more on American dominance of the Internet, redux

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Esther Dyson <edyson () edventure com>
Date: October 15, 2005 5:24:20 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] American dominance of the Internet, redux


Another take on all this... (primarily for those following the issue  
closely, because it leaves out a lot of background)

I'm planning to post it, but I may change it if I learn something new  
in the meantime.

Esther

ICANN - In praise of illegitimacy
One place I am *not* going, however, is Tunisia… despite all the  
excitement over WSIS, which stands for World Summit on the  
Information Society <http://www.itu.int/wsis/>http://www.itu.int/ 
wsis/,  taking place in Tunis November 16 to 18.  But of course, WSIS  
is more than just an event. It’s a series of “processes,” the term  
bureaucrats use for meetings and conference calls.  The main thrust  
of WSIS is that ICANN <http://www.icann.org/>www.icann.org – which  
sets policy for the Domain Name System and which I chaired in its  
start-up phase, 1998-2000 – is fundamentally US-dominated and should  
be brought under proper, legitimate, international control,  
accountable to all the people of the world. I beg to disagree.  You  
can argue about the details, but yes, ICANN is to some extent under  
US control, even though it has a thoroughly international board and  
lots of other checks and balances.  It mostly acts on its own but it  
does have a contract with the US government tat gives it what little  
authority it has… plus general agreement by most domain-name  
registrars and registries to follow its rules for lack of any other  
authority.  You may think that's  a slightly unstable situation, and  
indeed it is.  The US would *like* to give up control (ICANN is a hot  
potato), but only to an organization it trusts.

There’s the rub.  The US doesn’t – and personally I don’t – trust any  
other organization to take over ICANN, although we have different  
reasons. (I also know that if the US tried to impose its will on the  
Internet more broadly through ICANN, it would meet proper, quick and  
strong resistance.)

Indeed, the very whiff of illegitimacy around ICANN is its saving  
grace.  Suppose some body emerged that was generally considered to be  
legitimate, and that could tightly control the DNS through ICANN. If  
it was legitimate, what would stop it from doing much more? It could  
quickly set new, broad rules governing “appropriate” content,  
intellectual property rights, “suitability” for domain name ownership… 
and because it was legitimate, it would be hard to stop it.

The biggest danger for ICANN is indeed that it become “legitimate”  
and way too powerful.  Its current slightly off-kilter authority  
keeps it from amassing power  and from attracting the inevitable  
power-hungry forces that would abuse that power.  In short,  I’m not  
so much in favor of US control as I am in favor of the current status  
quo of uncertain, dis-armed control.






Esther Dyson              Always make new mistakes!
Editor, Release 1.0

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