
The Internet Is Run by an Unaccountable Private Company (2015) - rasengan
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/21/icann-internet-us-government
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kristopolous
Why is this relevant today? ICANN removes price caps on .org domains despite
thousands of comments (98.1%) against
[https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/c7hxy1/icann_remove...](https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/c7hxy1/icann_removes_price_caps_on_org_domains_despite/.compact)

This bizarre fantasy that privatizing things increases the public's oversight
and control and makes the institution more accountable really needs to stop:
"Public revokes its own authority over something in effort to increase its
authority over it"

It's positively kafkasque in the logic; just astounding people feel this way.

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Kinnard
Could it be that privatization works as desired in some cases and not in
others?

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shadowoflight
An even better phrasing is that privatization works as desired until it
becomes more profitable for it to work differently.

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nerdponx
To be fair, you could say the same about good/honest government.

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wallace_f
I mean, if we're being fair, compare the domain of ICANN to the most-regulated
industries such as finance, healthcare, drugs, education and housing... There
is no question where prosperity and liberty are winning, and where corruption,
inequity and insufficient supply/quality are dominating.

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AstralStorm
Give it time. Pharma had some time to practice stinkers. Education is mostly
private in the US above basic level and causes misery all around due to loans.
Housing? Collusion between private and public governance. Mostly private, good
luck finding public housing. Even military in the US is mostly private.

Show me anything that is public. The only thing that comes to mind is roads
(even there construction is private) and to lesser extent, municipal services
like water and waste (also private contractors but controlled).

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wallace_f
Ok... Education is not remotely resembling of what economists mean when they
say Perfect Competition, or a free market, empowers consumers. How in the
world do you believe it is not heavily interfered with?

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xg15
"Perfect competition" would also require all consumers to be perfectly
rational and to have full knowledge about the market. Where apart from fully
automated algorithmic trading is this the case? (And even _there_ you have
market failures)

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xg15
From what I know, the government's involvement into ICANN had been
controversial because it is the _US government_ , not because there was public
oversight.

With ICANN's decisions having consequences for internet users all over the
world, the right path IMO would have been to move oversight to some
international body.

Treating it like just another californian company and removing _any_ oversight
was a step in exactly the wrong direction.

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k_sze
Needs (2015) in the title.

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manjana
This.

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simonebrunozzi
If you don't want to read, it's about ICANN.

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RocketSyntax
Government-created monopolies are not representative of the free market.

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eastdakota
This is, perhaps, one of the most asinine things I’ve ever read. The article
presumes a conclusion: that the Internet should be governed. ICANN is
explicitly designed to be an organization that is run from the bottom up
(Internet users up to national governments) not from the top down (national
governments down to Internet users). Decisions are made on, as far as
possible, objective standards, not subjective or political rationale. Who gets
allocated an IP address is based on technical need, not whether the content
they’ll put on that IP furthers the status quo.

The Obama Administration’s decision to give up “control” of ICANN was one of
the most brilliant foreign policy decisions they’ll never get credit for. The
US government had a never-exercised veto on ICANN decisions from the
Internet’s earliest days. Other governments, rightly, asked: “Why should the
US get a veto and we don’t.” Perhaps it was justifiable when the US dominated
Internet use. But when China and, soon, India surpassed it, it made no sense.

China and Russia pushed for a division of the U.N., the ITU, to take control.
It’s hard to argue against. Why should one nation have unilateral veto rights?
Why shouldn’t it be a decision of a multi-national organization who can be on
the Internet?

Because… ahhhhh! Terrifying to think if the Internet would revert to the
lowest common denominator of International policy. While there’s much to
criticize about the US’s radically libertarian approach to free speech, an
International group consensus on what’s allowed online is far more terrifying.

The FIFA metaphor is apt, but not for the reason the writer intends. I’ve
spoken before the ITU. The last time was to talk about anti-email spam issues.
When I finished my talk a wisen gentleman stood to speak. You have to imagine
a room in Geneva. It’s very large. There are curved tables with placards for
each country. This gentleman was from Syria.

“Thank you, Mr. Prince, for your wise words,” he bellowed. “Email spam is one
of the top problems that vexes the Syrian people. And your suggestions will
help us deal with this most pressing concern.”

This was 2006, if memory serves. Email spam was not one of Syria's top
problems. Yet here we were.

After my talk I went out to dinner with a handful of staffers. We went to a
nice Geneva restaurant. They talked about how they tried to keep people like
the Syrian bureaucrat in his lane and not causing too much trouble, but not
offending him too much.

“If I do my time here,” one suggested, “someday I hope I can get a gig with
the International Olympic Committee or FIFA. That’s where the real loot is
scored.”

For all its faults, I’ll take ICANN over any of that.

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otabdeveloper4
> Ctrl-F "Google"

0 results.

Lol. Or maybe :(

