by Joop Teernstra , icannatlarge
Report on ICANN - Carthage, Oct 2003

General Observations

The character of the ICANN meetings has changed since I last attended in Montevideo. Only one public Forum and at the end, not at the beginning.

No long lines of people bursting to speak out.

Not many vocal and emotional ICANN critics any more either. A general feeling that everybody now has to stand together of fall together under the shadow that has come up since the last two years: WSIS and the ITU.
There is new blood on the Board keen to give ICANN a chance and many old hands are now resigned at the loss of direct member democracy and hang on in the hope that the tiny foothold on a nominating committee can be expanded in due course.

The new composition of the Board and important changes in the Staff are also noticeable and might give hope that the old siege mentality is fading.
Karl Auerbach and Andy Mueller-Maguehn are no longer there, but neither is Hans Kraayenbrink, and Vint Cerf observed only part jokingly that Mike Palage was now channelling for Karl and Andy.
Alejandro Pisanty, again elected vice Chair, was only slightly present via his phone connection during the Board meeting.
Muhammad Diop appears to be emerging as a potential ally of true At Large efforts. He took an interest in participating in several of the ALAC meetings.

With regards to changes in the staff, the brand new General Council, John O.Jeffrey replacing Louis Touton, and Sebastian Bachollet, tasked with the new TLD evaluation, appear to be " nice guys". The umbilical cord with the law firm Jones, Day appears to be severed.

I report about the meetings I have attended and from the viewpoint of an At Large member of ICANN.

AT LARGE MEETINGS

27 Sept. Morning. ALAC Africa meeting.

Chaired by Denise Michel. Addressed by former ALSC (At Large Study Committee) member Pierre Dandjinou and new ICANN Board member Muhammad Diop.
Present were, apart from the African invitees from Nigeria, Togo, Mali, Morocco and Senegal(?) who were mostly ISP's or academics, Vittorio Bertola, Thomas Roessler, Izumi Aizu, Denise Michel and Tommy Matsumoto.
Kathy Kleiman, from the non-commercial constituency was there as an observer. Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi, Board member from Malaysia attended, but did not speak . Almost all Africans present were ISOC members or founders of ISOC chapters and their tickets were sponsored by the ALAC and budgeted by ICANN.
No success was reported with completed applications to be an ALS (at large structure) , but there was said to be an interest from the universities.
My active participation was somewhat discouraged by Denise Michel, who found that the Wednesday ALAC meeting (none was scheduled) would be a better forum for me to speak.

27 September, afternoon ALAC-Europe meeting, with non-Europeans Pierre Dandjinou Izumi and Tommy Matsumoto present. Chaired by Vittorio Bertola. Two observers. 11 people in all. By my participation I started a beginning of dialog between ALAC and icannatlarge.

Roberto would like some of us icannatlargers to apply as an ALS (at large structure) under a RALO (regional at large organization).

I made it clear he would find few takers. He admitted in the meeting that people complained that there were "too many layers" in the RALO representational structure. He would use CECUA or ISOC applications only to kick start other applications.

Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, who for 10 months tried hard to find interested "at-large structures" painted a bleak picture of the interest in Europe to join an EU-RALO. He called the effort "a disaster". The European Commission and the EU parliament had said polite things, but were not interested to fund any EU-RALO effort.
The main argument heard during outreach efforts was that the proposed structure of the new ICANN Bylaws did not deliver great incentives for participation by Individual Internet users.
The requirement to be a self-funding organization and the absence of any start-up funding is an additional obstacle. Wolfgang's conclusion is that there are no incentives at all to join the proposed AL membership mechanism. ICANN must be asked to fund regional RALO offices to function as a core and springboard for outreach activities.

North America shows a similar results. Zero interest for building a NA-RALO.
Only Izumi held out some hope for a government funded Japan/Asia-Pac-RALO. Izumi asked for critical comment on the idea of involving a government, but none was given. Asia-Pacific received one application, from the Middle East. No further specifics.

Vittorio Bertola (ALAC, ISOC-Italy) gives his view. Organizing criteria to accredit were only approved by the Board in june'03. In other words, it's early days.
In total 8 applications for EU RALO were received. He did not make clear which qualify and which don't.

The approval process is now ready, so approval is possible.
Some activities have been undertaken by ALAC members: outreach mailing to a huge ML of individuals (no numbers given).
Individuals have participated in WSIS "prepcons" and this has been reported to the ICANN community. Not clear if this participation was funded by the ALAC.

