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The Internet is the primary storage place for all information contained in the world, and largely serves as a global resource onto which a price simply cannot be placed.

Therefore, I and many other feel that the actions of those on the executive board of ICANN must be closely monitored. Anyone and everyone who's ever signed onto AOL or Prodigy or even MSN has a stake in these events.

I've attached below a list of some sites to gleam information from about the latest happenings (and scandals) related to ICANN.

- http://www.icannwatch.org/
- http://www.icannwatch.com/
- http://www.atlargestudy.org/index.html
- And, for reference, http://www.domainhandbook.com/archives/comp-icannb ylaws.html

I guess the main question for ICANN is what it should be designated for. In my opinion ICANN should be a tiny coordinating body and nothing else - not a government for the Internet. If ICANN wants greater power it must prove itself worthy of such extension of its mandate, primarely through improvements regarding:

• geographical diversity (no single nation should be able to gain more than 33 percent of the votes on the board)
• organizational diversity (no stakeholder should be able to, in any way, gain a majority of the votes on the board)
• accontability (some sanctions should be triggered against any board which do not work in the coherence of their assignment, the sanctions could be political as well as judicial)
• transparancy (minutes and decisions of the board of directors should be available to the public)
• organizational freedom (when appointed to the board of directors, no one board member should be an officer of the organization which appointed him or her - an optional solution is that any organizational connections are brought out in the open).
  
  Regards
  
  Mikael

-Tammie

http://www.atlargestudy.org/final_report.shtml

If you don't have time reading the report, read the Wired summary of the report:

"On Monday, a committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said it wants to adopt a proposal allowing directors to be elected by members of the public who own Internet domains."

Newsbytes take on the report:

"It's a mistake to push these issues entirely down to Ghana," Bildt said, referring to ICANN's next scheduled meeting, which is set to take place in Ghana, Africa next March."

Regards

Mikael

Reading the full At-Large study was mildly interesting. Upon starting to read the document, I felt irate that they were thinking about axing all of the At-Large Directors, but with further reading, some of their points started to make sense. I found the most interesting (and concrete) section to be the Membership Registration/Election Process. This section details how many people attempted to register, how many actually voted, and what the cost per vote for ICANN was. The only bullet I have problems with is:

Evidence suggests that elements engaged in aggressive, nationalistic registration campaigns that raises questions about an informed, committed (to ICANN) At-Large membership (these three countries accounted for 59% of all registrations)

The best points raised were those in which they feared there was some ballot-stuffing going on. Multiple registrations to the same household or IP(legimiate, multiple family or roomates may have registered), and multi-lingual problems.

So now they want to move to a membership scheme in which only domain name holders can be At-Large members, and charge a fee for the membership. Mpawlo stated above:

The work of ICANN affects mostly those who still have not found their way out on the Internet. To make domain name ownership a condition for voting rights is therefore not appropriate.

I believe ICANN's problem boils down to "No taxation without representation". They are trying to be democratic (Yay!) about it, but without some way to validate just who its' representing, they are having logistical problems. However, I don't belive that one must own a house to have a say in where the river or road is placed.

I do agree with mpawlo about those which already have registered domain names wouldn't want other TLDs added, but I don't believe that is just because they are being stingy. Rather, it is because of the way the TLDs of today have been run. .Com, .Net and .Org have no type of hierarchy associated with them, so even though there may be many Main Streets in cities across the country, they are all localized. With the TLDs as they are now (minus the .cc codes) there is no type of hierarchy saying which main street you are looking at! With new TLDs now you can distinguish between Main Street(.com), Anytown, Canada and Main Street(.info), Anytown, USA. With the flat structure of the TLDs today, I don't believe there is anyway to get more unique street names without adding more .TLDs with or without the support of current DN Holders.

Regards,
-Tammie

PS. I tried to be non-country specific, but I am an American, and we all know how dumb they can be :).

Reading the full At-Large study was mildly interesting. Upon starting to read the document, I felt irate that they were thinking about axing all of the At-Large Directors, but with further reading, some of their points started to make sense. I found the most interesting (and concrete) section to be the Membership Registration/Election Process. This section details how many people attempted to register, how many actually voted, and what the cost per vote for ICANN was. The only bullet I have problems with is:

Evidence suggests that elements engaged in aggressive, nationalistic registration campaigns that raises questions about an informed, committed (to ICANN) At-Large membership (these three countries accounted for 59% of all registrations)

The best points raised were those in which they feared there was some ballot-stuffing going on. Multiple registrations to the same household or IP(legimiate, multiple family or roomates may have registered), and multi-lingual problems.

