article that might interest you (includes our WHOIS work)...

[Frannie Wellings]

ICANN: Return of the Jedi Engineers
By Monika Ermert
Posted: 12/03/2004 at 15:50 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/36226.html

That strange beast The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) gathered in Rome last week for one of its regular
meetings.

The not-for-profit organisation appears to be torn between market
players who pull no punches and interminable government WSIS
discussions on the future of the Information Society. Throughout it
all, ICANN's board and its President Paul Twomey are struggling to
steer the ship on a business-as-usual course.

The wake-up call in Rome came from Bruce Tonkin, chair of the Generic
Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). He called for a "return of the
Jedi" - the technical elite with strong analytical skills - to save
the "ICANN civilisation". "We should think while we're here in about
why the Roman empire fell," he warned, and why the Jedi Council was
annihilated in the most recent Star Wars movie. This could be happen
to ICANN, too.

Tonkin said that lawsuits recently brought against ICANN showed its
processes had failed in many aspects. Instead of gathering necessary
data to make sound decisions the ICANN community was engaging more in
"speaking exercises".

One example is the protracted discussion on privacy issues
surrounding the compulsory publication of personal data in Whois
databases. Data privacy officials and governments are pressing the
issue, but the three working groups are in a stalemate with
intellectual property lawyers.

"Are we afraid of providing real data?" asked Tonkin. "Can we not
support our argument with useful information?" The lack of analysis
and protracted processes ultimately resulted in failures like the law
suits, said Tonkin. "We can spend money now to properly resource the
analysis and policy development or spend money later in another
decision-making process. That is the courts."

ICANN faces three cases on the so called Wait Listing Service (WLS)
alone, of which especially VeriSign's anti-trust and breach of
agreement complaint filed last month, prompted tense exchanges in
Rome between Twomey and VeriSign director Chuck Gomes who defended
WLS as a means to prevent the hammering of the company's name servers
and as consumer choice.

The WLS was proposed by VeriSign for registering an option on an
active domain for $24. Only registars signing up to VeriSign's
Namestore would be able to register, said Jeff Field of Bid It Win it
Inc, one of the suing US registrars. For other registrars most of the
domain names would be out of reach.

VeriSign's track record with the attempt to introduce Sitefinder is
not much of an argument for the company, argued Field. "It is the
bully in the school yard and ICANN has to punch him on the nose."
Before taking the "multi-million dollar decision" the ICANN board
should ask itself what Internet founding father Jon Postel would have
done, he said.

Eliot Noss from Tucows does not care if ICANN approves WLS. But he
wants ICANN to recognize the significant change in the domain market.
Inefficiencies in ICANN's system has created a secondary market that
is worth 10-20 times more that the primary domain market, he says.
Next generation services will include the monetizing of search
traffic using clever algorithms to find fancy names.

What ICANN has to decide is how much of the benefit would go up the
food chain to the registry. Noss warned that protracted application
processes will drive more companies in the secondary market and urged
with regard to WLS: "Please put this issue to bed for once."

ICANN seems to have taken note. In Rome, a trial run of Verisign's
WLS. This may head off some or all of Verisign's lawsuit against
ICANN, which accuses the body of illegally trying to become the de
facto regulator of the Internet. Several registrars are sueing ICANN
and VeriSign over WLS. You can read all about the legal twists and
turns here.

ICANN has more sensible decisions to make on the upcoming application
process for specialized Top Level Domains. But even before the
application process has started, Ron Andruff, from Tralliance
Corporation, warned that 180 days for the selection process will
place too much burden on applicants which have to hand in $45,000.
Tralliance wants to bid for a .travel domain.

Funding of the whole ICANN process is another crucial issue of the
ICANN civilization. Grant Forsyth, member of ICANN's business
constituency, demanded that the US Department of Commerce should pay
for the lawsuits. "Alternative Funding Sources" was a term that was
used much in Rome, but board members were disinclined to discuss to
what sources they had in mind.

Lots of work has to be done, says Tonkin. Who for example will care
for implementation of policies on the good behavíour of market
participants? Civilisation needs compliance and somebody who enforces
compliance, says Tonkin, it needs the Jedis. ®

--

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Frannie Wellings
Policy Fellow, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Coordinator, The Public Voice
1718 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Suite 200
Washington, D.C.  20009   USA
wellings at epic.org
+1 202 483 1140 extension 107 (telephone)
+1 202 483 1248 (fax)
http://www.epic.org
http://www.thepublicvoice.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------