Re: [IFWP] Press censorship on issue of ICANN - Op Ed

[Planet Communications Computing Facility]

Hello:

I think it's important your opinion be published.  If you have problems
with this magazine, maybe some of the list memebers can send in some email
supporting the issue and asking that it receive appropriate exposure.
Maybe they were giving you the run around, so let's put on some pressure
make it know the issues are important and that your not alone in your
concerns.

Jeff

> >> Is ICANN out of Control?
> >>  
> >> On Thursday, July 22, 1999 the U.S. Congress held a hearing
> >> on the subject: Is ICANN out of control? It was held by the 
> >> Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the U.S. House 
> >> Commerce Committee.
> >>  
> >> ICANN or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers 
> >> was created in Fall '98 as a private sector non profit 
> >> corporation to take over ownership and control of certain 
> >> essential functions of the Internet. These functions include 
> >> among others, the IP numbers, the domain name system and root 
> >> server system, and the protocols.
> >>  
> >> It is good to see the beginnning effort by the U.S. Congress 
> >> to investigate what has happened with the creation and manipulation 
> >> behind the scenes of ICANN.
> >>  
> >> Such investigation is needed.  But it is only the beginning of the 
> >> needed government effort to find a solution to the controversy 
> >> over ICANN. The hearing was a very meager beginning of the kind 
> >> of study and input needed by Congress to understand the problem 
> >> that ICANN is creating for the Internet community. Unfortunately, 
> >> with a very few exceptions, most of the witnesses were supporters 
> >> of ICANN, or were involved in protecting their own stake in 
> >> gettting a piece of the wealth from transferring essential 
> >> functions of the Internet to the private sector. Some Congressmen 
> >> asked good questions. The absence of witnesses who would be able 
> >> to help to identify the problem, however, showed the pressure 
> >> by those who feel they will benefit from the privatizing of what 
> >> has functioned effectively as a public sector responsibility. 
> >>  
> >> ICANN was created in the midst of a controversy over what would be 
> >> the appropriate institutional form for the ownership and control 
> >> of these functions of the Internet that are crucial to its 
> >> operation. 
> >>  
> >> At an ICANN meeting in January of 1999, a panelist from the Kennedy 
> >> School of Government, Elaine Kamarck, explained that the nonprofit 
> >> corporate form was inappropriate for the administration of 
> >> functions like those that ICANN will be controlling. Since a an 
> >> individual's or company's economic life will be dependent on how 
> >> these functions are administered, there needs to be the kind of 
> >> safeguards that government has been created to provide. A nonprofit 
> >> entity, even if it is a membership organization, does not have such 
> >> safeguards for the kind of economic responsibility that ICANN is being 
> >> set up to assume.
> >>  
> >> The development of ICANN over the past seven months has indeed 
> >> demonstrated that the nonprofit corporate form, the 
> >> structural form of ICANN, does not have a means to provide 
> >> internal safeguards to counteract the tremendous power to control 
> >> the Internet and its users which is being vested in ICANN. 
> >> 
> >> Contrary to popular opinion, the Internet is not a "finished" 
> >> entity. It is a complex system of humans, computers, and networks 
> >> which makes communication possible among these diverse entities. 
> >> Scientific and grassroots science expertise continue to be needed 
> >> to identify the problems and to help to figure out the solutions 
> >> for the Internet to continue to grow and flourish.
> >>  
> >> A crucial aspect of the governance structure for the first
> >> 12 years of the life of the Internet had to do with being
> >> a part of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) of 
> >> the research agency in the U.S. Department of Defense known an 
> >> ARPA or the Advanced Projects Research Agency.  ARPA/IPTO was 
> >> created to make it possible for computer scientists to support 
> >> computer science research like that which gave birth to and made 
> >> it possible to develop the Internet. This early institutional
> >> form made it possible for people of different nations to
> >> work together to build the Internet. 
> >>  
> >> How this was done needs to be understood and the lessons
> >> learned for designing the institutional form to support
> >> vital Internet functions today and for the future.
> >>  
> >> The U.S. Congress needs to be willing to raise the real questions 
> >> and to look for the answers wherever they are to be found. 
> >> 
> >> ---------------
> >> *  URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/5106/1.html
> >> 
> >> See also: URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/2837/1.html
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >>              Netizens: On the History and Impact
> >>                of Usenet and the Internet
> >>           http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
> >>             in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >
> 
> _______________________________
> Nick Patience
> Internet Editor, ComputerWire Inc
> T: 212 677 0409 x18 F: 212 677 0463
> http://www.computerwire.com
>