RE: [bc-gnso] ICANN's "Sense of Entitlement"

[Phil Corwin <psc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

You're welcome, Mike. Appreciate your insights.



I shared the piece not to endorse its POV but because I thought it was 
important for ICANN insiders to see how some outsiders perceive it, especially 
in a post-SOPA political environment when viral Netizen movements can form and 
move fast.



Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal

Virtualaw LLC

1155 F Street, NW

Suite 1050

Washington, DC 20004

202-559-8597/Direct

202-559-8750/Fax

202-255-6172/cell



"Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey



________________________________
From: Michael Roberts [mmr1936@xxxxxxxxx] on behalf of Mike Roberts 
[mmr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 1:25 PM
To: Phil Corwin; bc - GNSO list
Subject: Re: [bc-gnso] ICANN's "Sense of Entitlement"

Thanks, Phil, for posting this.  Lauren represents a liberal point of view 
within the tech community, albeit a minority one.  But the dissatisfaction in 
American political circles with latter day behavior of our capitalists - much 
in the news today because of the Goldman defection story - is having a second 
order impact on ICANN.  Lauren says below,  "we need a purpose-built 
replacement for ICANN that will not carry its ever increasing political and 
"domainer" baggage."

Those of us who were around at the beginning of ICANN were never enthused about 
the weak organizational structure, but the Clinton Administration officials who 
insisted on it felt their political imperatives did not allow something 
stronger.  And there was a feeling from the engineering sector that "leave us 
alone to do our thing," might still work.  It hasn't, and the geopolitical 
visibility of the Internet and ICANN has only increased.

So now, belatedly, an increasing number of folks are questioning the 
"multistakeholder model" on the grounds that the "domain-industrial complex's 
"get rich quick" agenda"  will always prevail over the public interest.

One of the difficulties with defending the existing model is that its appeal is 
more on the pragmatic side than on the theoretical and rhetorical side.  Those 
of us in the BC are paid to get things done, not to argue the fine points.   
Working code and rough consensus, etc.  So we've been comfortable [mostly] with 
the structure.

NTIA's action, deliberate or accidental, has more or less thrown the book open 
on ICANN's future at a time when there are a lot of vultures circling.  The BC 
may find itself in an important role going forward, needing to participate in 
forging a more substantial foundation under ICANN, which may only happen with 
legislative involvement and all the hassle connected with that.

- Mike



On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:50 AM, Phil Corwin wrote:

FYI, for what it's worth...





http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120312/12074118080/icanns-sense-entitlement-takes-over-shocked-it-lost-its-bid-to-retain-iana.shtml
ICANN's Sense Of Entitlement Takes Over; Shocked It Lost Its Bid To Retain IANA
from the oops dept
Via Lauren 
Weinstein<https://plus.google.com/u/0/114753028665775786510/posts/7njaU3xhWXE>, 
we find out that ICANN has effectively lost its bid to retain control over IANA 
functions<http://news.dot-nxt.com/2012/03/10/icann-no-idea-icann-rejection>, 
though the fact that everyone else sucks too means it gets to hang on for at 
least six more months. In the meantime, though, it appears the whole thing took 
an always out-of-touch ICANN by surprise:
In a worrying turn of events, it appears that ICANN had no idea about the 
rejection of its bid for long-term running of the IANA contract prior to an 
announcement being posted on the NTIA's website today.

The organization - which has run the IANA functions for over a decade - is also 
waiting to hear why the US government feels it has failed to meet the RFP 
criteria that defined a new, more open approach to the contract.

In a series of sudden and unexpected announcements earlier today, the NTIA 
first announced<http://news.dot-nxt.com/2012/03/10/iana-rfp-cancelled> it was 
canceling the entire rebid process for IANA, then that it was canceling it 
because no one had met its criteria, and then that it was 
extending<http://news.dot-nxt.com/2012/03/10/ntia-iana-update> ICANN's IANA 
contract for six months to give it time to re-run the RFP process.
IANA is the part that manages the authoritative root servers and important 
things like IP address allocations. ICANN has run that (along with its core 
functionality of overseeing DNS) basically since all of this was set up when 
lots of people realized that perhaps relying on one 
guy<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel> (as brilliant as he was) to manage 
the entire internet wasn't the best solution. The fact that ICANN didn't breeze 
through the IANA RFP is an interesting result, and as Lauren Weinstein notes, 
it's as if ICANN has taken on quite an entitlement viewpoint:
In my view, ICANN's behavior of late regarding the NTIA has been something like 
the Wall Street firms vs. their ersatz regulators -- a sense of entitlement and 
"we're too important to be replaced" plowing forward with the domain-industrial 
complex's "get rich quick" agenda, with only lip-service being paid to NTIA. As 
I said earlier today, I would expect ICANN to find a way to come into 
"technical" compliance for now. But I still also feel very strongly that we 
need a purpose-built replacement for ICANN that will not carry its ever 
increasing political and "domainer" baggage. Not the UN. Not the ITU. But a new 
international forum that cares about all the Internet's users, not mainly the 
monied domain exploitation interests at the top of the DNS food chain.
If only there were real efforts being made to move in that direction...







Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal
Virtualaw LLC
1155 F Street, NW
Suite 1050
Washington, DC 20004
202-559-8597/Direct
202-559-8750/Fax
202-255-6172/cell

"Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey