2009/10/19 Garth Bruen at KnujOn <gbruen@knujon.com> wrote:
Alan wrote: <<(although not completely sure if this is really ICANN's business).>>
Acording to Kim it seems it would be. It has always been my understanding that soverignty trumps all in the ccTLD world, but Kim has been laying out a strucutre that has ICANN and the Internet community have the real say. If this is the case, does ICANN handle abuse issues for ccTLDs? If the answer is "no" then there are no responsibilities along with the rights and that is a problem.
Evan has pointed out that "If there is a dispute between community and government, ICANN has ABSOLUTELTY NO business getting in the middle." but Kim has suggested otherwise.
Since engaging in some of my earlier position on this, I've been (virtually) taken aside by people whose opinions I trust. They've made the point that ICANN has been doing a reasonable job of treading the fine line between respecting sovereignty while watching for instances of hasty politics that may lead to genuine instability. At that point ICANN appears to fall back on the RFC that the problems need to get hashed out between the government and local community. This is far from perfect, but it's an approach I can accept. It explains Kim's difficulty in explaining a policy that depends as much as "we'll know problems when we see them" as any hard and fast criteria for determining when to intervene. There continue to be holes in the policy that I can see; Missing are 1) Definitions of "community" in ways that ensure that the voice of public interest is not dominated/gamed by vested interests. 2) A candid explanation of the policy that admits some reliance on human judgment calls 3) Graduated methods of allowing governments to assert control of their ccTLDs (or at least require a formal agreement between registry and government) as states become more Internet-savvy. I still believe that In ongoing, protracted disputes between governments and registries that refuse state oversight, ICANN must eventually cede authority to the state. But as far as I've been told such situations have generally been resolved when when they have arisen. If not, we ought to know. But I've back-tracked on the absolute nature of my earlier comments. ICANN *can* play a role, though it should be as minimal as possible -- and far better explained than has been done so far. - Evan