Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?Or, in English, who
watches the watchmen?
It has already been well established that the ICANN is not
particularly interested in the views of web users not affiliated with a major corporation
or government body. But it is these users--beholden to no one, with no particular
vested interest or axe to grind--who have the Web's best interest at heart. They
are users, first and foremost. But to the corporations--and, apparently, to the ICANN--they
are the rabble.
An agency beholden to no one but itself is a dangerous thing; especially
when it has such power over an infrastructure used by a multinational collection
of millions of individual users. When its methods and proceedings are as secretive
as the ICANN's have been, it is even more dangerous. What is it, precisely, that
the ICANN is hiding? Or is it simply that they feel that they are more intelligent
than the rest of us, more equipped to make these decisions in what amounts to a dictatorial
fashion?
I have met several members of the ICANN board upon occasion in my capabilities
as a technology journalist, and they seem like bright, earnest people. On a personal
level, none of them have displayed the kind of monstrous arrogance that the ICANN
as a whole is displaying to the online world. Many of the rabble are just as smart
as the ICANN board, if not smarter. Many of them have just as much vested interest
as Vinton Cerf or Esther Dyson. And many of them are outraged by ICANN's recent behavior--myself
included.
I would hope that the decision over the control of the .org registry
is not already a fait accompli. If so, it smacks of the worst kind of back-room intrigue
and good ol' boy networking...which is precisely, I had assumed, what we have worked
so hard to avoid with the Internet community. One would assume that the Net is democratic,
not totalitarian; and one would hope that the ICANN realizes this soon. They would
do well to remember that their authority is not given by divine right, but rather
by consensus; and that it would be a trifling technical matter for the users and
administrators who actually run the Web to simply ignore their pronouncements wholesale,
leaving them custodians of nothing and no one. One would hope that they realize this
before they make their decision in regards to the .org registry question. If not,
their decision may lead to more ill feeling and divisiveness...which is the last
thing we need on the Web. Who watches the watchmen? We do. The Internet users. Each
and every one of us.