Re: [ga] court supervision, follow on article
Veni Markovski wrote: Even if ICANN were properly brought before the court in this matter, which ICANN has not been, ICANN cannot comply with any order requiring it to suspend or place a client hold on Spamhaus.org or any specific domain name because ICANN does not have either the ability or the authority to do so. Only the Internet registrar with whom the registrant has a contractual relationship - and in certain instances the Internet registry - can suspend an individual domain name. I have been amused by this conclusionary language that ICANN has brought forth. And I am amused, or rather appalled, how board members of ICANN eat, without hesitation and without question, whatever ICANN's staff puts before them. ICANN's statement is a mere conclusion. There are many reasons to believe that it may be incorrect and that ICANN does have the power to block a specific domain. The starting point is the clear fact that ICANN has demonstrated again and again that it has substantial authority, contractual and organizational, over registries and registrars. Those contracts are thick and filled with highly detailed provisions. And as we have seen over the course of the performance of these contracts these provisions are flexible and subject to a great deal of interpretation. In addition these contracts contain mechanisms to for ICANN to unilaterally amend many of the terms. So, it is a very open question indeed whether ICANN has or does not have the power to force a name suspension via its contracts and also via its more indistinct role as mother hen of the membership groups of is registrar and registry "stakeholders". Just because somebody in ICANN says that it does not have the power does not make it true. --karl--
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