The only sensible thing to do would be to set up an independent, technical board that ran the Internet for the benefit not of companies looking to exploit its possibilities, or of countries looking to use it as an instrument of control, but of the Internet itself. That is, its decisions would be based on technical criteria designed to make the whole thing run and evolve as smoothly as possible, for the benefit of all constituencies, undistracted by other agendas that damage the underlying infrastructure, as ICANN's current moves threaten to do.

That might seem hopelessly idealistic, and may be it is. But it's worth pushing as a third way in the current situation, which is fast coming down to an impossible choice between seeing the Net destroyed by ICANN's ham-fisted commercialisation or by ITU's all-too efficient politicisation.