Hi John, 


John R. Levine wrote:
The thing to get our heads around is not that ICANN complies or not with any of the myriad of laws around the world but that it feels entitled to issue "waivers" as if it has any geo political legal standing on laws.

That seriously misrepresents what's going on.

ICANN operates under US law, and all of the registrars sign the same agreement.  The agreement is entirely compliant with US law, but laws in other countries are different and sometimes contract provisions that are legal in one country are not in another.  This is not something unique to ICANN or to US law.

So the waivers are the way that ICANN reconciles the inevitable conflicts between the terms in a complex contract and varying local laws.  If the contracts were changed to reflect, say, French law, you'd still need waivers for registrars outside Europe, the'd just be different ones.

R's,
John

That is probably how ICANN lawyers would like to portray this.

Roberto and Christopher both go into some detail on contract ready  (or nearly ready) fixes appropriate to the international sphere ICANN operates in. Maybe my patience is thin. But as I see it ICANN has had 17 years to focus on what it is supposed to be doing. Yet it is still fixated on imposing terms that are neither legally required in US and in cases even illegal elsewhere.

In other words whether deliberately or not, ICANN is using contracts and grudging individual waivers beyond scope with the effect it raises the bar of effort and costs required in areas that might erode its business and political ambitions well beyond its supposed limited technical responsibilities. 


C
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Christian de Larrinaga 
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