For ICANN to work, it needs to acquire the kind of legitimacy which ANSI and
ISO enjoy. That is, recognition by all (okay, almost all) parties involved,
based on widespread confidence that it can impartially carry out its work in
the public interest.
There is more than one kind of 'private organization'. It is worthwhile
going a little further and explaining what one means by 'private' because, a
s Tony says, "it does make a difference." Some kinds of private
organizations are more appropriate than others when the global public
interest in the governance of the Internet is involved.
Thanks for the great discussion and proffered language.
It's worth noting, however, that as to your own preference of
organizational constructs, the bodies you reference have
stridently opposed the Internet's development over many years -
attempting instead through de jure methods to impose their
global public "internet" models and standards on the world.
Indeed, their arrangements still exist in parallel to the
Internet. ANSI, for example, is the official registry-registrar
for the US domain under the ITU-T F.401 root.
The Internet developed as it did - in the face of those bodies -
through private sector, business initiatives and bottom-up,
collaborative, de facto standards and arrangements. It was
the Ciscos, Suns, Microsofts, and countless other companies and
entrepreneurial developers who made the Internet happen, not
those global public interest bodies.
The two paradigms are worth reflecting on in going forward.
--tony
