WORTH READING ICANN proposes new way to buy top-level domains - Network World

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Karl Auerbach <karl () cavebear com>
Date: October 29, 2008 6:10:40 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] ICANN proposes new way to buy top-level domains -  
Network World


I have not had a chance to deeply read the details, but from what I  
have seen so far the proposal imposes very heavy and very expensive  
regulations onto the domain name business.

It is an expensive system that essentially reserves the domain name  
marketplace to all but the large, and often incumbent providers.  
Innovators in the "southern" (a euphemism for lesser developed)  
nations will be locked out due to the cost and the mandated compliance  
burdens.

Are those regulations justified?  There is not a lot of evidence that  
they are, although many incumbents will make arguments that are veiled  
attempts to protect their often lucrative positions.

Much of the regulatory apparatus and cost is based on rather  
questionable assumptions and fiat declarations of business models and  
sales channels.

Indeed, nearly all of what ICANN cares about are the front-office name- 
buying systems and not the back-office name server operational  
systems.  99.99% of the internet community cares nothing about the  
former but depends greatly on the latter.  Yet ICANN's attention is an  
inversion of that level of concern.

(And we ought to remember that ICANN is a body that operates without  
even a single voting voice that is put into his/her seat by the public  
for whose benefit ICANN obtains its legal existence and tax exemptions.)

ICANN is utterly out of touch with the innovative spirit of the  
internet - they are acting like a Los Angeles person who insists on  
forcing every resident of Manhattan to buy a SUV and drive it to work.

This proposal may well be the vehicle through which ICANN's budget and  
size reaches and surpasses that of the ITU.

And along the way ICANN has forgotten that it owes decisions to the 40  
applicants of year 2000 who paid ICANN's application fee, subjected  
themselves to ICANN's intrusive inspection, and were judged, often  
favourably, were told that they were not rejected but were merely in  
pending status, and who and have waited, patiently, these last 8  
years.  Those applicants deserve a first place in line.

By-the-way, there is still the question that ICANN never answers: From  
what source of authority does ICANN obtain immunity from laws of the  
US and elsewhere with regard to combinations that restrain trade?

                --karl--





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