[Nettime-bold] FW: <nettime> ICANN's proposed 'reform'

["Michael Gurstein" <mgurst@vcn.bc.ca>]

There is a debate now beginning to rage concerning the future of ICANN, the
"private" group which manages the global system of Domain Naming.

While this is in some sense obscure, at another level it is really concerned
with the essence and architecture of the Internet.

As anyone who has followed this list will know, I've had concerns about this
for years now and particularly that there has been no avenue for developing
a Canadian public interest perspective and intervention within Canada or
ICANN around this issue.  The Feds appear to have chosen not to discuss this
matter in public since the rather notorious Green Paper in 1997 (?) which
only dealt with technical matters.

Canadian ISPs have had an active role and interest in this representing
their own (national?) interests but overall Canada which is arguably the
second country of the Net (after the US) has had none of the public interest
policy infrastructure development that has taken place in the US or in
Europe largely I would argue because, where previously these issues had been
discussed within a framework of organizations with public support, for
whatever reason no public support has been available for discussions in this
most crucial area.  The Chretien government's conflation of Canadian
corporate interests in this sector with the national/public interest has
been allowed to proceed without serious scrutiny.

These matters again become acute in this current context since there seems
to be no articulation of a middle way between the two essentially US-centric
positions currently presented.  On the one side there is the "Federalist"
position of the current ICANN CEO and staff which is to reduce (or
eliminate) the role of the at large membership in favor of an increased role
for individual governments, while on the other hand there is the "Populist"
position being articulated by Ted Byfield and others in the US from a public
interest perspective, which is extremely suspicious of this approach and of
any government involvement in Internet governance and which wishes to carry
on with the "experiment" of a substantial role for the Internet's at large
"membership(?)".

However, as the most recent document from Dr. Lynn, the ICANN CEO points
out, the Internet is now too important for national and international
commerce, security and general well-being for it to be left to extremely
fragile and essentially ad hoc processes for its long-term structural
stability.  No government in their right mind is going to leave the future
of a fundamental building block of its internal commercial structures to the
ghost of Jon Postel.

So surely the issue should not be if, but how to restructure Internet
governance so as to ensure the broadest public interest in the face of
extreme and self-interested pressures and attempts at intervention from the
most globally powerful national and corporate interests.

The development and presentation of a possible third position, such as for
example the use of the UN, UN related or some other global governance
structure to represent a global "public interest" has been generally
disregarded in these discussions because of the usual US suspicion and
misunderstanding of the role and functioning of the UN and broadly based
institutions for global governance.

But there is no reason against and very significant reasons for public
interest groups and national governments outside of the US to opt for a
multi-lateral strategy and the pressures from public interest advocates
within the US and elsewhere should to my mind be directed toward ensuring
that the global governance structure which does emerge is one which takes
sufficient account of public as well as private goods.

Mike Gurstein

-----Original Message-----
From: nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net
[mailto:nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net]On Behalf Of t byfield
Sent: February 25, 2002 2:34 AM
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: <nettime> ICANN's proposed 'reform'



dave--

it's worth noting that dyson responded twice on the ALSC forum to
mention of CEO stuart lynn's 'proposal' for the 'reform' of ICANN.
in her first message[1] she said:

    FYI....  I have not yet had time to read this. the paper
    pointed to is 109K.

in her second message,[2] written less than a minute later, she
took a different tack:

     the board took no action other than to discuss and encourage
     discussion.....

it seems like dyson had second thoughts about her initial response
(pleading ignorance) and decided that it'd be better to try to re-
assure people that everything's in order. unfortunately, that's no
reassurance at all. in theory, ICANN CEO lynn and the rest of the
staff are subordinate to the board of *directors*, not vice versa.
so what are we to make of it when the board 'takes no action' ex-
cept for impotent dialog while the CEO publicly suggests that they
should be packed up and shipped back to wherever they came from?

the event that supposedly led up to this was an ICANN gathering in
washington, d.c., on 23-24 feb. since this gathering was billed as
a 'retreat' rather than, say, a 'board meeting,' ICANN has managed
to circumvent public-disclosure laws regarding official meetings.
not that it matters, really, because hardly anything of substnace
could have taken place: lynn managed, somehow, to crank out 109K of
proposal precisely while the board was doing nothing beyond 'dis-
cuss[ing] and encourag[ing] discussion.'

