All about ICANN. (in brief)
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for the Assignment of Names and Numbers, is a private corporation that was set up by the U.S. Government to regulate the Internet. Congress did not create ICANN, rather, the Department of Commerce created ICANN. Thus, no elected officials were responsible for its creation.In 1997, the Clinton Administration directed the Department of Commerce, the "DoC", to privatize the Internet. This action was said, by the DoC, to be taken in response to pressures from foreign governments and the trade industry (i.e. large multinationals). The primary concern of the foreign governments was that the U.S. Government had found itself in control of what had become a very important communications medium. The primary concern of large multinationals, at that time, was that they did not have the Trademark power (or other powers) they wished online.
Thus, in October of 1998, the DoC facilitated the creation of a nonprofit corporation known as "NewCo", which later was named ICANN, the Internet Corporation for the Assignment of Names and Numbers. ICANN’s initial funding, and most of its funding to date, has come from large corporations, including IBM, MCI, 3COM, and Deutsche Telekom.
This initial action of privatizing the Internet: the creation of ICANN and the power given to ICANN, resulted in a number of violations of Constitutional Rights. Specifically, the Department of Commerce violated the Administrative Procedures Act and the nondelegation doctrine of the U.S. Constitution in their creation and delegation of ICANN as the authority over the Internet. The current policies or "laws" of ICANN also trespass on a number of Constitutional Rights including the First Amendment Right of Free Expression, and Rights of Due Process.
Most of ICANN’s violations of U.S. Constitutional Rights are due to their UDRP, the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy, which is effectively a "world law" over domain name ownership. ICANN put the UDRP into effect, retroactively, in October of 1999. The UDRP governs the right to own and use the .com, .net, .org and several other domain name suffixes.
As a result of the UDRP, the new "World Domain Name Law", several thousand Domain Disputes have been filed with world courts established by ICANN and referred to as "arbitration centers." In most cases, Domain Registrants have lost their domain names to large corporations who, presumably, have superior legal resources, and superior rights under this new International Law.
For a complete and scholarly analysis, see Professor A. Michael Froomkin's article on ICANN in the Duke Law Journal. That article, though lengthy, is highly recommended. [http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann.htm or visit http://www.law.tm]
ICANN's most public move of late was to decide upon new domain names, and they chose ".biz" and ".info" with priority given to Trademark owners. However, ICANN’s main objective appears to be to write and enforce policy for the ownership and use of domain names worldwide, as exemplified by their recent move to have Latin American states adopt the UDRP. ICANN, thanks to the DoC, already controls domain name use worldwide but has not exerted power over top level (country) domains. There is not yet a "uniform policy" (i.e. "law") for the use of such top level domain names, for example.co.uk, or .de (for the U.K. and Germany respectively), nor should there be.
More important than ICANN's problematic history and actions to date, is the future of ICANN. ICANN currently plays a number of roles for a number of powerful parties including large multinational corporations, the U.S. Government, and its allies, at the expense of individual rights.
It is clear that the U.S. Government, which created the Internet, never intends to give up control of the Internet. Thus, the move to create ICANN is, from one perspective, a smoke and mirrors action to say to other governments "look we’ve privatized the Internet". This "smoke and mirrors" strategy continues with the disinformation that surrounds most of ICANN's actions.
To further legitimize ICANN for the vast majority of Internet users (who in fact have little idea of how the Internet "works"), an election was held last year for 5 of 19 board members of ICANN. The five (5) people who were elected were chosen from five parts of the world (those "parts" determined by ICANN). However, ICANN is much more than 19 board members, but consists of a myriad of secret organizations. And two of those five elected members, Karl Auerbach (from North American) and Andy Muller-Mughun (from Europe) have mostly critical and alarming things to say about ICANN, but regardless of what they say, they have said they have little power to change what ICANN does.
"Here in the United States, corporations do not vote for President or Congress, but they have no trouble making their voices heard. I'm not worried about them not making their voices heard with ICANN. Right now they have virtually 100 percent control."
