[governance] Is ICANN "engaged in commerce" ?

[Jacqueline A. Morris]

Hi Karl
I agree with you here -
Seems to me that the business side is getting tied up with the
oversight/governance/regulation. Why can't registrars and registries fail as
businesses? The problem as I see it is with the inability to access and
transfer the data from the failed business in a timely fashion. Making the
transaction a bit simpler or clearer might also help the consumer of DNS
products - give them a clear document to read before they click on the CC
submit button to lease a domain name that explains their rights and the
limitations.
Jacqueline

-----Original Message-----
From: Karl Auerbach [mailto:karl at cavebear.com] 
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 1:59 PM
To: Mawaki Chango
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Is ICANN "engaged in commerce" ?

Mawaki Chango wrote:
> Certianly, certainly! But what would you say to those who argue
> that ICANN had no choice getting into those non-technical issues
> for at least a somehow practical reason: avoid lawsuits and the
> bankruptcy that might ensue?

Avoid what lawsuits?  Trademark ones?  To that I answer thusly: There is 
an existing and appropriate system of laws and mechanisms though which a 
trademark owner who feels that its rights have been violated can go 
forward and seek to vindicate those rights.

We do not need to invent an alternative system just for the internet.

What bankruptcy?  Of registrars/registries?  Are we doing governance or 
consumer protection?

The process that ICANN has established is based on a very strange logic 
that requires that ICANN transform DNS businesses into permanent 
institutions that can never be allowed to fail.  That, in the words of 
internet engineers, does not scale.

My own answer is to adopt a limited system, one in which consumers of 
domain name products are empowered to make their own choices on the 
basis of yearly statements published by DNS vendors that attest that the 
vendor has, and uses, business asset protection practices that are 
adequate to assure that a successor in interest can pick up the pieces 
and resurrect the DNS records in case human or natural events cause the 
DNS provider to wobble.

We really do not need big, heavy bodies of internet governance to do this.

		--karl--
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