Vittorio and Roberto disagree with Wolfgang about asking ICANN for funding at this stage and say that ICANN will only provide funding when large numbers of applications for ALS's come in. Vittorio puts on a brave face, but he and Thomas Roessler have been reduced to bringing their own mini- organizations (resp. ISOC- Italy and Fitug.de) in as At Large Structures.

The meeting concluded (Thomas Roessler) that applications are absolutely a first condition to ask ICANN for money to prime the pump.
ICANN will also have to be on alert that there is no undue capture of a RALO
Consider the possibility of capture by united ISOC chapters as ISOC will cure its own financial problems with fresh funds from the .org registrants.

At Large Asia-Pacific meeting

28 October
Present were
- prof Hong Xue Chan (CNNIC) and Icann board member
(Chinese at large, VP of IS-china)
- Tommy Matsumoto, (asia pac networking group)
- Aziz Hilali, Marocco ISOC chair
- Roberto Gaetano (appointed Board liaison)
- Denise Michel
- Elijah ?(ISP from Nairobi)
- Vincent Chen (twnic)
- Ching-yi Liu. (former ALSC member) Taiwan.law professor
- Joop Teernstra , icannatlarge

Reports from Tommy Matsomoto on the APNG meeting at Busan.
Izumi is Chair of at large committee, members are Kapil Chawla (ISOC India) , Ching Chiao, James Seng (Singapore) , Hong Xue Chan (Internet Society of China)
A next meeting is planned in KL, Malaysia, March 2004 after Apricot.

Izumi Aizu reported on the Japanese domestic situation. He has had discussions with government for support to form a Japanese at large study group.
There are very few people who can afford to work on this from their own funds. The idea would be to include the needy parts of Asia/pacific in that Japanese support.
Around 20 civil society candidate invitees listed. People who have experience with public issues would be invited to study how to organize at large activities in Japan.
ISOC-Japan is inactive and moribund.
By the end of the year the first conclusions of the study group could be expected.

China.
Prof Chan reported on China.
ISC=Internetsociety of china. No connection with ISOC. Local organizations cannot be branches of others (meaning foreign organizations).
ISP's and academia are represented in ISC.
Mr Zhuo Feng is responsible for the At Large division.
He will send an application for a Chinese At Large joining under ALAC conditions, when its charter is finished.
Members of China Net are mostly ISP's.

Taiwan
Vincent Chen reported
There are 3 potential organizations. Current ISOC chapter is one of them. The APNG camp another. He wants to promote students from campus to be at large members.
There is also a Net consumer association. Chairman is Mr Atafaddin. (formerly with twnic.) Issues are ADSL pricing and individual's rights.
Internet Assoc. of Taiwan. Only ISP's and later ICP (content providers). They are not familiar with governance issues.

I reported that there there is as yet no local At Large organization in New Zealand or Australia. If there is interest, the NZ based members of icannatlarge would be a natural starting point.
There would need to be changes, perhaps a division into two, to the "Asia Pacific RALO", to attract participation by members from New Zealand and Australia.

APTLD member meeting scheduled in Wellington in November 2003. Perhaps an opportunity to bring local at large organizers together as well.

Africa
Clement Didjonou. AF- RALO launch by dec 2004. Aggressive outreach program. AF-RALO contact group made up of ALAC members plus some more up to 10.
By the time of ICANN- Rome meeting in March '04 perhaps critical mass.
By the time of ICANN- KL in June draft rules and bylaws could be ready.
Major target group would be the universities. Using WSIS African bureau to target civil society groups.(!)

In sub-saharan Africa ISOC is a non-starter, a dying concept, according to Clement.

Prof. Hilali spoke about Marocco ISOC. 1995 created by first internet users. About 300 people, teachers, professors and engineers.
ISOC Marocco will send an application to ALAC.

My own conclusion from these reports was that (only) for Africans the ICANN RALO structure appears attractive.

Board attitudes

Roberto reporting.

There is now broad Board support for the At large idea. It is considered necessary for ICANN to fulfil the conditions of the DoC's MoU. It must have a wide range of different users and geographical distribution. They will look at that when it comes to to accepting accreditation. Outreach is needed.

Asia Pacific is too diverse for single representation. Policy advice should include different voices (China/Australia, NZ).
The RALO structures are envisaged as umbrellas. But Europe is not yet ready due to a lack of applications.

At Large members present in Carthage.

In the person of Roberto Gaetano, the At Large can be seen as having a foot in the door of ICANNs board, even if an appointed liaison has no further rights.
Vittorio Bertola, trying to shepherd ISOC-Italy into ICANN, appears less independent.

Ron Sherwood, with whom it was my pleasure to meet frequently during these days, is an a-typical At Large member, as he also runs the Caribbean ccTLD .vi
But just as Peter de Blanc before him, he is a principled supporter of the At Large membership.
He may not have participated in any meetings with ALAC, but be could be our best voice within the ccSO.

So is in his way, Clyde Beattie, the president of dot ca, which gives voting rights to all its registered domain name holders.

Izumi Aizu, a veteran of the ICANN "membership process" since MAC1 (membership advisory committee).
Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, another veteran, who has translated his interest in ICANN into an academic subject, believes that we should try to find a diplomatic way forward.

My own public contribution.

I spoke a few words for the webcast, at the end of the Public Comments period, making sure public credit was given to InternetNZ for its role in making my participation possible. I spoke on my own behalf.

My words were in the form of a question. Would the Board, in the light of the disappointing results of ALAC recruitment efforts, consider making the rules for joining more attractive for Individual Internet Users?
Vint Cerf replied for the Board (had they discussed this beforehand?), that they were unlikely to review the [Amsterdam] rules before more time had been given to the current ALAC effort. If ALAC wouldn't work, then the Board could always try to "meet us in the middle." He encouraged us to start "at our end".

This answer indicates that the Board may have seen Wolfgangs' report on the failed effort in Europe, sent to Paul Twomey on the 26th and may have realised that ALAC RALO's may fail to attract a population.

For the most part I talked to people one-on-one. On a few occasions Vittorio, Roberto, Denise Michel and Izumi were also meeting privately and did not want "outsiders" to attend.
During my meetings with the ALAC members, I made it clear that, based on the poll result, the ALAC/RALO model held no attraction for most of our icannatlarge members.

However, I also promised to explore alternative models that would be more attractive to potential joining individuals.
Privately, I have mentioned a Southern Asia/Pacific RALO, remodelled in order to attract interest from New Zealand and Australia.

The WSIS originated from an ITU proposal and has now become a UN effort.
There has been a first meeting at Johannesburg. The next meetings are scheduled for Geneva (dec 10, 2003) and Tunis (nov 2005)
There is a 14 Heads-of-State committee.
The summit is in two phases: 1.Declaration of Principles (no binding power) 2. Action plan.

Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, Veni Markovski and Izumi Aizu had attended several WSIS "prepcon" meetings and spoke about their experiences and insights.
Sometimes there were closed door meetings. At open meetings only government officials had the right to speak.
Those present had observed a strong politisation of the ccTLD delegation issue, with China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa favouring governmental takeover.

At the july prepcon, there was no talk about ICANN. South Africa was responsible for a draft that would put the policy part of root servers, naming and numbering under governments. Including ccTld management that was presented as a. sovereign right of the countries. The draft was published on the web site, public comment open in July 2003.

China, SAfrica, India , Brazil supported the draft (intergovernmental)

EU, Canada, Australia, USA, Japan did not. (private sector)

Compromise text: --private sector "will continue to take a lead role".

Between july and sept. again a change in the text.

There is now new language: (rumor is that it is written by China) to call on the ITU to prepare a proposal to take over internet governance functions.

More time is needed for WSIS. No final text is expected for another year.

Izumi told how he had talked to the head of Chinese delegation to WSIS.
They recognize ICANN's role in tech issues, but not in public policy issues.
ICANN is not mentioned on WSIS web site.

The meeting highlighted how several governments wished to route all their country's internet traffic through a single set of proxy servers.
The general conclusion was that WSIS meant a threat to the more inclusive governance model of ICANN and that this threat, even though agreement between the different country-groups was unlikely to be reached soon, should be taken seriously.

Kathy Kleiman's comments on ICANN's current WHOIS accuracy project:

I write these comments as an individual, small business owner, and political speaker. Clearly the Task Force has worked hard to define the issues, and to show where more work has been called for by participants and needs to be done. Thus, it comes as a surprise, with all the open questions that the Task Force identifies, that you call for moving forward with "accuracy" of registrant data.

In these comments I address:
- the open issue of personal privacy
- the need for personal privacy to be more clearly presented and protectedin the next version of this report.
- the need for express recognition that some inaccuracies in the WHOIS data protect privacy without limiting access to the domain name registrants for legitimate purposes.
- the Task Force should recommend a much more limited initial testbed for WHOIS.

I. The Open Issue of Personal Privacy
While the concern for individual privacy is tabled as an issue for further discussion, the Task Force urges ICANN to go forward with a set of new, uniform provisions for enforcement of accuracy in the WHOIS database.

