[governance] Can Icann really be necessary?

[JFC Morfin]

I certainly support Imran's proposition.

At 01:35 26/06/2011, Avri Doria wrote:
>On 25 Jun 2011, at 14:25, Imran Ahmed Shah wrote:
> > (Keeping in mind that it is not a case of current ccTLD who allow 
> the alternate usage e.g. .tv is being used as television channel).
>
>Got to love those ccTLDs where it is still policy free virgin 
>territory, so to speak, where most anything goes.  With all the 
>rules we have created for gTLDs - with TM owners and Law Enforcement 
>finding new ways to stifle expression and the market, the ccTLDS 
>look better and better all the time.  Soon the saying will be - let 
>a thousand IDN ccTLDs bloom.

I must note that I am advising some ccTLDs that I am bound to not 
disclose. I see that the rules that are established from experience 
on a case per case basis are far more innovative than the "single fit 
for none" proposed by ICANN. The reality was, until 1998, that all 
the TLDs were like the expected IDNccTLD (I must also say that in my 
understanding  "IDN" stands for "Internet Domain Name").

This is why ICANN, in order to financially and politically survive, 
had to delay IDNgTLDs and thereby deny them access to Fast Track, 
which was technically bad since they were able to bring forth new 
issues that were totally illegitimate, and a major relational mistake.

>As for the perenial existential and normative questions about 
>ICANN's existence:  the only thing i know for sure is that it 
>exists. So i deal with it.

This position of Avri is pragmatic.

I feel that the bylaws, staff, and history of ICANN are inadequate. 
However, there is definitely a need for a secretary for the global 
(English/French meaning) consensus (the IGF was not able to fill it). 
Therefore, an ICANN is necessary. However, the ICANN they built does 
not address the  ICANN true concept.

However, feeling it or telling it is not proof. So, what? If it may 
be the wrong organization, ICANN has at least, however, been honest: 
they published the ICP-3 document. 
<http://www.icann.org/en/icp/icp-3.htm>http://www.icann.org/en/icp/icp-3.htm. 
This document is fundamental because it both explains :

- (1) the ICANN legitimacy from a premature reading of the IETF 
technology (that most shared at the time), and
(2) the way to correct it from experimentation (i.e., as they 
explain, the way the Internet always did it).

Unfortunately, ICANN mostly called upon the IETF to carry out a 
structured community experimentation. This was unfortunate because 
experimentation does not belong to the IETF charter. Further on, the 
IAB (RFC 3869) called upon non-commercial help to research and 
protect the Internet architecture against biased technical interests 
from commercial sponsors.

A good and published exposure is necessary for  non-commercial 
testing for CS awareness and users' adhesion.

1. This calls for money, i.e. funding, which was supposed to be out 
of the community's reach. This is why ICANN and IAB had governments 
in mind. This did not work. As we saw it in e-G8.

2. This may also result from stubbornness and opportunities. Actually 
the experimentation and research ICANN called for came (at least in 
my experience) from another non-commercial source.

It came from "lead users" (those end-users who need and are able to 
adapt their internet capacity to their own needs; you may call them 
technical activists). Not being identified as such in the Internet 
Governance and having their own business as a priority, it took time 
for some lead users to be accepted as a possible contribution source, 
even if they could show some different use solutions of the internet. 
The IESG (actually the IETF Chair) acknowledged us in some kind of 
reality in allowing me to run the iucg at ietf.org permanent mailing 
list that I attached to the 
<http://iucg.org/wiki>http://iucg.org/wiki site. Not much activity 
there, but private exchanges for  ... me to summarize the received 
suggestions :-)

This was after:
- we ran the dot-root community project with up to 30 nameservers and 
people and three root systems over the course of nearly two years, 
fully respecting the ICANN ICP-3 listed set of constraints. We did 
not carry out all of what we wanted, but we learned as ICANN expected.
- we opposed and won against the large groups (Unicode consortium) 
over linguistic diversity, the support of which was a key case for 
the support of every other diversity, i.e. the whole growth of the 
Internet. The first time it was about "langtags" for  language (hence 
culture) filtering (RFC 4647). Then, it was about IDNA2008.

All of this has led to the identification of the principle of 
subsidiarity as the Internet fundamental response to diversity from 
its very inception.

Subsidiarity means that when something grows complex it is better and 
more efficiently supported in respecting the responsibility of local 
participants to adequately support it. This responsibility may 
include the local decision to organize a central or several 
decentralized back-ups: this is its sister principle of "suppléance" 
(I do not know the equivalent English word). This achieves network 
distribution vs. decentralization.

So, we had the source of ideas. Now has come the opportunity to raise 
interest and to move forward with the work and document what this implies, .

As long as ICANN did not commit "suicide" with the gTLD vote, the 
exposure and interest were not important enough to sustain the work 
on a subsidiarity oriented understanding of the DNS. Now this has 
dramatically changed.

Because, this should lead to a three TLD (or root names as we have 
called them from the very inception of the world digital ecosystem 
[before the Internet was plugged to it]) line of rates:

1. $185,000 +++ from  ICANN - under the nine points listed by Asif 
Kabani (thx!) and the 10th about USG international policy affiliation 
reported by Khaled Fattal.
2. $44,000 ++ out of the JAS effort
3. $0 + from the IUse community (*)

(*) By nature, the IUse community is initially formed by people of 
technical competence and professional responsibility who tend to 
favor doing things rather than speaking up about them (or who tried 
in vain through the @large ICANN "non-membership"). The target is:

      - to establish a common glossary in order to document our needs 
and possible solutions.
      - to document, develop, and test in a real network life 
(intertesting) with a working framework supporting the Internet 
single authoritative root matrix and other DNS related new possibilities.
      - to organize an organization in order to help reduce any 
possible conflicts
      - to support an Intelligent Use Interface instance towards the 
Intersem (i.e. the semantic/semiotic internet of thoughts) that is 
starting to be needed today in private and professional areas.

Then, new and interesting services, network quality and power, 
personal and cultural e-empowerment will make every user to join that 
community. It will take some time. That will depend on the people who 
were not invited to the e-G8: us and the 2015 Internet leaders.

I note that running a root name in the digital ecosystem calls for a 
complete solution to support first level domain/root names, i.e. not 
only a nameserver, but also a NIC manager. In this there is no need 
to decidedly stick to Jon Postel's 1983 solutions 
(controversial/illegal whois, for example). Innovation and adherence 
to the internet life we know it today and consideration of our needs 
for security are the priorities.

>ln all seriousness - to the extent that is possible after a flight 
>from Singapore, as a member of the JAS WG which is trying to get the 
>fees lowered for qualified applicants from developing economies and 
>to get other assistance since the application fee is, as you 
>indicated, just the tip of iceberg,  I would appreciate assistance 
>and comment from the IGC community. One of the first things folks 
>could do is read and comment on the JAS WG second milestone report:
>http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#second-milestone-report

Thank you for this effort. I disagree with the need for it, but since 
TM holders, money makers, and poor managers make it necessary, this 
is a work well done, which is also quite useful for the community as 
a complement to experience.

jfc  
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