even a cursory reading of lynn's proposal makes the problem all too
clear, because he puts an inordinate amount of energy into calling
everything, including the kitchen sink, 'at large.' the problem that
ICANN faces is simple: it--by which i mean staff, not the somnolent
board--is absolutely opposed to free-form democratic input. histor-
ically, that form of input was supposed to be the 'at large.' now,
in lynn's proposal, regionally determined government representatives
would be 'at large.' this humpty-dumpty-style sophistry has become
painfully familiar to anyone who spends much time paying attention
to ICANN; but lynn's proposal is a new nadir in obscurant rhetoric.

the problem is quite simple, really: when ICANN was first formed, its
'initial' board promised, in dyson's own *sworn* testimony before a
house subcommittee,[3]

     ICANN's elected Directors will join the Board in two waves:
     the first wave will consist of nine Directors chosen by ICANN's
     Supporting Organizations; the second wave will be elected by
     an At-Large membership consisting of individual Internet users.
     The Board expects the first wave to be completed by November
     1999, and the second wave as soon as possible following that.
     In any event, the process of creating a fully elected Board
     must be completed by September 2000.

     [...]

     As to the second wave, it is ICANN's highest priority to complete
     the work necessary to implement a workable At-Large membership
     structure and to conduct elections for the nine At-Large Directors
     that must be chosen by the membership. ICANN has been working
     diligently to accomplish this objective as soon as possible. The
     Initial Board has received a comprehensive set of recommendations
     from ICANN's Membership Advisory Committee, and expects to begin
     the implementation process at its August meeting in Santiago.
     ICANN's goal is to replace each and every one of the current
     Initial Board members as soon as possible, consistent with creating
     a process that minimizes the risk of capture or election fraud,
     and that will lead to a truly representative Board.

ICANN did no such thing. four of the 'initial' boardmembers are
*still* on the board.[4] ICANN's current and emeritus staff de-
vote tremendous energy to complaining about the incredible dif-
ficulty and expense of electing only *five* at large directors.
one of those directors, karl auerbach, has documented in great
detail the problems he has had with ICANN's staff: their refusal
to provide him with the basic information he needs to perform
his legitimate oversight deuties, staff's tendency to publish es-
sential materials until just days or hours before board meetings,
and so on and so forth.[5] and another ICANN alumnus, former CEO
mike roberts, has repeatedly weighed in against at large elec-
tions, arguing (for example--in the wake of 9/11) that "If you
were thinking about contributing to an ICANN ALSO [at large
supporting organization], send it to the Red Cross instead."[6]

ICANN was an 'experiment,' we were told; and now we are told by
its own CEO that it has failed. but rather than directing ICANN's
staff to pack it in, he proposes that the solution is that they
should stay--and no longer be hobbled by any free-form democratic
input at all.

what lynn fails to note--and, indeed, ICANN's self-serving staff
has failed to digest--is that this proposed solution falls prey
to the nationalist problems that bedeviled the first round of
at large elections. ICANN's staff has complained incessantly that
there were nationalist and even possibly *national* efforts to
capture the electorate and, hence, the election. lynn's solution,
which proposes regionally 'selected' government representatives,
would only invite a much more dangerous form of national capture.
but he would prefer even that to opening ICANN to individual rep-
resentation.

make no mistake: lynn's proposal holds open the possibility that
profoundly antidemocratic governments should have a say in main-
taining aspects of the net's technical infracture. if they do so
on the basis laid by ICANN to date, then we can all rest assured
that the 'intellectual property' issues that have dirtoted ICANN's
allegedly technical mandate will metastasize into far more menacing
forms of control.

cheers,
t

[1] <http://atlargestudy.org/forum_archive/msg02097.shtml>
[2] <http://atlargestudy.org/forum_archive/msg02098.shtml>
[3] <http://www.icann.org/dyson-testimony-22july99.htm>
[4] <http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/boardsquat.htm>
[5] <http://www.cavebear.com/icann-board/diary/index.htm>
[6] <http://angua.rince.de/icann-europe/2001/09/msg00004.html>

----- Forwarded

From: Esther Dyson <edyson@edventure.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 20:03:35 -0500
To: forum@atlargestudy.org, David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: see icann.org - note this is a proposal *only*

the board took no action other than to discuss and encourage
discussion.....

Esther


http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-24feb02.htm

Esther

ICANN PRESIDENT RECOMMENDS A ROADMAP FOR REFORM....
 <...>

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