It is incumbent on this Task Force to use its report to more explicitly discuss the deep concerns political speakers and individuals face when their full data, including address and telephone are published to the world in the instantaneous availability of the WHOIS database. The discomfort of hitting delete to erase an unsolicited email does not rise to the same level as the discomfort of having an important political/human rights message to share and having to disclose the location of your children when registering the necessary domain name.

The Task Force has heard from Andrews and Davidson, among others, about the need to treat different registrants differently. It has heard from Younger and Chheda, among others, about the need to allow individuals to post limited information to the WHOIS database (with the rest being held by the registrar).

After my presentation to the Task Force in Shanghai, about the need for protection of the personal privacy of individuals and political speakers, I was surrounded by people who agreed. Many sponsored by the Markle Foundation, they represented human rights groups and media which covers human rights activity. They talked of the dangers that political speakers and human rights activists face every day for activity under their domain names. They told me of:
- a site to post the pictures of government torture victims so that their families could identify their faces and claim their bodies;
- a site which published detailed accounts of the activities of a corrupt national government, and was a major source of information to the country's residents, unable to receive information from the state-controlled media.
- I added the concern of individuals who use their domain names and websites to post information about their noncommercial activities, from sewing to parenting to touring, and fear making public their domestic information to ex-spouses, stalkers, and disgruntled fellow employees.

We are talking about real issues of personal privacy, real dangers, and real lives.

II. Personal privacy must be more clearly presented and protected in the next Task Force Report.

It is not enough to say (or think) that people who need personal privacy can solve it by registering their domain name through another party. There are basic reasons. First and foremost, many who engage in the political and human rights Internet work do not choose to share their danger with others.
They are driven by their own convictions to take on dangerous lives and work, but they do not want to endanger others. The domain name needs to be under their name.

Second, the time exigencies of UDRP challenges (and perhaps the whois accuracy challenges to come) mean that many domain name registrants want to be able receive and address challenges as quickly as possible not through surrogates. Days count.

But I am not saying anything the Task Force has not heard before more passionately and persuasively presented than I can. Accordingly, it is incumbent on the Task Force to address the issue head on. The Task Force should recommend that ICANN move more carefully through the thicket of personal privacy -- and recommend that ICANN mandate personal privacy protection at the same time as mandating accuracy of WHOIS data for individuals and political speakers.

III. Inaccuracy in WHOIS data today serves privacy purposes without limiting access to the domain name registrant for legitimate purposes.

The unrestricted openness of the WHOIS database drives the need for inaccurate WHOIS information. Everyone works hard to enter contact information which is accurate such as email address to receive notice of any UDRP challenges, renewal notices, and other registry and registrar information.

But that does not mean that every small piece of data in the WHOIS registration needs to be accurate. Unlisted phone numbers should be able to remain private without fear of jeopardizing a well-known human rights website. To do otherwise contradicts common sense and the highest of human values.

IV. The Task Force should recommend a much more limited initial Testbed for WHOIS.

In every other area of ICANN work, we have been urged to go slow and move carefully. The WHOIS database accuracy project should be no exception. The Task Force would be completely within its rights and mandate to urge that a testbed and test period be adopted for WHOIS accuracy requirements:

- Advise ICANN to work on the clearly commercial gTLD first, and then consider the special issues that apply to individuals and political organizations in other gTLDs later.

Comments of Kathryn A. Kleiman
December 8, 2002

by Judith Oppenheimer
Why individual Participation in ICANN
(reply to Ross Rader-Tucows)

Re "individual participation" in ICANN - So many reasons, so little time, so here are just a few (courtesy of ICB Toll Free News archives):
Because "A major implication of the Internet model is that value is not created in the network, but at the edges, by users."
Timothy Denton, with François Ménard and David Isenberg, Netheads Versus Bellheads: Research into Emerging Policy Issues in the Development and Deployment of Internet Protocols Because "control of the root is being leveraged to control the Internet itself in such key areas as trademark and copyright protection, surveillance of users, content regulation, and regulation of the domain name supply industry."
Milton Mueller, Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace

