[governance] Report of ICANN 46 Beijing meeting (1)

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 09/04/13 12:50, Fouad Bajwa wrote:
> One thing to remember about ICANN is that the addressing and name
> space is just like a phone book and there seems to be a continuous
> problem of falling out of scope of ICANN's mandate which remains the
> domain name and IP addressing space. The broader internet governance
> and internet public policy issues do incorporate to a certain access
> such critical internet resources and their sharing in discussions but
> I tend to become uncomfortable to how much emphasis is laid down in to
> ICANN as if it was responsible for engaging and providing internet
> access to 2 billion users. Its only one part of the stack and not
> actually the whole stack.

I can't overstate how much I agree with this, though it's won't be news
to most members of this list.  It all comes down to money though,
doesn't it?  The time and effort poured into its website and stakeholder
engagement structures, its high-paid staff in offices around the world,
the volunteers who queue up to donate their time, all seem like overkill
when it comes down to the fact that it's all just about domain names and
IP addresses.  In comparison the IGF, which should be like an ICANN or
an OECD for broader Internet governance issues, is beyond a joke, and
it's not (only) due to incompetence or malice, it's due to lack of
money.  It's a case of market failure: the free market oversupplies
funding to ICANN, and undersupplies it to the IGF.  This makes
Parminder's case for public funding of the IGF rather compelling, I
would have thought.

-- 

*Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer
Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers*
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