DNS and potential energy

Tue Jul 1 14:13:08 UTC 2008

On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 04:01:34AM -0000, Martin Hannigan wrote:
> > Doesn't ICANN already work like an international regulator?
>  
> No. They are more like the IETF than the ITU, but not quite the IETF.
> It's hard to describe. The origins are Berkman Center for Internet
> and Soceity at Harvard, and what is in existence today is a far
> cry from the original social desire of folks that are still there
> today who, based on my knowledge and perception, have been mostly
> disenfranchised.
>
> But not quite a regulator.

They're sort of like Telcordia, formerly Bellcore, in my perception:
they promulgate standards that everyone follows... because everyone
needs some standards to follow.

Clearly, they do not have the force of regulations, or we wouldn't have
people operating root zones with things in them which aren't sanctioned
by ICANN ('sanctioned'.  Another one of those auto-antonymic words I
love, like 'academic'... :-)[1].

Cheers,
-- jra
[1] Don't assume from that that I'm anti-expanded-root[2]
[2] Please don't start this R-war on this list again.  :-)
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com                     '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://photo.imageinc.us             +1 727 647 1274

	     Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
	     Those who count the vote decide everything.
	       -- (Joseph Stalin)