So now they want to move to a membership scheme in which only domain name holders can be At-Large members, and charge a fee for the membership. Mpawlo stated above:

The work of ICANN affects mostly those who still have not found their way out on the Internet. To make domain name ownership a condition for voting rights is therefore not appropriate.

I believe ICANN's problem boils down to "No taxation without representation". They are trying to be democratic (Yay!) about it, but without some way to validate just who its' representing, they are having logistical problems. However, I don't belive that one must own a house to have a say in where the river or road is placed.

I do agree with mpawlo about those which already have registered domain names wouldn't want other TLDs added, but I don't believe that is just because they are being stingy. Rather, it is because of the way the TLDs of today have been run. .Com, .Net and .Org have no type of hierarchy associated with them, so even though there may be many Main Streets in cities across the country, they are all localized. With the TLDs as they are now (minus the .cc codes) there is no type of hierarchy saying which main street you are looking at! With new TLDs now you can distinguish between Main Street(.com), Anytown, Canada and Main Street(.info), Anytown, USA. With the flat structure of the TLDs today, I don't believe there is anyway to get more unique street names without adding more .TLDs with or without the support of current DN Holders.

Regards,
-Tammie

PS. I tried to be non-country specific, but I am an American, and we all know how dumb they can be :).

I've been an At-Large member since ICANN started the project. Although I am on the announcement list I haven't received a single e-mail about meetings, initiatives or what-have-you in months (at a minimum).

I, for one, am tired of Esther Dyson's self-righteous elitist cronies telling the rest of us how the Internet should be.

I was skeptical but had hopes when the At Large initiative started. I've now come to see it as it is: a sham that gives the illusion of openness and the air of democratic legitimacy to those who willingly turn a blind eye to the autocratic, business-as-usual attitude of the ICANN Board. By the way, here's the text of a relevant rejected post I sent in:

Studies: Public Participation in Internet Policy (Your Rights Online, Internet)

The New York Times informs us that two new reports from ICANN and the Center for Democracy and Technology both say that more public participation is required in policy-making. DUH! The ICANN report says only domain name holders should have rights, while the CDT report says the process should be open to all interested parties. We'll see what happens on Nov. 14 when the reports are tabled at the next ICANN meeting.

But at least the critics are paying attention. Participants here conceded that the issue of public involvement has failed to capture the public's attention.

ICANN had set up a conference-call line so those not in Montevideo could participate, but an operator reported that no one had dialed in.

Hello? McFly? I'm an at-large member, and I never heard of this... Of course no one called an unlisted, unadvertised number. You have to preregister to get the number. It took me a fair bit of searching to find that little nugget of information after reading this article. I'm on the announcement list they say has so few subscribers; I haven't seen any useful announcements.

And if public participation is so low, why do they want to lower it? How many of the current at-large members will remain at-large members once they accept their internal version of the world? The At-Large Study draft doesn't give an estimate. Fancy that.

Flamebait? You bet. They deserved to be roasted alive. This Bildt guy worked for RAND Europe. Hm. Niles is a US ex-Ambassador. Hm. Dandjinou is responsible for the African domain names mentioned in the article. Hm. Many have backgrounds that make me go Hm. Many of the agencies and groups mentioned throughout have ties that give conspiracy theorists major woodies.

Under Budget Priorities and Issues...

5. Complete the At Large study and implement those recommendations from the study that are adopted by the Board. see note F below.

(f) At Large Membership Project and Study. At its recent Melbourne meeting, the ICANN Board allocated $450,000 in reserve funds to cover the costs of the study of At Large membership which is currently in progress. Of the total amount, $200,000 will be expended in the current fiscal year (in addition to $250,000 in one time funds already expended on the At Large election earlier in the fiscal year), and $250,000 will be expended in the next fiscal year during the months July through November.

The following is my interpretation (and I will probably query Auerbach and the At Large Committee about it, too):

• No money will be spent specifically for elections until the Study is completed.
• One of the items under consideration by the Study is holding another election, but this probably depends on what recurring electoral procedure is decided upon.
• The budgeteers are probably assuming that a lot of the initial expenses for an election have already been covered (servers, lists, infrastructure stuff).

However, I am no ICANN expert. I suggest contacting your representative. Here is what Auerbach, who is less optimistic than I am, posted in the forum:

http://www.atlargestudy.org/forum_archive/msg00063 .shtml

Keep watching the skies...

-l

I got, as an At Large member, an e-mail yesterday, soliciting comments. I think it is a good idea to head over and tell them what you think.