There are no US journalists here, as far as I can tell.  One reporter told me, before I came here, that he'd asked his editors about covering ICANN and they just flapped their hands at him -- nothing happens there -- and gave him another assignment.  The distance from the US for most of these meetings is just too much for any rational reporter to sell to an editor.  Kuala Lumpur? You've got to be kidding.

So I feel an obligation to blog, not only for the US but for whoever else wants to listen.  The most interesting thing that happened publicly, by far, was the engineers v. innovators squabble of yesterday -- I did try to cover that.  It seemed to many of the people I talked to afterwards that the engineers are creating more controversy ("it's very dangerous to create new TLDs")  than is necessary.  Surely there is some process that would allow a few to be created a year.  With thin contracts along the "everything is permitted except things that are prohibited by consensus policies" line.

Here comes the open mike:

Wolfgan Kleinwachter:  When will the first At Large Regional Organization be created?  What's the connection between between ICANN and .gov and .int?

Vittorio Bertola:  No simple answer to the At Large question.  It's not clear that these regional groups will emerge -- very cumbersome process, in my view. -ed.  We're continuing outreach.  Individual membership is an old question.  We do have to involve users in ICANN directly, for specific policy issues.  People want to participate directly.  Take a look at WSIS.  We're thinking about setting up mailing lists etc. for other ways to participate in ICANN.

Roberto Gaetano:  Personal opinion is that if we at this point in time (in the middle of the effort of getting RALOs and more organizations up) open to individual membership and start creating confusion, we'll make work of outreach harder.  When the RALOs are in place with the critical mass of at large organizations as members, then we should talk about it.

Bruce Tonkin: About .gov and .int and .edu -- simple answer is No, we don't have involvement.  They're not generic or global -- they're US-based.  (Vint -- not necc. true of .edu).

Markus Faure (registrar):  CORE has been set up to bid competition to markets, so interested in strong ICANN.  But we have a problem with a $40 million budget -- Paul can't clarify assumptions right now, I understand that.  We have sent a representative to the budget advisory group and we'll work with ICANN.

Second point -- I love this place, but internet connection not so great. (poor guy).  ICANN should consider getting a refund from the local ISP -- help the budget.

Izumi Aizu:  The issue of individual users remains a very valid question.  I've had a lot of experience with this.  ALAC is making fair progress, but not doing as much as we wanted or expected from others.  Still have some doubt whether we'll be successful in setting up RALOs in five regions quickly, given the political climate around the world.  We're evaluating ourselves and the framework we're working with.  Question is whether there are really interested users out there who want to participate without a subsidy. This isn't the core business of users!  It's so hard to justify getting involved.  I'm not sure this is sustainable.  If it is difficult to self-organize, what should we do?  Does ICANN need the involvement of individuals? ICANN should decide whether it wants ALAC in the context of the WSIS process -- in which ICANN's legitimate right to represent the public interest is being questioned.

Milton Mueller:  Listened with interest to your review of registry service changes.  Any discussion of distinction between dominant/non-dominant registries? or would this apply to every registry?  is that even feasible? Are you just focused on VeriSign and SiteFinder?

Bruce Tonkin: What do you mean by dominant?

Milton:  That's for the regulator to decide -- the GNSO.  These distinctions are to some extent arbitrary, but have to be made.

Bruce:  Distinction so far is about sponsored v. unsponsored so far.  Sponsoreds have the view that they have their own internal process (not just the view, the contractual framework!) for registry services.  Real question is what is the result of the new gTLD process.  If we have thousands of them, we'll have lots of overhead, you're right.  As we get more experience, the controls may well be loosened over time. Right now it seems as if we need more control.  ("recent events" = SiteFinder).  If the contracts change, that will be different.  The plan is to have the new .net contract provide a template for every tld -- watch that contract. .75 per registration event to ICANN, plus .25 from the registrars -- ICANN gets a dollar a name.

James Seng:  Re individual participation.  ALAC has made great progress.  What's the measurement of success?  Will individuals actually have their voice heard? The discussion level is very very low.  Perhaps there's a tool that large committees should have.

Twomey:  Staff considers the voice of the consumer to be absolutely essential part of the ICANN construct and the ICANN philosophy.  We absolutely need the voice of the consumer.  But it's hard.  We're trying to do that.

Vint:  We do have public comment, but it's true people may not know about ICANN.  We do have an outreach/visibility problem.  Key is getting feedback from registrants who are affected by policies that are made by ICANN.

Marie Zitkova:  Makes clear that sponsors are in the registry constituency and represent a community.

James Seng:  Let's use some online tools.  (yes!)  Don't spend more money on participation.

Izumi:  Let's have both travel and more online tools.  Not mutually exclusive.  We have a challenge with ALAC outreach -- how do we explain this.  ICANN is so many different things.  ICANN needs to explain itself better, and explain At Large as well.  Not just At Large people should be explaining At Large.  I've been asked whether I'm a puppet of the ICANN board.  We need credibility, but it's difficult.  Who needs At Large?  If ICANN needs it, should support it.

Also, being "advisory" is a tough sell.  How can we convince people that they can directly influence policy?  How can we effectively involve users' voices in ICANN policy? 

