Re: A comment by Esther Dyson -- Icann Hires Former Cybersecurity Chief as New C.E.O. [with comments]

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Date: July 1, 2009 12:26:41 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, Esther Dyson <edyson () edventure com>
Subject: Re: [IP] A comment by Esther Dyson --     Icann Hires Former  
Cybersecurity Chief as New C.E.O. [with  comments]

Esther Dyson's comment "ICANN has regulated the wrong things" caused  
me to think really hard about what might have been a right thing, and  
what it means to "regulate" it.

ICANN's sole action space is to define strings of characters and to  
assign network address ranges to routing authorities.  And it can  
charge fees for doing that.

Unfortunately for ICANN, any *policy* seems to be governed by national  
and international laws, primarily the laws around trademark, since  
strings of characters can be thought of as representing words that may  
turn out to be trademarks.

Consider an idea that has always intrigued me - create a TLD spelled  
".int", which stands for "Is Not a Trademark [either intentionally or  
by accident]", and the registrar would be required by ICANN to affirm  
that the names used in that TLD were contractually asserted to be not  
*used as trademarks*.

Then I could use "reed.int" without fear that some large company named  
"reed" would accuse me of cybersquatting - because I assert in the  
name itself that I am not referring to any trademarked product,  
service or company named "reed".

Could ICANN have done this?  I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it  
isn't the ICANN board's fault if it couldn't.

And that's my point.  ICANN itself is nearly powerless.  It cannot  
regulate the *right* things, even if we knew what they were.  At best  
it can advocate and try to understand the many contending  
jurisdictions and competing entities seeking a modicum of monopoly  
control or a policy wedge.

In this sense, ICANN is not a sovereign.   It is more like the weakest  
from of a "democracy" - it derives ALL of its power from the "consent  
of the governed".  And unfortunately, they haven't consented to be  
governed.

ICANN was not created, IMO, to "regulate" anything.  It's a fantasy to  
think that it could.






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