Re: Fw: [atlarge-discuss] ALOC Draft 3.0

["Lawrence B. Solum" <Lawrence.Solum@lls.edu>]

Jamie,

Thank you for the reply.  My point was a very narrow one.  I welcome your
suggestion to turn the conversation to the larger issues.

You may be frustrated with my statements of my goals, because my agenda is
likely to be quite different than yours.  Let me illustrate by taking one of
your statements.  You write:

> ICANN as a
> corporate entity wants control over a unique DNS root for the global
> Internet, and even to collect a DNS tax from every domain holder.

I quite agree with the substance of your remarks.  ICANN as an organization
provides a service, the coordination of IANA functions for the root, and it
seeks to charge for that service.  The proposed pricing structure is a fee
to be paid by registrars on a per registration basis.  It is a mistake,
however, to view this as a tax collected by ICANN from every domain holder.
First, ICANN does not propose to collect a fee from domain name registrants.
Rather, it proposes to charge registrars for its services.  Various pricing
structures can be imagined, and a per domain name registration fee is one
such structure.  Second, this fee is not a tax.  The word "tax" has a
specific meaning, and what ICANN proposes is no more a tax than is the fee
imposed by a provider of telephone service for reserving a telephone number.
It is a fee; it is not a tax.  This imprecision is important because it is
potentially misleading.  ICANN is not a global government.  It is not the
government of the Internet.  It is an organization that provides a set of
services.  There is a real question about what form of pricing for IANA
services is efficient.  I would be very interested in hearing any reasons
you might have for believing that per registration fees provide an
inefficient pricing structure for the gTLDs.  My intuition is that per
registration metering provides a reasonably second best solution.  The first
best pricing structure, which would meter internet use directly would
obviously create transaction costs that would render it inefficient.

As you might guess from my perspective on this issue, you and I would
probably disagree about a wide range of other issues.  For example, I favor
the use of intermediate organizations to provide representative feedback to
an at-large process (whether it terminates in board seats or not), and
believe that direct at large elections pose difficult or insurmountable
problems of legitimacy.  On the other hand, we might have a good deal of
common ground.  For example, I believe that Karl Auerbach was justified and
acting properly in pursuing his legal remedies as a director of ICANN and
that the trial judge has rendered what seems to be the legally correct
decision.  I have grave misgivings about the fundamental structure of ICANN,
which I believe is based on naive and romantic assumptions about economics,
political theory, and organizational dynamics.  I have probably said too
much for a single post, but I would be happy to continue the conversation
off or on line.

Larry


----- Original Message -----
From: "James Love" <james.love@cptech.org>
To: "Lawrence Solum" <Lawrence.Solum@lls.edu>
Cc: "Esther Dyson" <edyson@edventure.com>; "Sotiris Sotiropoulos"
<sotiris@hermesnetwork.com>; "Denise Michel ALSC"
<dmichel@atlargestudy.org>; <atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de>; "ALOC"
<aloc@at-large.org>
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 8:36 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: [atlarge-discuss] ALOC Draft 3.0


> Lawrence Solum wrote:
> > I think Jamie is over interpreting the word "dissenting," which is, in
> > context, most naturally read as referring to "other" opinions.  The
> > main document doesn't claim to represent the "majority" or "official"
> > view of the at-large community as a whole.
> >
> > There is no substantive disagreement here, and Esther's original point
> > is on target.
>
>     Lawrence,  Esther used the term "dissenting opinions," and if this
means
> something else, well, whatever.  More generally, however, one could talk
> about the ongoing efforts to control and manage "public" input, and to
> package the work of a few selected people as the public.  ICANN as a
> corporate entity wants control over a unique DNS root for the global
> Internet, and even to collect a DNS tax from every domain holder.   They
are
> where they are today because of a long list of broken promises to provide
> the public a voice in the ICANN affairs.  After Accra, Esther told people
to
> go out and organize the at-large.  She asked Joop and Alexander to get
> ICANNatlarge.com off the ground.  Right after the election results were
in,
> she and Denise announced "at-large.org" as the new ICANN approved at-large
> effort.  Then in Bucharest, Esther appeared with VB and Izumi to talk
about
> the ALOC as the new "structure" for at-large input, and Denise crowed
about
> how CPSR(Hans) was onboard.  The French and German governments told ICANN
> the NomCom had no legitimacy.  Alejandro made a big point of saying the
ALOC
> would provide input to the NomCom membership.  Then Esther and Denise
> decided the ALOC had some people who were too democratic and assertive, so
> now it is yet another body that has the Esther/ICANN cronies in charge.
> This type of thing has been going on for years.  Where do you come in, and
> what are your goals in all this?
>
>     Jamie


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