2009/10/5 Kim Davies <kim.davies@icann.org> I think the only thing in disagreement is what is the true representation of
"a country". Your comments suggest that it can only be represented by decree of the government, whereas current practice is it is the result of a process involving the community and the government. I guess arguably it is the distinction between top-down or bottom-up.
No, it is the difference between the official government -- you know, the one that prints money, staffs embassies, provides social services and *makes the laws* -- and a vaguely-defined, easily gamed, self-appointed set of experts that have, amongst their ranks, self-interested businesses and individuals that by and large represent Internet suppliers rather than end-users. It is presumptuous and meddling of ICANN to determine that any body within a country has equal decision-making authority to the sovereign government of that country, or that an impass between them may allows the status quo to continue in contravention of sovereign law or regulation. ICANN has erred -- seriously -- in identifying an "Internet community" as being distinct from the general public when it comes to policy making. In most contexts this self-defined "Internet community" is filled with vested interests that do not necessarily have the good of the Internet using public in mind. Nor should it (IMHO), and it doesn't. As far as I am aware, in such cases
the status quo has been maintained until those in the country sort it out.
That's the wrong answer. The right answer is that the government gets final say. Can you imagine the absolute outrage that would ensue if ICANN adopted the same approach towards trademark squatters? "We will allow the status quo to stand until the domain owners work it out with the name owners". Yeah, right. If anything, the trademark lobby is pushing for even more draconian, faster takedowns than before. Yet for ccTLDs, "they gotta work it out". What a joke.
The suggestion here seems to be that if there is a significant dispute between community consensus, and the government, ICANN should simply always do what the government says and to hell with all the other factors.
Not all other factors. As I said, technical stability and security is ICANN's mandate, and it should disallow transferral of a ccTLD to a technically incompetent or unstable entity. But beyond that -- yeah, to hell with othert factors. From where did ICANN attain authority to determine what "other factors" -- beyond its ONLY mandate of technical "safety and security" -- matter?
Some would consider that precisely getting in the middle.
Anything beyond simply fulfilling government requests (save for the technical issues) is inappropriate meddling. It is not getting in the middle to have a policy that simply says "a sovereighn country is also and always sovereign over its ccTLD". Simply allowing the status quo is not acceptable, for it encourages unapproved registries to prolong stalemates indefinitely, while they game the "community" and continue their unauthorized use of the TLD. If only ICANN were to treat unauthorized use of TLDs as seriously as it took unauthorized use of trademarked domains. It is an absolute absurdity that governments appear to have less rights within ICANN than trademark owners when it comes to control of their legitimate domains. Quoth Jon Postel, "The IANA tries to have any contending parties reach
agreement among themselves, and generally takes no action to change things unless all the contending parties agree."
In today's world, that is grotequely bad policy, and ICANN long ago abandoned it regarding disputes over second-level domains. Some folks here appear to worship Jon Postel, but if that was his point of view (wrt government claims to ccTLDs) I'd contend that it has done a lot of damage to the Net (and ICANN). Quoting him does not make the policy any less grotesque. - Evan