Vittorio Bertola:  We still don't have privacy in whois -- people ask us about that, and we can't respond.  Organizations with limited resources choose not to participate in ICANN.  Also, online tools may not reach the At Large people -- not internet-savvy. 

Also, ICANN has to think about its organization/structure for these meetings.  It's hard when everything gets rescheduled on the fly, and without things to read in advance.  This will help people who aren't insiders.

Keith Davidson (.nz):  Thanks for the meetings committee organization -- we'll be in Wellington, New Zealand in 2006.

Mohamet Diop:  I've heard from the African At Large people that ICANN staff is trying hard to forward the discussion at the regional level, but it's not enough.  There's a lack of awareness of what ICANN is and what it's doing at a national level.  People don't have information or a forum.  (ICANN does have a steep learning curve -- it should be blogging and teaching and explaining.  And it needs docket sheets.)  We need to leverage the presence of the ICANN staff to help people get the right information about ICANN.

Greg Ruth (ISPCP constituency):  Strategic plan: it's a welcome step forward, but proposal still lacks measurable objectives and detailed time lines.  No contracts with root server operators -- we'd like to see that.  We support IANA upgrade suggestions in the plan.  But reference made to ASO community "building global consensus policy governing IP addresses" is not supported by the demise of an independent ASO.  We're glad to see an ombudsman and an emphasis on compliance.  PDP process needs to be flexible and tailored.  What's up with this regional meetings suggestion?  We need more information.  Finally, ISPCP notes with dismay that SOs not consulted before the strategic plan was sent out.  This plan has real consequences for policy.

Vint:  Plan is open for suggestions at all times.

Elliot Noss:  Repeat some comments made in a different way on other occasions here:  Expired names market.  Two points to frame this discussion.  Back to my Rome comments in March about WLS, where I said that dealing with WLS would be irrelevant because the market would move past WLS.  I was right.  First, I want to identify two stages in the life of a name.  Registrant retains rights with existing registrars; second, when registry deals with expired names.  In dealing with this market, first stage is about $50, second stage is about $6-$50.  

Second comment:  I want to explicitly tell you that you have an interesting market to deal with.  The demand side of this market is very efficient.  Prices are at fair market value.  All of the problems are on the supply (registrar/registry) side.  Most important question to deal with for the Board will be who's entitled to the money generated by the demand.  We've been dealing with this since September 2001.  The party that is most entitled to the revenue here is the previous registrant. 

This comment was sent to me anonymously.

In the early 16th century, a devout monk from Germany visited Rome. He was awed to be at the very seat of Christendom. Then he looked around and was appalled at what he saw. He, and then Germany, and then much of Europe, awoke to the abuses of an institution that was claiming a monopoly on the right to mediate the relationship between man and God. The Roman Catholic Church of the time was selling indulgences (purporting to reduce your time in purgatory, for a fee), then spending the money on grand parties. Luther realized that there was nothing in the sacred texts themselves that gave any intermediate institution the exclusive power or right to stand between individuals and salvation.

It’s time for netizens to come to a similar realization about their direct relationship with the empowerment offered by the internet. None of the core principles that produced the net give any set of clerics – even the original engineers, or ISOC, much less ICANN – the right to prevent innovation at the edge. Indeed, the sacred texts of the net explicitly empower decentralized action. The internet arose because everything not prohibited was permitted. Now, ICANN is itself holding new TLDs, and even new services from existing registries and registrars, in purgatory – occasionally deigning to accept high fees to let some proposals proceed. (Registries and registrars both provide services at the edge, running their own databases on their own servers.)  Instead of acting appropriately to define (and ban) sin, the clerics of the internet are seeking to set themselves up as intermediaries who must be pleased and paid before anyone can do anything new.

Some have called for Internet democracy. Some have called for more involvement by governments in “internet governance." Neither is what is needed right now. What we need is a reformation – a general realization by decentralized actors that there is no need at all for any intermediary to stand between them and any changes they think will improve the internet. They don’t need an institutional indulgence – they just need to act cooperatively and vigorously to keep making the internet better. Some actions will still be appropriately considered wrongful – and these should be banned by either governments, or ICANN (through consensus policies), or both. But it’s time to stop sending money to ICANN on the theory that we need them to hire staff whose job it is to give us all permission to innovate.

Luther appealed to the secular leaders of the day to help resist the corruption of the church. Perhaps we will need the governments (maybe even the ITU) to help take the net back for netizens. But Luther’s wise appeal for support from German princes did not amount to abandonment of the central faith that drove him. He did not believe salvation was irrelevant – just that it could not and should not be bought from a self-appointed intermediary. We may need support from governments (particularly the US government) to take the net back from a corrupt central clergy. But we have to preserve the faith that gave rise to the internet in the first place – that the resources at the edge belong to individual actors, and that empowerment comes from decentralized, cooperative innovation, not from top-down regulatory prescriptions.

If there were a Luther for the internet, he might post (presumably on his blog, rather than on a church door) some set of theses that seemed to him self-evident but that few involved in the church of the day were previously prepared to utter. With apologies to the real Luther, they might look something like the following:

In the Name of Jon Postel.

