2009/10/6 Antony Van Couvering <avc@avc.vc>
Your view of government control is not supported by the U.S. government, nor by any European government that I know of, nor indeed of any government that I've had the pleasure of working with. If you look at the GAC principles, which were composed by the governments of the world, they speak of a tripartite understanding between ccTLD operators, ICANN, and governments.
Of course, when things run nicely. But if there is a dispute between a government and a ccTLD operator -- where the operator has been functioning without any authorization from or relationship with the government -- are you saying that existing governments are OK with ICANN intervening to block a government from asserting its authority over a rogue registry on non-technical grounds? If you have any pointers to where the above governments have expressed a position on this it would be appreciated. I suspect that you're inferring a nuance that may not exist in what I said. I'm not advocating direct government day-to-day control of registries. I'm asserting that governments have the sole and ultimate authority to determine what arm's length body should be entitled to operate the State's registry (subject to technical verification by ICANN). Are you really saying that most governments are against that? And I'd specificly like to find out the current GAC position on ccTLD registries that have no authorization or relationship with their governments, that may be operating business models or policies against the philosophy of the State they "serve". -Evan