-Karl Auerbach
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/06/44404?currentPage=all
Also see Auerbach's U.S. Senate Testimony: http://www.cavebear.com/tmp/senate-feb-14-2001.htm
There have been three (3) Senate Investigations of ICANN, but then nothing happens. Why nothing happens is perhaps because the NSA, or the CIA, or someone at the Pentagon, gets in touch with members of Congress and informs them that what ICANN is doing is "in the interests of National Security." Howver, no one knows for sure, as the whole "privatization of the Internet" process with ICANN has been done primarily in secret.
The Internet should not be regulated by a private organization. As an alternate solution to regulation, perhaps the United Nations should create a new elected organization to regulate the Internet, i.e. to regulate the "assignment of names and numbers." And the control of "names and numbers" (e.g. Domain Names) should not be "International" but based on the laws of the particular country domain suffixes. Thus, the ownership and use of .com's should be protected by U.S. Laws, and therefore the U.S. Constitution. And consequently, for example, the .tv domain name would be regulated by the laws of the government of Tuvalu. Regardless of the solutions chosen, they should be done by elected officials, not by appointed, secretive agents.
At this point, it appears that the only way to quickly stop ICANN is to file suit against the U.S. Government (since the U.S. Government controls ICANN) for violating an individual's Constitutional rights.
While several people have proven in theory how the creation of ICANN and ICANN’s policies ("laws") violate the Constitution, few who have had the first hand experience of having their rights violated have addressed it publicly.
I am such a person who has had his Rights violated, when a large corporation attempted, in 2001, to take away a domain name of mine, which I owned and used for six years. I found that U.S. Law and thus my Constitutional Rights, did not apply! Thus, I know first hand how ICANN and its policies violate an individual's rights. Consequently, I am very concerned about the future of Free Speech on the Internet. More detail on that domain name dispute is here http://www.shameontheafma.com
Beyond Domain Names:
Consider the acronym ICANN. The Internet Corporation for the Assignment of Names and Numbers. Whoever assigns "names" and "numbers" with respect to the Internet exerts ABSOLUTE control over the medium. Indeed, all communication on the Internet is dependent on "names" and "numbers."
No one (in the United States) can tell you what to say or not say on the telephone, and no one should be able to control what you say and don’t say online. Yet ICANN is already doing this online.
"ICANN is beginning to win its battle to become a global regulator and controller for the Internet. It is moving through a vocabulary of doublespeak to build a framework from which to rule. The framework is crafted so that it surrounds ICANN with a shield designed to be immune from legal attack. Claiming to be beholden to the Internet community, ICANN will be accountable to no one except its corporate and government political supporters. Driven by a campaign of deceptive image management, it claims that it is doing nothing more serious than carrying out a consensus driven mandate to manage the Internet’s plumbing".
- From the Cook Report
I leave you with a quote from the only elected board member of ICANN from North America:
"ICANN is Internet Governance….ICANN is ill designed, has been ill operated, and has greatly exceeded its proper scope. ICANN is a strange brew of governmental powers and private lack of responsibility. ICANN conceives itself as a supra-national body that may act in ways that no single nation can, and equally ICANN harbors a hope that it ought to be above the reach of any single nation." (from Auerbach's Senate Testimony).
I encourage you act to protect our Free Speech, Due Process, and other Constitutional Rights online.
Sincerely,
Andy Hasse
In June, I will be speaking on ICANN at Trinity College's Rhetoric and Democracy in the Age of the Internet Conference. Meanwhile, I encourage you to read ICANNWatch at http://www.icannwatch.org, although keep in mind that many of those who post on ICANNWatch are in fact dependent on the ICANN system for their careers, and don't seem to question its overall legitimacy.
Copyright 2001 Andy Hasse. All Rights Reserved.
Permission is hereby given to quote the above if you include my website: http://www.andyhasse.com. Please do not include my email however.
NOTE: the above "All About ICANN" text was written in May of 2001, and in haste, thus please excuse typos.
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