> I don't think it has to do with protecting the organization as a benevolent
> parent might.
>
> Yes, it is a matter of protectionism, but it is commercial protectionism.

Well I would not expect less from a US Congressman than representing
the interests of her/his constituents, particularly from the republican
side of the aisle that has been defending commercial interests and
property rights since the American Compact days.

Alex, about your comment, do you really believe that ICANN as an
organization is mature enough to earn its "independence" ?

I respectfully disagree, IMHO ICANN is far away of being the
organization it should be.

For starters the current framework makes ICANN accountable to
nobody. I believe Milton said it somewhere and I agree that the
JPA or something similar is part of the problem.

The current architecture of the organization does not help either,
and the bottom-up process gets manipulated from the top and
the middle where the bottom sometimes looks like a group of
puppets following the actions of their masters pulling the strings.

Also, in some cases it's not very clear who is representative of
what in many of the constituencies.

On the other hand, an organization with lack of transparency
and accountability that has $70+MM/yr up for grabs compounded
with that we are dealing with a "market" that is estimated to be
in the $4-5B ballpark, creates way too many interests which will
fight up to their teeth to grab a larger piece of the pie.

Sorry folks, the gTLDs are not coming as soon as you expected,
not only because of technical or process scalability issues, and
in my opinion we have yet to see if the ccTLD IDN fast track
program which ICANN is using to get some ccTLD's on the bag,
gets derailed as soon as other TLD operators start to fight for
their privilege to compete and have their share on the IDN
name space.

I congratulate all the attorneys since they will have a very
productive season coming soon.

Cheers
Jorge