to a private entity. 

there was no basis for the world today a hundred years ago, but it seems
to have happened, doesn't it? once again: to point that out is *not* to
endorse the world today en bloc. but nostalgic appeals to claims like 'it
can't happen' or 'it won't work' have little effect. 

etc., etc.

i retain the URL for your proposal because it's a positive and important
contribution. 

> http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/dns_proposal.txt
 
> ICANN does none of these. It hasn't identified what problem
> really needs to be solved, and so is only setting a basis for
> vested interests to make their power grabs for control of 
> the Internet and all its users.

unfortunately, it has indeed identified the 'problems' to be solved: 

     * the possibility of nuanced or even anticommercial
       resolutions to disputes over domains

     * the persistence of technical/scientific admini-
       stration of essential services

     * procedural accountability to nonaggregated indi-
       viduals ('the public')

and it is solving them. for you and i and many others, these are *good*
things, not 'problems.' but, then, you and i don't much like ICANN, do we? 

> So the ICANN/NSI agreement is only the basis for a much more
> serious squabbling and a basis for ever greater instability 
> for the Internet and its users.

we shall see...

cheers,
t

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