On 6/10/09 12:24 AM, "Evan Leibovitch" <evan@telly.org> wrote:
I am saying that, even in non-democratic regimes, a government represents the interest of its (Internet-using) publlc more than its "Internet community" ever will. ... ICANN is within its rights to refuse transfer of a ccTLD to a "registry" just started by the Supreme Leader's cousin.
How are you drawing the distinction between a non-democratic regime making an appointment, and... a non-democratic regime making an appointment?
I reject your assertion, unless you just mean "most people that you hear from". It stands to reason that the vested interests would assert their squatters' rights to ICANN, but that the general public (which is uninterested or ignorant of ICANN policy) is silent to you.
Maybe. But I would have thought IANA has a fairly good lens on the public as that is usually where they naturally go to lodge their complaints about their how their TLD is managed. It is where governments go to express their views. I think I am exposed to a great deal of the dynamics of these situations. I do kind of resent the implication that I have no sense of the general public views. My introduction to the TLD arena was as an Internet user in Australia that wanted .AU to be managed better. Through a process in the mid-1990s I was part of a community group that created an organisation to run the domain. That failed, and we tried again, which succeeded. I was an inaugural "demand" director (equivalent of "at large"). We went through the process of encouraging the Australian Government to get involved, and in 2000 went through the process of convincing ICANN to do a redelegation.
Consider that this is the first time you've participated in this At-Large list on the subject, and I don't see many here rushing to defend the position of letting governments and ccTLD squatters "sort it out". So far, 100% of the opinion I've seen here -- from people who are not ICANN staff -- is that the government has primary rights and there is nothing to "sort out". I would
I think it is worth noting that so far I have only seen contributions from people in countries in western countries with stable governments, for which these kinds of cases where the government is totally out of sync simply don't happen. I think it would be unfair to claim any consensus denoted by silence is broadly reflective of the Internet users who deal with the kinds of issues we are referencing. kim