Re: Battle Heats Up - but the real issues are still being hidden

[Karl Denninger <karl at mcs.net>]

On Mon, Oct 05, 1998 at 09:00:35PM -0400, Ronda Hauben wrote:
> 
> >Fred Baker <fred at cisco.com> wrote:
> >>At 04:05 PM 10/5/98 -0400, Ronda Hauben wrote:
> >>The U.S. Govt is offering to set up a private corporation 
> >>for them to be able to carry on their control over the Internet 
> >>with no accountability or oversight over what they do.
> 
> >With all due respect, I don't believe that's an accurate description of the
> >current IANA proposal. There are three "supporting organizations" that have
> >this oversight. They are explicitly not US in origin, and are intended to
> >be international. There is also a specific comment about the make-up of the
> 
> So you are saying that the supporting organizations have oversight 
> over the Board and that the Board is accountable to them?
>
> According to the lawyer who spoke at the Geneva IFWP final 
> Plenary Session, that would be illegal according to American
> corporate law as the Board has to be in charge.

That's not true but misleading (as is common for lawyers who are trying to 
twist things around.)

You can form a membership organization in which the membership has the right
of removal based on any agreed criteria (ie: majority vote) to get rid of
one or more board members.

Do this, and you have accountability.

But the IANA proposals don't include this.

> The form of the IANA proposal is that of a corporation. In a 
> corporation the Board has to be in charge.

The board can be removed by the shareholders in any corporate environment.
The Board can be removed directly by the members in a membership
organization.

> I don't call that voting and I don't call that oversight.
> 
> I call that removing the necessary regulation that is needed to 
> have something worthwhile and legitimate happening.

Its called rule by fiat.  Welcome to the Internet Governance debate.

--
-- 
Karl Denninger (karl at denninger.net) http://www.mcs.net/~karl
I ain't even *authorized* to speak for anyone other than myself, so give
up now on trying to associate my words with any particular organization.