On 10 March 2011 20:29, John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
I mean the comment made in the email.
It would be nice if someday the ALAC could get beyond the conceit that the Internet is run for the convenience of vanity domain holders.
I don't think that conceit is universally shared. Many people who have gravitated into a policy intrerest in ICANN have done so because they're at least familar with the concept of domain name ownership. That means, in the most cases, they've either helped people get domains or they own a few themselves. Myself, I administer a "stable" of about a dozen on behalf of friends, family and a client or two. (At least a few of them, I guess, could be called "vanity" domains, but that's because of the present rules of the game. Better me than a speculator.) That's where things were at the beginning. I like to think that outreach activities -- that have brought in ALSs like my own that normally have zero to do with Internet governance and whose members by and large are not domain owners -- are starting to work. It's a reason why the ALS model is preferable to the romantic direct-election model which guaranteed a process of insiders voting for insiders. Right now, ICANN loves to talk about "consumer choice". Most of this is just horsecrap because it means nothing. Right now it's not even known if ICANN's idea of "consumer" is the domain buyer (the bottom of ICANN's particular food chain) or the Internet user who "consumes" Internet information that may be found by domain name, IP address, search result or a link from somewhere else. As long as this distinction continues to be muddy, the platitudes will continue because they're worthless. Even so, ICANN tends to talk about consumer issues with the vocabulary of the supplier, not the consumer. (Personally, I don;t even like the term "consumer" in this context because it implies that Internet use requires a financial transaction. End users do not exist on the Internet merely to consume things...) One of my own personal goals next week in San Francisco is to bring some clarity to this, because the ICANN-related needs of end users are very different from those of registrants. On a number of issues, end-users and registrants have common ground, but one of ICANN's dirty little secrets is that the two groups in some cases have very different agendas. The biggest example of this is in WHOIS, where (generally) registrants want privacy and end-users want accountability. (Painting this as a law-enforcement issue is also horsecrap IMO). Another issue -- litttle spoken of -- is the issue of domaining, which does nothing for the public good, adds zero value, does not benefit the flow or quality of information on the Internet, has needlessly increased the cost of having an Internet presence, but is heavily defended by domain speculators (and tacitly backed by ICANN which has a vested interest in its maintenance). These gaps in agenda, IMO need to get clearer ... and I think they will. At a certain point, people who claim to speak in the public interest but also own domains, if they are honest about it, are going to find themselves conflicted. (I believe) I've already come to grips with mine. - Evan