[At-Large] DomainIncite : Is this why WhatsApp hates some TLDs but not others?

[Karl Auerbach]

I quite agree with you that "legitimacy" is important and can be 
difficult to achieve.

I had not thought of how ICANN's perceived authority is weakened as the 
world tends to de-globalize into competing fiefdoms.  I'm glad you 
brought that up.  (My sense is that you have revealed to us something 
that is going to be a growing issue in the coming years.)

If we start to think of other jobs the Internet needs then there is 
value in looking at what ICANN got right and what it got wrong.  (Among 
those potential jobs are some that are quite touchy and sensitive, such 
as identification/authentication tokens, and some that will irritate 
those who think in terms of trade secrets, such as getting better 
handles on sources of damaging traffic.)

I've usually thought that any body - whether it be ICANN or the Red 
Cross or whatever - achieves legitimacy as sort of an additive process 
performed both by national governments (usually by treaty or something 
similar) and by the body itself through doing its job well for a long time.

ICANN has definitely done some things well for a quarter of a century - 
but often in the realm of taking credit for the work of root server 
operators.  ICANN's imposition of business models and its heavy cost 
burden on consumers (by my estimate this cost is in the $billions) is 
not something that has been done well.  (ICANN [perhaps under the guise 
of IANA] also did valuable, yeoman work, in conjunction with the IETF, 
with regard to multi-lingualization and DNSSEC.)

Then there is the 25 year old fact that ICANN was designed (if not 
intentionally than naively) to be captured by those who it purports to 
regulate and has since become a pliable vehicle for the trademark branch 
of my tribe, Intellectual Property attorneys.  These things do not 
contribute to the weight of legitimacy as measured by others not so well 
situated, such as the community of Internet users.

As anyone who knows me knows, I'm a strong believer that our 
institutions ought to have clear and reasonably direct lines of 
accountability to the living, breathing people who populate our planet.  
Add to that that I reject the injection of bookkeeping conveniences (we 
call them "corporations") into those lines of accountability because 
they create means for multiplying of the influence of some, block the 
influence of others, and create opacity rather than transparency of the 
strings of accountability.

As such I have believed that ICANN ought to be under the sole control of 
the public.  And, further, that a wise exercise of that public role 
ought to be to view those we call "stakeholders" entirely through the 
lens of the individual people who hold those interests and thus 
represent those interests merely as members of the public, rather than 
through some elevated, privileged, ordained role as "stakeholder".  (Of 
course, any wise member of the public ought to recognize that those we 
today call "stakeholders" often have expertise and views we ought to 
hear and consider.)

I've held myself apart from the ALAC system.  Not because I reject its 
value.  But rather that I reject the Procrustean form that was forced 
upon it.  To my mind it was designed to be of weak voice with weaker 
influence.

In balance, after 25 years, the name "ICANN" tends to elicit more groans 
than lauds.  That's not a path that leads to a solid, enduring 
foundation of legitimacy.

         --karl--

On 9/14/23 2:59 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 14, 2023 at 3:54 PM Karl Auerbach via At-Large 
> <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org> wrote:
>
>     Democracy Versus Stakeholderism
>
>     https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/stakeholder_sock_puppet/
>
> There are many forms of stakeholderism. Some, like Netmundial's, have 
> potential to be sustainable and adaptable for other environments. 
> Other models, developed in standards-making environments, provide 
> examples as diverse as the IETF's and ISO's.
>
> And then there's ICANN's inmates-running-the-asylum model, by far 
> worst of the bunch, in numerous ways explicitly designed to serve 
> industry at the expense of the public interest. For all of its A&T 
> noise the world has seen that ICANN's only real external 
> accountability is to the California Attorney-General.
>
> It is no coincidence that for most international treaties, the ICANN 
> script is flipped; it is governments and public-interest groups who 
> set the agenda while industry advises. Without the backing of such 
> treaties, ICANN's decisions survive only because of governmental 
> tolerance rather than validation.  And as a result of said lack of 
> validation, we have issues arise such as we have in this thread: 
> "ICANN-approved" gTLDs which are ignored by significant swaths of the 
> Internet (and without anyone realizing it for YEARS).
>
> How can anyone be surprised? It is notable that even this shocking 
> news was revealed by an industry-insider website and has received no 
> mainstream coverage of which I'm aware. Nobody outside the ICANN 
> bubble cares.
>
> And this is ICANN at peak respect. As globalization declines, ICANN's  
> lack of treaty backing is going to prove even more costly to 
> international connectivity as time passes. It's going to get worse, 
> not better.
>
> - Evan
>
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