Because "ICANN has the potential to turn into the first world regulatory body. By beginning to associate top level domains with content usage, they are putting themselves into the position of being the defacto arbiter of content. This is in addition to what territory that they can grab in the intellectual property world along with WIPO. If all else fails, they can always play games with protocol standards and IP address allocation. I suspect that most people have no clue what this issue is all about, nor care. Remember that Mussolini started with the trains.... There's an old adage about only giving power to those who don't want it.... If we're going to have a world government, then I want a revolution first. Preferably with some historic event like throwing all the T-1s into Boston harbor. These people are enacting policy, cutting deals with large technology companies and signing things that look suspiciously like treaties with governments and quasi government groups (some of dubious legitimacy).... I went to school with one of the students killed at Kent State, worked for an military/intelligence agency in my youth and watched as the last administration passed wind while leaving the white house. I never felt paranoia before. I do now."
David Holtzman, Chairman and CEO of Opion Inc. and former Chief Technology Officer at Network Solutions, IF WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A WORLD GOVT, I WANT A REVOLUTION FIRST.

Because "icann is more interested in, and totally focused on, arranging power rather than providing simple stewardship and service. icann is brilliant at rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. the problem is they have the internet on board."
Randy Bush (characterized, for those who don't know him, by Dave Farber, as "brutally rational.")

Because "The board of ICANN shouldn´t consist of people with direct commercial interests such as registrar/registry function. ICANN needs to be able to make decisions in the interest of the internet users and the global information space, the internet. There needs to be a balance between commercial and public use of this infrastructure and the board must consist of people who think about the impact of the decisions for the communication culture and space, not only on their own business."
Andy Mueller-Maguhn, elected ICANN Director

Because "We're not so stupid that we don't see what ICANN is doing, which is establishing absolute power, free from any of the checks and balances of government."
Brian Livingston, Contributing Editor of InfoWorld and CNET News.com

Because "The UDRP walks and quacks like law. It sets out a rule for deciding between competing claims to possession of particular resources. It sets up a process to apply that rule on a case-by-case basis. And it is binding upon those in possession of the resource in question; in the event of an adverse ruling, the domain name holder will relinquish possession of
the contested domain name."
David G. Post, Associate Professor of Law at Temple University Law School, and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Cyberspace Law Institute.

Because "Someday we may look back and realize that this moment was critical in deciding who got to control this new form of global communication."
Steven Hill, western regional director of the Center for Voting and Democracy

Because "In my research of Internet policy over the years, I've had the pleasure of reading numerous court orders, FCC notices, and other official government documents. These works are impressive historic documents that exhaustively consider every point raised by all sides, bring in the background that applies to each point, and carefully lay out the reasoning that leads to a final decision. Nothing like this appears in ICANN public documents. They are terse bulletins that list decisions made and brief technical justifications.... Many non-profit organizations let members vote on by-law changes, examine accounting books, and so forth. If ICANN members were allowed to elect its Board, they'd have the same rights.
Andy Oram, an editor at O'Reilly & Associates

Because ICANN is establishing Internet policy ... It becomes problematic if it makes policy judgments without adequate policy processes.” Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass

Because "The most critical public policy issue affecting the Internet remains the same - namely, its governance... ICANN’s legal authority for “technical management of the Internet” (in ICANN’s own words) remains in doubt. A connected issue is ICANN’s ability to finance its operations."
David W. Maher, Vice President - Public Policy, ISOC

Because ""When ICANN was in serious trouble in 1998 and 1999, they promised open elections for all... The Internet Community relied on their word. But once Congress and Commerce seemed satisfied and NSI was brought into the fold, ICANN began a full reversal of their original stance."
Mikki Barry, President of the Domain Name Rights Coalition

Because, Ross, "The essence of ICANN’s problem is the disproportionate attention which is being given inside the working groups, and, increasingly outside, in private conferences, to the pretensions of the IP community ... on grounds that we and our Internet users consider to be dubious and, in some cases, in outright error ... as to policy as regards the future direction of the Internet... What we are actually observing in the saga of domain name expansion is a power-grab of major proportions over the architecture of the Internet, using ICANN not so much as a representative forum for IP interests as the embodimenet of IP lawyers’ interests. ... that we are in fact acceding to a takeover of the political processes of ICANN by a set of interests that oppose what the Internet stands for."
Ross Wm. Rader, Tucows

Because "... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed"

Esther Dyson
Substance over Rhetoric:
A constructive challenge to the ICANN board, staff and other involved parties.

