Re: [ga] Questions for Joe Baptista / Eric Dierker, and why the GA list should be ended

[Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Roberto Gaetano wrote:

> Anyway, to have an ICANN-wide body open to individuals for discussion on
> general items can be misinterpreted as being a membership body, which would
> have unintended legal implications under California law (just my personal
> opinion, IANAL).
On the other hand I *am* a lawyer, licensed in California (unlike at 
least one ICANN affiliated attorney who lacks a California license - 
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=06001-07000&file=6125-6140.05 
who is probably the source of the FUD you are getting as a board member.)
Those "consequences" of membership are very good things to have, not 
things to be feared.
See my note on this at: 
http://www.cavebear.com/archive/icann-board/platform.htm#full-members
ICANN has already had an election that under California law is an 
indicator of membership corporation.  ICANN's use of the word 
"selection" did not make it less of an election; the law recognizes 
reality, not deceptive words.  ICANN is trying to say that the elephant 
is not pink because it is "rose" colored.  So the threshold has already 
been passed; but as we all from experience, that sometimes it takes a 
2x4 across the noggin to get ICANN to adhere even to the most clearly 
and unambiguously expressed requirements of the law - 
http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/DNS_control/ICANN_IANA_IAHC/Auerbach_v_ICANN/.
I've had the current California Secretary of State over to my house and 
we discussed ICANN around my kitchen table.  She finds ICANN's behavior 
to be, even using the most charitable of language, very questionable.
By-the-way, all of those legal implications of membership, listed in the 
URL above, are very good things to have and are not to be feared.
By-the-way, why does ICANN go even further and strip the domain buying 
public of the right to enforce ICANN's contracts when ICANN does not by 
denying the public even the right to be named as "third party 
beneficiaries" on ICANN's registrar and registry contracts?
Is ICANN every going to grant third party beneficiary status to domain 
name registrants?
ICANN appears to have deep contempt for the community of internet users. 
Is it any wonder that the community of internet users responds in kind?

> > Global IP address policy is becoming increasingly important 
> > as IPv4 addresses become more and more scarce - one can use 
> > the internet without a TLD, but one can not use the net 
> > without IP addresses.  So if this GA is locked into names, 
> > then where is the GA for addresses?  It certainly isn't in 
> > the RIRs - those only do regional IP address policy, not global.
> It would be an ASO matter. The public mailing list is
> aso-policy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (see http://aso.icann.org/lists/index.html).
Wow, a dozen messages for the entire year 2007 so far, largely about 
phone bridges and secretarial matters of approving minutes.  Not very 
impressive.
Yet this does not mean that addresses are uninteresting:  The vibrancy 
and concern about address policies is reflected by the daily load of 
regional dialog on the ARIN mailing lists, on the IETF and NANOG lists.
Yet none of that even begins to even dimly twinkle on ICANN's ASO.  Why, 
because ICANN's ASO is moribund if not dead.
ICANN's policy of dividing dialog into teensy tiny little boxes means 
that the large, area-spanning issues - for instance how we deal with the 
needs of internet users - are buried under the focused pressure of 
industrial interests - trademark/registries in DNS, ISP's in IP addressing.
The GA has at least a germ of life.  And it is called the "General" 
assembly, not the "Names" assembly.
                --karl--