IP: A very provocative note on -- ICANN/CNN Karl is a Board Member of ICANN

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

From: "Karl Auerbach" <karl+dated+1015094459.2a43f6 () cavebear com>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 10:40:58
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: Re: IP: -- ICANN/CNN

On Mon, 25 Feb 2002, Dave Farber wrote:

> President of Internet Oversight Body recommends major restructuring --
> says goal of leaving net entirely in private hands is unworkable.

The current management finds that the overhead of public participation
within ICANN is simply too inconvenient.

Imagine that Bush had abolished popular elections because he claims that
the Florida situation demonstrates that elections are unworkable.  Well,
that's what ICANN's management has said.

I'm sure that you will hear a montra about "no decisions have yet been
made" - well the mere existance of this plan has derailed all the work on
creating an at-large membership in ICANN.  So even if "no decision has
been made", the at-large effort has been essentially killed.

And what did they propose in its place - in a proposal that was created,
by the way, over a period of serveral months and at rather significant
expense, without bothering to inform the whole board or those directors
(such as myself) whose seats are eliminated - is to create a monstrosity
that insulates itself with additional layers of byzantine complexity,
including a council of orthodoxy (euphemistically called a "nominating
committee") to ensure that only the ICANN righteous will be allowed to
enter ICANN's paradise.

Why do we expect that governments, particularly the US government, that
tried to shed this hot potato, are going to be willing to step back in -
and to pay for the privilge?  (I do wonder whether Congress will quietly
appropriate the membership fee as ICANN's staff seems to believe.)  And
with the governments having to agree among themselves as to their
representative will be, we can probably expect that the appointee will be
he or she is the respective government's most expendable, the least
valuable person, probably someone who has never had a creative idea and
the personal drive of a bowl of warm gelatin.

What I wonder is this - how can a management that architected this failed
ICANN in the first place, that poisoned and torpoeded public participation
in ICANN at every opportunity, that operated with secrecy amounting to an
insult to the public and insubordination to the Board of Directors, and
has apparently driven ICANN into near insolvency, and who have now
admitted self-failure, be considered as suddenly able to pull a rabbit out
of a hat and solve all of ICANN's problems?

Isn't it better to remove incompetence then to reorganize it?

        --karl--






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