[governance] How do ICANN's actions hurt the average Internet

[Roland Perry]

In message <4A57B7D3.7050704 at cavebear.com>, at 14:51:15 on Fri, 10 Jul 
2009, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> writes
>On 07/10/2009 03:10 AM, Roland Perry wrote:
>
>>> If you read more deeply I say that that is a choice for the operator
>>> of the root zone that accepts a given TLD. If a sloppy root system
>>> wants to accept TLDs with weak procedures, then, assuming users can
>>> know about this,
>>
>> That is of course the main consumer protection issue. How and why are
>> they supposed to make these judgements? And remember we are talking here
>> about the average Internet user who is a client of those websites, not
>> the website operators themselves. Are you really wanting customers to
>> boycott suppliers who use websites hosted with "weaker" DNS?
>
>Let's dig into that.
>
>First of all, ICANN is not a consumer protection agency.

It appears to discuss things like protecting the privacy of that small 
subset of consumers who are registrants, but also helps protect the 
"average user" by rules about the WHOIS so the bad guys have more 
trouble hiding.

>It was not created to do that at all.  And if it were not only does it 
>not have the proper form, charter, and powers but also it would be very 
>odd indeed when one notices that it would then be a consumer protection 
>body that not only locks-out consumers from the decision making process

A body can be considerate of consumer protection issues without that 
being its prime purpose. As for representation, isn't that where ALAC 
and NCUC come in?

>but also encourages those who prey on consumers into the inner sanctums 
>of that decision making process.

What kinds of harm do you think they are conspiring to inflict upon the 
ordinary user - this is exactly the question I think George was asking 
so I'm very interested in your answer.

>Secondly, as for the issue of whether people need to look to and chose 
>DNS providers.
>
>Some do, some don't.
>
>With regard to the some do:  If person X (you for instance) are buying 
>a domain name then why should we have a regulatory body that denies you 
>the choice of buying a name from a highly robust TLD/registry (such as 
>operated by Verisign) or from a wimpy TLD registry (such as a 
>hypothetical .i-may-go-boom-tomorrow)?  As long as the information 
>about the quality of the operation is available to you why should we 
>impose a regulatory regime that denies you the choice?

Registrants are not "average Internet users", the latter having no 
influence over where the registrants choose to buy their names.

> When it's fixed it will hopefully be
>> fixed for all of them.
>
>That seems not to be the case.  Once an infrastructure goes down the 
>reviving seems to be a process of triage and piecemeal recovery.  I 
>know about this because here in Santa Cruz we go through this cycle 
>several times a year.

Fixed for everyone, until the next outage, of course. Sometimes the next 
outage will be less likely as a result of the fix, sometimes not :(

>let's allow internet users - who are frequently also providers of 
>internet services - the ability to pick and chose the net facilities 
>that best fit with their needs and finances.

In a world of Web2.0, I can't see an easy way for people using Google's 
platform to influence the tld that Google uses.

>Sure consumers need protection.  But that is usually done with 
>publication of information coupled by standards to assure safety.

Caveat Emptor (who also has a science degree to understand the 
information). Sorry, but I talk with real "average users" every day, and 
that just doesn't work.

>The point is that the "no innovation because it might confuse or 
>surprise users" flag that ICANN waves is one that, had it been in place 
>in the early 1970's would have said "that new fangled packet switching 
>stuff confuses users of switched circuits, and besides, packet 
>switching throws away packets upon congestion and thus it is bad and 
>must be kept away from users."

And yet ICANN has embraced ipv6. How did that happen?

>> Whether they are using the most elegant method or not, ICANN does seem
>> to be trying to increase the competition in gtlds,
>
>If I believed that I would also be the proud owner of the Brooklyn Bridge.

It seems extraordinary if the new gtld process is designed to reduce the 
number of gtlds - but I suppose it could if it results in a few of the 
sponsored ones being re-examined to see if they "have clothes", *and* no 
new ones every being assigned.

>ICANN has granted so few new TLDs that it has made a mockery of the 
>process.

Which is why there's the current new-gtld process to take a different 
approach to the problem.

> and let's not forget
>> IDNs, which may be George's elephant in the room: perhaps delay in
>> introducing them *is* hurting one section of the Internet-using public.
>
>Sheesh.  When the button/touch tone phones were introduced the public 
>was harmed - huge parts of the public with old rotary dial phones could 
>not reach new services.

I hadn't thought of it that way. So when a Japanese site is only 
available at a Japanese url, that prevents those of us without a 
Japanese keyboard from accessing it. But as I don't speak Japanese, I'm 
somewhat in their hands already if I want to access the site (ie they 
have to provide an English version too).

>The internet is still far too new to ossify by restricting innovation 
>or larding it with huge taxes or private tax equivalents (ICANN's tax 
>and fiat registry fee amounts to the better part of $1,000,000 (USD) a 
>year).

Where does that figure some from. Earlier, I worked out that their $60m 
budget was 3c per Internet users. Is 3c "huge"?

>> And wherever that data came from, all you need is a list of the "top X
>> popular websites" for your DNS DVD,
>
>The world wide web is but one service on the internet.  An emergency 
>boot-up-and-go DVD that encompassed only the web would be deficient.
>
>During an emergency, voice, email, and text message loads tend to go 
>way, way up.  Web stuff tends to diminish in relation.

So you'd have to advertise the existence of the DVD and people with 
services they wanted to protect could have their DNS added in.

I'm still not sure, by the way, if your DVD is to have more than the 
zone files from all the tlds - do you want the DNS of every registered 
domain as well, or is it good enough to have a pointer to each domain's 
DNS.
-- 
Roland Perry
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