[governance] NTIA announcement on JPA

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Levine [mailto:icggov at johnlevine.com]
> >We seem to be able to run international telecommunications, air
> >transport, shipping, sport, and a number of other functions perfectly
> >well without any single government having specific unequal rights.
> 
> Except that none of them have a chokepoint analgous to the DNS root,

Factually wrong. International telephone country codes need to be
globally coordinated, just as the DNS root zone does. The difference is
that global number coordination via ITU emerged bottom up via peer
negotiations rather than top-down and therefore was in no position to
regulate via contract what the assignees of their international codes
do.

> (Compare the
> process of setting up a web hosting company with the process of
> setting up a telephone company.)

We're getting there, John. Give us time. :-(

And setting up telephone companies that rely on others' infrastructures
is probably a lot easier than you imagine. 

> Look, I am no fan of ICANN, as should be clear to anyone who followed
> my stint on the ICANN ALAC.  But if you want to replace them, the
> issue isn't that they're not "legitimate", it's that they're
> incompetent.  Registrars collapse, and ICANN first denies for a year

Incompetent at what? is my response. As usual a techie perspective on
this completely misses the political dynamics that drive what gets done
and what doesn't. ICANN seems remarkably competent at surviving and
enlarging its budget, which has meant achieving legitimacy and support
among governments, ccTLDs, brand owners, and marginally, buying itself a
toothless ALAC. If you think legitimacy is irrelevant it's no wonder you
can't make sense of its lack of attention to mundane regulatory issues
that force it to make hard choices that will only alienate some key
stakeholders. 

> that it's their problem, then waves lawyers at them until Godaddy
> finally steps in and does something.  Users want domains in their own
> languages, ICANN can't even use the limited specs the IETF has
> offered, much less address issues of whether, e.g., Verisign has a
> prior claim to the Chinese translation of .COM.  Registrars do front
> running and speculation in obvious violation of their ICANN contracts,
> the ICANN board will only foist the issue off on yet another commitee
> and hope it goes away.
> 
> If you want to replace ICANN, forget about legitimacy, and think hard
> about competence.  Offer an actual better alternative, and then you
> have a chance of getting someone's attention.


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