And yet ICANN knew better, deliberately avoiding the same ethos. Here, any collection of symbols is a commodity suitable for rent-seeking (both literally and figuratively). Barry even demonstrated this point by indicating that the new unregulated emoji system is ripe for exploitation, a necessary element truly to bring it inline with everything else in today's DNS.
That was my first clue coming in that ICANN's main non-technical policy function was (and still is) to legitimize the grift. Unfortunately it took me nearly a decade to figure out that At-Large as currently constituted, cowed by budget restraints and the need to be loved by the grifters, provides cover for them while perfecting the art of bikeshedding. What I thought was a glimmer of light last year -- funds allocation to do an end-user survey about trust -- has been co-opted by this culture and (at the time I disengaged) had mutated into market research for Universal Acceptance. So much for hope.