[NA-Discuss] Fwd: "Domain Protection Racket" Promotion on Network Solutions Home Page

[Volker Greimann]

> The door is always open and I still hope that they will join At-Large
> someday. But they will have to play by the rules of consensus, like all
> of us. Sometimes we want something but the majority does not. It's
> frustrating sometimes, but that's the name of the game.
> Warm regards,
>
In other words: "Please don't practice armchair quarterbacking, if you 
do not like the way the ICANN policies are going, join your respective 
community and participate in the consensus building process!"

I agree that this is what the critics should do, however, it costs hours 
upon hours of unpaid voluntary work to participate in the process, but 
only a few minutes to publicly criticize the result. Due to this simple 
arithmetic of cost vs. benefit, ICANN will always have to deal with 
uninformed detractors on any decision that is made, no matter how well 
thought-out and well debated the decision is.

>  That was my point exactly when I spoke with Farber; and yet, there is
>  total ignorance of the bottom-up model outside of ICANN, there is a
>  general accusation that At-Large just pays lip service to ICANN and that
>  ICANN is just controlled entirely by contracted parties wishing to make
>  a quick buck through a "domain protection racket", a term I personally
>  find offensive. Real life "protection rackets" are a completely
>  different ballgame involving physical threats.

Picturing the "domain protection racket and borrowing from Monty Python:
"You have a nice brand there, we wouldn't want anything to happen to it, 
do we? You ought to be careful, 'cos things break, don't they? Domain 
names, eh? Be a shame if someone was to set fire to them..."

-- 
Best regards,

Volker A. Greimann