The ICANN Ruckus

[Jay Fenello <Jay@Iperdome.com>]

Here's another story on ICANN that 
properly frames the debate.  And it
is exactly this perspective that is 
being suppressed by the media.

Excerpts from:


http://intellectualcapital.com/issues/issue280/item6052.asp

The ICANN Ruckus
by James Love 

As presently constituted, ICANN could make policy on issues like spam,
copyright enforcement, privacy, standards for digital contracts or funding
Internet access in sub-Saharan Africa. It could do this and much more, or
it could do very little other than attend to narrow technical issues. In
other words, ICANN, via its own discretion, might just become the driving
governing voice of the Net.

ICANN will have governmental-type powers, but it will ultimately be a
private corporate entity. It can (and has) changed its bylaws at will,
needing just a two-thirds majority. 

ICANN critics share a deep unease about concentrating this much power over
the Internet in the hands of a private and largely unaccountable body. 

It is becoming clear that ICANN is an entirely new system of governance for
the Internet. 

Under the current proposals, ICANN can pursue its own governance agendas,
be captured by various special interests, and make policy decisions that
are of great importance.

Froomkin notes that the Magaziner White Paper, and its offspring like
ICANN, are not proposals for no rules, but rather for shifting
responsibility for who will make rules, without any clear answers about how
the public's rights are protected.

When we talk about "self governance," we need to begin to talk about who is
the "self" and what is the "governance." We are inventing a new world
government for cyberspace, but we are not creating a new world democracy in
cyberspace, and this is the problem.

Let's go back to the drawing board and rethink governance in cyberspace,
with the explicit goals of protecting individual rights and providing
democratic accountability.

+++


Respectfully,

Jay Fenello
President, Iperdome, Inc.    404-943-0524
-----------------------------------------------
What's your .per(sm)?   http://www.iperdome.com 

"All truth passes through three stages.  First, it is 
ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, 
it is accepted as self-evident." (Arthur Schopenhauer)