1. The RFCs and standards that created the net decree that everyone at the edge shall be free to innovate unless they cause harm to others.

2. This principle cannot mean that such innovation must first receive approval from any centralized authority.

3. It also doesn’t mean that anyone is free to do anything they want – it must be possible for the community of netizens to prohibit harmful actions through their own decentralized acts.

4. Accordingly, it is right for every member of the internet community to cooperate with others and to abide by policies that have been established by consensus to prohibit harmful actions.

5. Aside from such instances, however, no central authority has any ability or right to determine what is “best for the net” or which actions should be encouraged or allowed.

6. The decentralized actions of netizens, to adopt or refuse new services and connections, are the only true judgments about whether a particular innovation is good or bad.

7. The cooperation that gave rise to the internet did not and could not grant to any institution the power to make decisions on behalf of all netizens.

8. Since there is no such power, any claim by any institution to a right to prevent innovation at the edge of the internet is inherently flawed and contrary to the most basic principles from which the internet arose.

9. ICANN purports to speak on behalf of the internet community. This is plainly not the case and represents an inherent contradiction – because the internet community can by its decentralized actions speak for itself.  Indeed, it can only speak in such manner).

10. Those who claim for ICANN the power to approve any innovation are ignorant or corrupt.

11. The claim that introduction of new TLDs will cause technical difficulties is plainly false and manufactured to increase ICANN’s powers rather than to assure continued innovative and empowering uses of the internet.

12. Before ICANN made such claims, the goals for internet governance were modest – to avoid conflicting names at the top level and to introduce competition. Neither the White Paper nor any earlier documents reflecting the purposes for which ICANN was created justify a general claim of a power to give or withhold permission for innovation.

13. There is no sound reason for ICANN to seek to regulate the business models adopted by those who offer innovative services on the internet.

14. ICANN has used fear of regulation by governments as a means of persuading netizens to recognize its unjustified powers. But, by doing so, ICANN has claimed powers that are more appropriately feared.

15. What is empowering about the internet is its devolution of power to the edge – to decentralized actors, provided that they do not harm others.

16. Therefore, the need is to prevent the rise of any central power, rather than just to make sure that governments do not assert such powers.

17. What was important about the original idea of ICANN was not that it was private (as opposed to governmental) but that it did not have any authority to impose its rules unless those subject to the effects of such rules agreed to abide by them.

18. ICANN has now abandoned this core principle of its origins, so as either to exercise unaccountable powers, or to raise funds by imposing non-avoidable fees in exchange for permissions and services that no netizens desire, and is therefore illegitimate.

19. In many cases, the problems that ICANN purports to be solving are entirely of its own making.

20. The internet would improve if ICANN were simply to disappear.

21. It is folly to attempt to preserve the domain name system in its prior state, indefinitely, as some of the original engineers who dominate the ICANN system appear to desire to do.

22. It is folly to attempt to predict in advance which innovations will succeed and which will fail.

23. ICANN meetings are attended by a small group of insiders who can afford to travel around the world (or who use ICANN fees to pay for this) and who enjoy such grand parties at the expense of netizens.

24. There is no reason to defer to the expertise of these ICANN hangers-on. They don’t actually run the net. They just talk about policy issues and prevent entrepreneurs taking the risks necessary to innovate.

25. It is time for all netizens to reassert their own collective control over the development of the internet – a control they exercise simply by deciding what connections to make, what new services to use, which identities to adopt.

26. So long as ICANN is allowed to to act as the sole source of recommendations for additions to the root zone file, and the sole source of accreditation for registrars, the power of netizens to make these choices will be destroyed.

27. The US Government, which purports to control the decision regarding what should be added to the root zone file in its capacity as a fiduciary for the global internet community should forthwith declare that it will accept recommendations for additions to the root zone file from any party -- and will deny such requests only when parties actually harmed by such innovations can affirmatively show why they should be prohibited. Parties who believe they are harmed should seek an injunction from a court.

28. All registries for top level domains should immediately begin to employ any distribution channels and business practices they believe will best serve the domains in questiion.

29. ICANN is in breach of its many undertakings in the contracts with registries and registrars to enhance competition, act transparently, and to impose new policies only when based on consensus. It has given power to intellectual property interests even though domain names are not necessarily used as brands. It has disfavored privacy protections favored by users, solely in order to favor such intellectual property interests.

30. The contracts that ICANN sometimes cites as giving it the power to approve any changes in business operations of registries and registrars were imposed by duress and without the support of any consensus among the affected internet community.

31. Accordingly, ICANN’s contractually-based claims to a power to approve any innovations are unsupportable and may and should be ignored.

32. Only resolute action by netizens will prevent increasing growth of ICANN’s budget and illegitimate powers.

33. Concerted action by netizens to renounce ICANN’s false claims to power will certainly succeed and need not create any greater claim by governments to impose unwise regulation on the internet.

34. Failure of netizens to act together to renounce ICANN’s illegitimate claims to power would further embolden governments to impose even more centralized regulation and would ultimately destroy the most important principles that make the internet so empowering.