[IP] more on American dominance of the Internet, redux
Begin forwarded message:
From: Esther Dyson <edyson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: October 15, 2005 5:24:20 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
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
CNET Networks
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