[governance] IANA contract to be opened for competitive bidding on November 4

[Daniel Kalchev]

On Oct 26, 2011, at 11:39 , Carlos A. Afonso wrote:

> On 10/26/2011 09:02 AM, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
>> 
>> On Oct 26, 2011, at 00:31 , Ian Peter wrote:
> [...]
>> Involving governments in the management of Internet is one of the
>> worst ideas, ever.
> 
> Depends on what management of which aspect -- as you have said already,
> the Internet is too many layers, instances and transborder interactions
> at various levels which is too complex and diverse for us to say
> "nothing of this will have the gov hand in any way". So let us always
> qualify when we say this.

It is simpler than that. As I mentioned several times, Governments already do have a say on how Internet develops. They in fact, always had such a say, even during times where Governments, or their agencies etc had clear public policy against the Internet. They do have influence by the virtue of being empowered to guard "public interest".
Some do better than others in this regard, but this does not mean they do not have influence.

Therefore, I find it hard to understand, why one would need more direct involvement in a purely technical function.

> 
> Secondly, it keeps bothering me how the so-called "technical community"
> (as you know, I use quotes because I find it hard in many fora to
> dissociate it from business interests) keeps parroting the "hands off
> Icann" motto while the same community seems quite comfortable with
> direct control of the USG over the IANA function.

I for one, would be happy if someone can put their hands on ICANN and make that structure behave.

However, it seems to me that it is Governments that like fuzzy structures like ICANN and the (wrong) concentration of too much power at a single place. This is not how Internet is designed and in fact, not how Internet operates --- including not how Internet is governed.

I could go that far to say, that for many years now, ICANN has actually being disconnected from the "Internet Governance" as such as that is happening outside and despite of what ICANN is doing.
One could say what I commented earlier about Governments' "managing Internet" -- ICANN is doing the same -- they rely on an existing, low-level and largely invisible (*) infrastructure of individuals that actually manages Internet and it is all too easy to claim doing so (by ICANN).

Challenge ICANN or any Government to outline how they envision the actually Internet Governance and you will discover they fail badly.

Daniel

(*) The golden rule of system administration is that you do your job when nobody knows about you. The moment a system administrator becomes visible is the moment they goofed. Some say any publicity is good publicity -- but this is for politicians and system administrators are not politicians.____________________________________________________________
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