This mis-quote or misstatement captures it all: -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [alerts] ICANN News Alert -- Vint Cerf Says: ICANN Needs You! <http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-07may07.htm>

In an interview on the subject — posted to the ICANN website, the video site YouTube as well as his employer's Google Video website — Cerf stressed that it is "difficult to underestimate the importance of ICANN" because it is "responsible for policy with regard to certain technical aspects of the Internet".

Yes, in an ideal world, ICANN would be so small it would be difficult to understate its importance. Unfortunately those with business interests in it or in businesses it touches have quite successfully made it much larger. --Wendy -- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org Visiting Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/