more on American dominance of the Internet, redux

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: John Levine <johnl () iecc com>
Date: October 17, 2005 12:50:05 PM EDT
To: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Cc: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on American dominance of the Internet, redux


> The rope that we're twisting on has become extremely frayed.  While
> it might be comforting for some observers to wish that the "slightly
> illegitimate" status quo could be maintained, that is not to be for
> much longer.

Why do you say that?  Why do you think that 13 independent minded
self-funded root server operators spread around the world would be any
more likely to follow stupid instructions from some newly formed
son-of-ICANN than they would from ICANN?  Or that the five
independently managed self-funded RIRs would?  Any country that tried
to enforce root policy would shoot itself in the foot, since it'd be
cutting itself off from the rest of the net.

The point that I think Esther was trying to make, and with which I
agree, is the despite the bureaucratic fog around ICANN, the essential
structure of the Internet is in fact still run on the basis of
informal agreements, people have very carefuly avoided testing the
limits of those agreements, and nothing anyone is proposing is likely
to change that.  Especially not replacing ICANN with something else.

R's,
John



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