[ga] String checks and deep pockets
Danny Younger wrote: Reading through Bruce Tonkin's synopsis of the Amsterdam discussions on string checks ... As for the specific issue - words *are* weapons. A discussion about pruning a "bush" might be construed as pertaining to gardening or it might construed as being a strong political sentiment. ICANN is opening Pandora's box. But there is a larger issue - ICANN is treading in very dangerous waters - we already see it acting to impose limits on who may sell domain name products, under what terms, and requiring mandatory indirect payments from customers to ICANN, a party with whom they have no privity, much less a welcome. These condition that are being imposed have no actual relationship to the operational stability of the internet. Now ICANN seeks to impose even greater restrictions by imposing semantic limitations on top level domain product. These limitations also have no actual relationship to the operational stability of the internet. Eventually this restraint of trade limb that ICANN has crawled out onto may snap, tumbling not merely ICANN, but the entire hierarchy of contracts that ICANN has created, into the abyss. And, although, the internet would keep on working, that collapse of the business structure would not be good for reasons quite separate from that of internet technology. ICANN's hope to avoid the restraint of trade hammer - one that could fall in any country, not merely the US - lies in making stronger, rather that weaker, demonstrations that it's policies are deliberate responses to technical internet issues. And this "string" issue is so obviously so completely divorced from technical needs that it could serve as a bight beam of light that illuminates the absence of technical support for other ICANN policies as well. Were I on the board or management of a company that was participating on any of these ICANN committees, I would ask my corporate and outside counsel to look long and hard at the question whether such participation by my company might be increasing the likelihood that my company might become a defendant in a restraint of trade action in the US or elsewhere. And I would suggest skepticism for the smooth assurances that come from ICANN's attorneys - their job is to protect ICANN, not to protect others. And their track record has not been all that good: these are same attorneys who gave ICANN the astoundingly wrong advice that it was fine for them to deny a board member the right to inspect corporate records. Many of us are wondering when, not if, the restraint of trade actions are going to start. Those companies that have participated in ICANN's committees that have contributed these agreements about the shape of the domain name marketplace may find that they have become attractive defendants due to the relative depth of their pockets to ICANN's. --karl--
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