A story in Wired says that the U.S. government is rushing
ahead with its plan to give away essential cooperative public
Internet assets to the private corporation it has created that
is being called ICANN.

URL: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/16469.html

What started out as a situation to deal with making decisions
over domain names has become an excuse to give away key
control over the Internet to unknown people and powers.

There was a great deal of dissent at the meeting in Boston
on Nov. 14 where the ICANN Board of Directors appeared,
and explained that they didn't know anything about the
Internet and that was why they were asked to serve on
the Board of Directors. But this Board of Directors is
for a private corporation to make policy decisions and to
get ownership and control over the essential functions
of the Internet, including the domain name system, the
IP numbers, the root server system, and the protocols, etc.

This is no small matter for some people who know nothing
about the Internet, and so it all raises the very
serious question what is behind this, why is the U.S.
government doing this, and what is their plan for the
Internet if they are rushing ahead with a time table
that makes no logical sense to many of those who are
concerned about the present and the future of the
Internet?

Also the fact this has all been carried out via a very
secret process, where no one knows who has made the
decisions of who should be on the Interim Board of
Directors, how the bylaws and article were created
for the new corporation, etc. raises the question of
who has to hide behind the scenes to carry this out
and why.

There has been a problem with domain names that
needed to be solved. A recent post on Usenet
suggested that domain names should be distributed
like license plates, by an appropriate government
agency for an administrative fee.

This is only one of the kinds of proposals that could
be discussed if that were the purpose of some group
to solve the domain name controversy.

But it is clear from the events surrounding the
creation and formation of ICANN that its charter
is to encompass control over the Internet's
essential function, and it is to be given these
precious assets, and thus it is *not* being created
in any fashion to genuinely solve any problem,
but instead to create a new and very serious
problem for the Internet and its present and future.

Several weeks ago I was invited to give a talk
in Vienna about Internet governance and the lessons
from the history of the Net toward understanding
what principles would guide genuine Internet
governance.
(http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/talk_governance.txt)

What is happening is the very opposite of creating
any form of Internet governance because it is removing
any of the important decisions regarding the present
and future of the Internet from the Internet
community and from those who have an understanding
of the growth and development of the Internet and
it is putting those decisions into unknown hands to
solve in a way to serve very narrow and particular
interests.

At the Boston meeting, some folks talked about the need
for an international public utility to administer
these essential Internet functions, rather than
a private corporation.

However, the U.S. government wasn't listening, and
doesn't seem to be able to hear anything people have
to say at this point. Instead they seem to have
a time table that is being moved along on, despite
the concerns or contributions of people.

So the problem to me seems to be that it is impossible
for people to be able to communicate with the U.S.
government officials conducting this give-away.

And they are creating a Board of Directors and a
private corporation that is equally shielded from
any two way communication with the Internet community.
Thus its policies and procedures can only be harmful
to the Internet. And by giving this private corporate
entity unbridled power and the ownership and control
over very large sums of financial wealth (which
belongs to the Internet community), the U.S. government
is dooming the ability of this private corporation
to play any but a very destructive role regarding
the Internet.

But this raises the questions of what is needed
to own, control and administer these very essential
functions and assets of the Internet?

It seems the U.S. government has become incapable
of playing any of the good role it has played
in the past in both the building and the
administration of the Internet. What then is to
be done by the Internet community?

At the meeting in Boston, the issue was raised that
there are procedures that have developed as
part of the Internet's development for making decisions.

Why aren't these procedures being built upon?

What is needed at this point to move forward?

The Internet has been built by encouraging user
participation and by encouraging cooperative
processes and procedures. And the Internet itself
has made these possible.

The creation of ICANN by the U.S. government flies
in the face of these processes and procedures and
is being used to fundamentally change the course
of direction of the Internet. It is an important
matter to be discussed and for the Internet
community to determine what means are needed to
deal with this urgent situation.

Ronda
ronda@panix.com


                  Netizens: On the History and Impact
                    of Usenet and the Internet
                http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
                also in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6