Yesterday the board of ICANN approved continued work on an At-Large membership “mechanism” and stated that it “wishes to move forward with energy and enthusiasm to build a meaningful structure for informed participation by the full range of Internet users, and seeks avenues to achieve these objectives that are bottom-up, self-organized, and self-sustaining.”
I would like to take these words at their face value and, before leaving Accra, make some concrete suggestions for moving forward. It’s obvious that ICANN itself has few resources (whatever its intentions) to move the ALM forward, and indeed the major activity needs to come bottom-up, from the community itself. There is no staff person with spare time to dedicate to this effort, and from the community side, there are feelings ranging from betrayal and hostility to indifference. How can we mend this situation?
For starters, this message is an attempt at transparency and concreteness. Other than noncommittal discussions with Alexander Svensson (more below) and a couple of the ALSC members, I have not lined up support for these proposals. So these ideas are fresh and unvetted: I hope that those of you I am addressing directly will respond in kind, with ccs to all…

The basic idea is to move forward in tangible ways with the formation of a coherent, tangible At-Large membership, supported by a fulltime, committed, paid individual staffer as well as volunteer efforts.

It will require funding from a variety of parties (we cannot depend on ICANN alone) and some concrete actions. This does not require broad consensus, but rather the actions of a few parties who I hope can ultimately gather broad support for their efforts. The Board on its side is lukewarm/negative on elections, but willing for the most part to respond to evidence of a committed, transparent, issue-focused At-Large that could provide constructive input representing the public interest in ICANN policies (aside from its own role).

I’d like to suggest the following:

ICANN hires Alexander Svensson to manage At-Large outreach for the next year. This position will be funded (here’s the challenge!) by my $10,000 pledge, matched by institutions such as Harvard’s Berkman Center (which spent at least that much to send its own team to Ghana to observe the recent meeting), Markle, Bertelsmann, and the like, and a variety of interested companies who at least in principle have supported the notion of an At-large membership. And perhaps even ICANN can allocate a small sum with “energy and enthusiasm.”

I have talked with Alexander. He is a PhD student from Hamburg, Germany, who is studying ICANN and is currently chairman of the DNSO General Assembly. With some encouragement from a few more people, I think he would be willing to serve. So far, he has demonstrated himself to be impartial and sensible and has the calm, unassuming personality that should enable him to do this job effectively. His first task would be to take over from Denise Michel (the executive director of the ALSC) all the communications, databases, lists of interested parties and other connections that will enable the transformation of the ALSC At-Large Study Committee into an At-Large Organizing effort. Denise has agreed to help with the transition.

Once settled in, he should get in touch with all the individuals and organizations interested in furthering the At-Large and help them to self-organize. In addition, he will manage the online discussion (my suggestion is for one reference list, completely uncensored except for spam) and one or two moderated lists that ideally will focus on ICANN substance things such as name-registration policies and international domain names as well as on the role of the At-Large.

Ideally, the At-Large discussion should be focused on ICANN policies rather than just winning a seat at the table. Alexander may choose to present a variety of topics, offering substance and questions for discussion (for example, how should new TLDs be chosen, if at all?), making the At-Large a forum for learning as well as expression of opinions.

Alexander should also act as a liaison/staff to those ICANN Board members who wish to work with him, so that the At-Large can have an additional, active channel/advocate with the Board.

What happens after that? A lot is still up in the air, with the board meeting in a private retreat in the next month or two, followed by the Bucharest board meeting at the end of June. At the same time, there will be actions and statements by a variety of other parties, including various governments, and responses to the Lynn “reform” proposal.

An incipient At-Large membership should be part of that mix. The discussions moderated by Alexander should help determine where it all goes.

So, I challenge all of you to support such an effort…or to come up with better or additional activities. Thank you for your attention.

Please reply with any questions or constructive comments.

Esther Dyson

From: "Karl Auerbach" <karl@cavebear.com>
X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/0.48 (Python 2.2 on linux2)
Subject: Re: [icann-alsg] Substance over rhetoric - a constructive challenge

On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Esther Dyson wrote:
>
Substance over Rhetoric:
Yesterday the board of ICANN approved continued work on an At-Large membership 'mechanism' and stated that it 'wishes to move forward with energy and enthusiasm to build a meaningful structure for informed participation by the full range of Internet users, and seeks avenues to achieve these objectives that are bottom-up, self-organized, and self-sustaining.'
>
Let's get to real substance: The board action yesterday repudiated the concept of an at-large. In its place it said to the internet community:
Go and set up garden clubs, debate among yourselves, but you get no votes, and you get no role in policy.

It is appalling to see the ALSC accept the total repudiation of its work, as well as the contradiction of years of promises made by some of the ALSC members, with not even a whimper of protest.

The facts are simple: As the result of yesterday's action, at some date later this year, all elected members to ICANN's board will lose their seats. There will be no elected replacements.

