[registrars] Start lobbying your Governments!! - WSIS...

[Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine]

Paul,

I know this is supposed to be a slam-dunk, no thinking necessary, but I do
not understand something.

Our fundamental purpose in having a "master" is to make rational business
decisions possible. Whether the "master" is Verisign, ICANN, or national
governments, or a treaty body, is pretty much a "don't care" if rational
business decisions are impossible.

I was profoundly surprised by the outcome of the WLS issue. 

I was profoundly surprised by the outcome of the .org issue. Not so much
by the ISOC award as by the amazing decision that NeuStar's technical
qualifications were better than ISC's or SWITCH's (or anyone else except
ISOC's operational partner).

I appreciate that my having spent two weeks inside CNNIC gives me a very
different view of China -- I don't think the Chinese regulatory regime is
any harder to do good business under than "no porn or spam" (local rules)
or "no trademark infringement" or any other equivalent mature, consistent,
and above all predictable regulatory regime.

I support self organized regulation, that's why I work with my competitors
and suppliers and customers, but I don't equate this to ICANN. I cannot
think of a national government with a serious body of policy and funding
in the Internet that is less mature, less consistent and above all less
predictable than ICANN. Given a choice between policy contested in Beijing,
or Paris, or even Washington, and the fake contests in Marina del Rey, I'll
take the better alternative.

So why is ICANN the better alternative? I don't think "deregulation" is an
answer, as it just doesn't matter who makes the rules.

What matters is if the rules make business predictable and possible,
or unpredictable and impossible.

Eric