Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2001/09/10/icann_performance_and_cocktails/

ICANN: Performance and cocktails

Will it let it help itself?

By Kieren McCarthy

Posted in Legal, 10th September 2001 12:02 GMT

ICANN meeting In the fourth part of our exclusive diary from the ICANN meeting in Uruguay, Andy Duff - the director of policy and marketing at New.net - recovers from a heady mix of cocktails and politics to take a step back and review where ICANN is going and who ought to take it there.

A muse on the future of ICANN

You know, the job ICANN was set up to do isn't that hard. It is "dedicated to administering a key set of Internet resources in the public interest and on behalf of the global Internet communities." The technical part shouldn’t be that difficult - there's a bunch of really smart technical guys who know what they're doing.

The *hard* part (and what has caused so many difficulties) is the Domain Name Policy area. Like it or not, the rapid growth in Internet use has meant domain name registrations have far exceeded anyone's expectations. And this is the crux of the ICANN's future: how involved should it be in the policy area? Right now it's heavily involved and getting more so by the day.

But then the original vision of ICANN's representative structure has never been fulfilled, and it's starting to look like it never will. We've ended up with an organisation that sets policy, with an input mechanism verging on the dysfunctional and a heavy bias to big-business interests.

If ICANN is to be the body that sets policy, will it be truly representative of *all* affected parties? Are there other mechanisms or organisations that could perform the policy-setting role? Should market forces play a greater role? Is a policy body needed at all?

The Global Internet Policy Initiative (GIPI) was invited to present in the GA session today. GIPI is working hard to educate people round the world about Internet policy issues. There are many other bodies which could claim to provide useful bases for policy-making input. And even some within the ccTLDs think that they can help shape policy. And then there's the market, which we at New.net believe is one of the most effective policy-making mechanisms out there.

The best solution - as we see it - would be for ICANN to return to it's original mission of technical co-ordination and steer clear of the policy arena. But then there's more than a few careers banking on a big and growing ICANN ;-)

Andy

Previous diaries

The bickering begins
Mexican stand-off in Montevideo
The insider's guide to the ICANN meeting