The hubris and elitism that came forth as part of the board discussion was appalling. It was permeated with assertions that voters are not smart enough to make their own decisions, that decisions must be made on their behalf. That was not the opening of the door for an at large in the future. Instead that was ill-scented marigolds thrown on the coffin of the at-large.

--karl--

Karl Auerbach

My take on the new "plan" is this: It is a complete abandonment of any pretense of public participation in ICANN. The ALSC effort, the NAIS effort, the original work of the Membership Advisory Committee, and even the original promises of public participation have all been rendered into nothing more than vacuous emptyness.

We have to recognize that this proposal is neither reform nor restructuring. It is the replacement of ICANN-I with ICANN-II.

(And I do wonder how the IRS will look at this change to an entity that has received 501(c)(3) tax exempt status?)

As for how the plan was presented - I consider it to be an ambush. Apparently the plan was reviewed with at least some members of the ALSC (and some select board members) before it was dumped onto the assembled board. It looks as if even the press conferences and releases were arranged prior to the disclosure of the plan to the board.

As for the plan's content - it is a byzantine arrangement that appears to have two goals: money ("pay to play") and insulation from public participation.

The "nominating committee" will be nothing more than a council of orthodoxy, permitting only those designated as true believers to enter into the kingdom of ICANN.

The government appointed people will tend to be the most dispensible of bureaucrats - the kind of person an organization tries to sluff off into some "safe" corner where he or she can't cause any harm - and because they will be selected by groups of governments will tend to be the lowest common denominator kind of person.

And if the proposal were honest in its belief that governments are representative, then there would be no need in the plan to carve out special positions for the same-old privileged groups and corporations and interests who control ICANN today. If one really believed the "governmental representation" kool-aid then one would have to accept governments as representative of those interests as well.

I personally anticipate that this massive reorganization plan will cause people to ask why the MoU with the Department of Commerce ought to go to ICANN-II rather than to some other body. And that new body might be something that is created more in keeping with the IFWP principles or it might be an existing international body - one in with which governments are already familiar - such as the ITU.

--karl--

Esther Dyson

The fact that the very future/structure of ICANN seems to be in question right now makes it urgent for the potential At-Large to come together and show itself - if not united, then at least coherent and eager to work *with* ICANN rather than against it. Now is the time to fix ICANN rather than to destroy it.

Despite all the questions and lack of agreement on its precise form, the ALM makes sense and is *necessary.* Whatever the details, some form of public input - both into decision-making and into the selection of some subset of the board - is key to the vitality, legitimacy and accountability of the organization and its (limited) authority.

As you say, things are in disarray, and the Board in Ghana will likely choose whatever options look safest/easiest.

Accordingly, Pindar and I are overstepping our mandate as ALSC members but acting legally and I think appropriately as private individuals to galvanize the inchoate would-be At-Large members into some coherence and purpose and common mission, the better to present the Board with evidence rather than argument that such a thing is possible. We are trying to make the ALM look *safer and easier,* as part of whatever restructuring they decide on.

Our belief: If we at large can create the beginnings of such a group, then all the Board has to do is to give it some ICANN-official standing. It can then evolve, and because it will have some status, it will become more attractive to the heretofore marginalized and disengaged would-be members. meanwhile, those members will (I believe) self-organize more effectively and take care to engage constructively. Being taken seriously, they will *act* seriously.

We may fail, but it is worth the try. We will await further orders from the Board for the ALSC, but meanwhile we will do what we can as individuals, bottom-up.

Esther
(speaking for myself so far, and I hope for Pindar)

James Love February 25, 2002
(In London through Wed, +44.78.1560.7162, or international cell +1.202.361.3040)

"The Lynn proposal to restructure ICANN, which must have some support on the ICANN board, is a dramatic and stark statement of the limited imagination and vision of the present ICANN leadership. Most of the early criticism of ICANN centered on problems relating to mission creep, and that it was too much controlled by a small group of businesses, that either saw ICANN as a mechanism to protect intellectual property rights or to stop new competition and innovation in the allocation of domain names. The Lynn proposal to restructure the board instead sees the problem as too much direct democracy (the at large elections, which are eliminated), and to much emphasis on consultation and consensus, the two things that have tended to reign in ICANN's more imperial ambitions.

"The proposed structure would appear to be an open invitation to transform ICANN into a system of coercive control for the Internet, with a small number of corporate entities and incumbent board members and staff in the driving seat, in a "partnership" with governments. There is no discussion by Lynn about how this new structure would address issues such as free speech or other concerns that people have about centralized control of key Internet assets, and no discussion of alternatives which would reduce the power of the staff or ICANN itself.

