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Re: [ga] The news at the Lisbon meeting

  • To: Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: Re: [ga] The news at the Lisbon meeting
  • From: "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <froomkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 16:51:01 -0400 (EDT)
  • Cc: Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>, Dominik Filipp <dominik.filipp@xxxxxxxx>, Roberto Gaetano <roberto@xxxxxxxxx>, ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • In-reply-to: <460EC57C.6000900@cavebear.com>
  • References: <384037.94109.qm@web52211.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <460EC57C.6000900@cavebear.com>
  • Reply-to: froomkin@xxxxxx
  • Sender: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


ICANN will use the US government refusal to agree as an excuse to move to Geneva.


On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Karl Auerbach wrote:

Danny Younger wrote:
Hello Dominik,

I participated remotely, but the most important
strategic paths signalled by the PSC in my opinion
were:

(1) changing ICANN's legal status to that of an
international nongovernmental organization
(structurally akin to the International Red Cross)...
this does, however, raise accountability issues)

We had a few rounds of discussion on this point on Susan Crawford's blog - http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2007/3/28/2841988.html#882117


Generally I think that ICANN is doing a lot of wishing and not a lot of solid thinking on the question of a new legal status.

The documents that were cited were written by a Swiss person not skilled in US law or politics. And given that the status ICANN wants will almost certainly require Congressional *and* Presidential action, it will be a political decision here in the US. And I can't say that the internet community here has a positive view of ICANN and would we willing to relinquish even the thin control and accountability that now exists.

I gave a talk a few years ago about how entities gain international legitimacy, and how ICANN is not following that road ... See "Why Louis XIV Would Have Loved The Internet" at http://www.cavebear.com/cavebear/growl/issue_7.htm

In addition ICANN has given no thought whatsoever how such a new legal entity would become the successor in interest to the present ICANN. ICANN has created a spider's web of contracts that could be hard to unwind and transfer to another body, even if all parties involved were willing.

Moreover, I expect ICANN to be soon facing several lawsuits, such as from the .xxx folks, on various grounds ranging from contractual issues (such as the RegisterFly class action) to claims that ICANN is an illegal combination in restraint of trade under the laws of the US, EU, or somewhere.

		--karl--


-- http://www.icannwatch.org Personal Blog: http://www.discourse.net A. Michael Froomkin | Professor of Law | froomkin@xxxxxx U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA +1 (305) 284-4285 | +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) | http://www.law.tm -->It's warm here.<--



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