Re: CONSENSUS? [ga] DNSO General Assembly call to change seating rule

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sat, Nov 11, 2000 at 02:24:49PM -0600, Weisberg wrote:
> Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> > ICANN isn't a government.
> 
> By what definition?
> 
> > The entities over which ICANN has direct influence
> 
> What is that "influence?"

Contractual obligations with ICANN.

> > are registries,
> > registrars, and standards bodies.  They would constitute the
> > "governed".
> 
> Even with that limitation (focusing on the "governed" but not the "affected"),
> isn't the mechanics of "influencing" the "governed" generally called
> "government?"

Oh sure, when one is speaking in vague generalities.  We can say that my
choice of computers that I can buy is "governed" by the market, and thus
the market acts as a "government", and "regulates" my ability to buy
things.  Generally, playing stupid word games like that is not
productive.  We all know what is generally meant by the term "a
government" -- it is the entity in that controls a sovereign state, and
most of us believe that some kind of democracy is the best form of "a
government".

ICANN isn't a government; it isn't a democracy, either.  Instead it is 
an entity that occupies a niche between numerous other entities, some 
of them very powerful, and provides them a service.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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