"We think it is time to look at models for greater decentralization of decision making, not more centralization, and the Lynn proposal is a mistake with potentially enormous consequences for the Internet.

"If people are not happy with the present ICANN leadership, and if ICANN can't raise vast sums of money to expand its bureaucracy, it should not look at every alternative only in terms of how it expands its coercive power and fundraising ability. Rather, it should seek to reduce its ambitions and find ways to limit the potential for mission creep on "governance" that take ICANN beyond what should be a fairly simple and narrow job.

"The present at large elected board members on the ICANN board are technically savvy and intent on limiting ICANN's power. That the ICANN staff and non-elected board members seek to eliminate these board members is pretty plain evidence of where they want ICANN to go.

James Love, CPTech.org

David Johnson and Susan Crawford on ICANN 2
NAIS (NGO and Academic ICANN Study)

Prof. Rod Dixon (from the forum-reply here)

ICANN’s president, Stuart Lynn, recently concluded that ICANN is in need of significant reform. I doubt that there will be much debate on that point (except from those who rant that ICANN is beyond the help of reform). Instead, the debate on reform concerns the direction in which ICANN should be transformed. Lynn’s proposal, http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-24feb02.htm, contains many arguments that are basic logical fallacies; the reasons setting forth why reform is necessary do not support the conclusions establishing why ICANN’s reform should take the form Lynn argues are necessary.

Even Lynn’s straw man argument that ICANN should be neither a purely private organization, nor a purely public organization misses the point of what ICANN is and what it should be. Yes, the Internet is too important to allow ICANN to operate without buy-in from relevant stake-holders, governmental bodies, and, most importantly, Internet users. Acknowledging that those points are correct, however, does not lead to the conclusion that ICANN’s policy-making functions and its management of the Domain Name System is best carried out by an unaccountable board of trustees whose membership will be derived from ccTLD-owning national governments, multinational corporations (who often operate as if they had the clout or power of national governments), and a select few stake-holders. This type of “reform” seems exactly wrong-headed to me.

Indeed, Lynn’s working assumption that the important participants in ICANN should be: [1] infrastructure providers, [2] large business interests and organizations that use the Internet, [3] the technical community that support the Internet, and [4] national governments lay bare why his conclusions are flawed. Internet end-users, individual domain name holders, and small or localized groups or entities that use the Internet are not viewed as critically important to ICANN by its president. Yet, the life-blood of e-commerce depends upon the participation of each of these groups to purchase ISP services, register domain names, consent to the UDRP, and abide by ICANN’s trademark policies under the threat of arbitration. For example, when ICANN decides to reassign the .org Top-level suffix that decision will not be limited to affecting only those at the top of Lynn’s list of important ICANN participants; it will affect all stake-holders, all interested Internet users, and, certainly, all of those who register in the .org TLD. I certainly agree that ICANN needs reform, but I am doubtful that Lynn’s proposal based upon the principle that will take ICANN in the right direction.

Rod
www.cyberspaces.org

Chuck Costello (Vice Chair of the ALSC) in Accra

I do feel I need to say that the 'too much process' argument we've heard is phony with respect to the pending question of at-large membership, the proposed at-large organization, at-large board seats, and even at-large elections, because the ALSC, at the specific request of the board, completed its process on schedule and has recommended a practical, implementable action plan.
The ALSC does not negate the need for other structural reforms, but it is disingenuous and misleading to claim that an overall reform and the need for funding from governments somehow, then, logically needs to or should virtually eliminate the at-large membership, its board seats, and an election process.
It is a breach of faith with the founding principles and basic structure of ICANN as well as the fiduciary duty of this board, should it act on any proposal that so fundamentally changes the governance structure of the organization and permanently disenfranchises an at-large membership that was to have clear and direct representation on the board within the narrowly defined role of ICANN.
Given the new proposals that government should have a direct role in governing ICANN and representing the public interest, perhaps it would be advisable to have the U.S. government and other governments, which, in cooperation with the private sector and the internet community gave birth to ICANN, give a new governing mandate to ICANN rather than have the current board assert that power for itself.
The management proposal is not merely a reform proposal, nor is it evolutionary. Rather, it is a declared intent of a palace coup d'etat from within ICANN. The board should at this time, instead, pass the resolution to give the at-large membership the opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to organize an at-large supporting organization for informed participation and board representation. (applause)

(Chuck Costello to the ICANN Board in Accra, 13 March, 2002)