There is much history here - the root server operators, or rather the operators of the primary system of root servers (there are other systems of root servers) have never pledged allegiance to ICANN. Rather they run their systems as their own systems, set their own rules, adopt their own procedures. In a way this has been good because those folks who are doing this have done a spectacular job. Indeed they once acted in a way that pretty much saved the net when ICANN was (and perhaps still is) trapped in stasis: Once upon a time there but 12 (or 13) actual root servers. Their geographic distribution was causing political consternation and they were being overloaded. And they were a very obvious point of attack on the net. There is a routing technology called Anycast. While I was at Cisco several of us talked about Anycast for DNS servers - and about actual deployments showing proof-of-concept at lower levels of the DNS hierarchy. We (at Cisco) just talked, but we did mention the idea to ICANN, perhaps not formally. ICANN didn't even respond. But a couple of root server operators - most notably the F server folks at ISC - picked up their tools and started deploying anycast servers. Today they have a constellation of well over 100 clones of the F root, all working very well. We owe these root server folks a great debt of gratitude. But on the other hand, there needs to be some formality of obligation. There needs to be some constraint that keeps the root server operators from giving into financial pressures and doing bad things. I wrote up a note on this several years ago - http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000192.html - The interesting part for this discussion is down a couple of screens, starting with the line "And finally - what should be the terms in those agreements?" I refined that list of obligations a bit further in a note I wrote about what I thought should be ICANN's application form for a new TLD - http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000324.html There is an agreement now between ICANN and ISC for the F root server. But is is very much a contract that says "don't tread on me" rather than one that defines obligatory service levels and imposes constraints against using the advantages of the root server position for discriminatory actions or as a vehicle to make piles of money. --karl--