Re: [ga] Re: ICANN before the US Senate...

["L. Gallegos" <jandl@xxxxxxxxx>]

Elisabeth,
It IS theater.

Call me naieve, but I cannot for the life of me see what ICANN offers 
ccTLDs.  IMO, the cc's should come under the IANA function only.  What 
would a contract with ICANN accomplish for them?

ICANN should also get out of the business management (or micromanagement) 
and stick to technical.  Karl is right about this.  ICANN has made "some" 
progress in bringing those involved in IDN to the table to discuss the 
issues from a technical standpoint - how they should be interacting in the 
DNS.  It should do nothing else.

ICANN should be working toward SLA's with root server operators and 
overseeing the truly important issues of security, stability and 
reliability.  This it has NOT done.

There was nothing mentioned about the IANA function, yet this is even more 
important than the DNS.  IANA should be separated from ICANN and should 
have no bearing on the registries or registrars or ccTLDs other than 
performing the clerical details - a one person job.

In any case, expecting anything to come of these hearings is a bit 
foolish, given the lack of oversight thus far.  I, personally, have no 
expectations that anything good will come of it other than having 
testimony in the Congressional Record for posterity.   It can't just 
disappear at least.  In order to have any real meaning, however, there 
would have to be testimony from a great many more individuals representing 
many more sides and revealing the issues that will have the greatest 
effect on us all.  This hearing was, like the others, narrow and biased.

Nancy Victory's testimony was predictable, of course, in her praise for 
ICANN's "accomplishments?".  It's a given that the MOU will be renewed and 
ICANN will continue to do what it has always done - mission creep, 
micromangement of businesses relating to domain names and nothing concrete 
in its technical mandate.  If ICANN were a public corporation, it would 
have been either eradicated or completely reconstructed long before now.  
No group of shareholders would put up with this.  One single audit would 
have been enough to cause replacement of staff and board.  If it were 
funded with tax dollars, I'd be afraid to be a board member because of the 
allowed mismangement.  It is most definitely not functioning as public 
benefit corporation, since it does not benefit the public, but only the 
special groups who back it.  The mere fact of lack of membership for all 
stakeholders, with members rights is enough to negate any possible 
legitimacy it might have had.

Leah

On 4 Aug 2003 at 19:44, Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:

> Caveat:
> As a non-US citizen, I feel watching Congress hearings like going to a
> theater - the actors play their role, I am sitting in the remote audience.
> I did appreciate Paul Twomey's conclusion said to the US Senator Burns: "I
> want to help establish that a public-private partnership of the kind that
> ICANN has become is in fact a feasible and appropriate way to deal with
> matters like the DNS, over which no single government can claim
> sovereignty, but which all governments and many private parties have
> important and legitimate interests in seeing function well."
> 
>