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ICANN's elections are now underway. (We've covered this before.) ICANN's Nominating Committee has picked several candidates for each of the five open seats in a closed primary process; now there is a "member nomination" process underway where several more candidates will be selected to run for each seat. Civil liberties groups are actively attempting to promote democratic involvement in ICANN, such as the Civil Society Democracy Project being spearheaded by CPSR. We've asked each of the people seeking to be candidates for the North American region board seat to answer one question; here are the responses we've received. Update: 08/17 14:04 by michael : Two more responses added.

This is equivalent to a "primary" election - it is selecting the people who will run for the election. We are concentrating only on the election for the North American region, since the majority of Slashdot's readership is from this region. ICANN's nominating committee picked four candidates to run for the seat:

• Lyman Chapin
• Donald Langenberg
• Lawrence Lessig
• Harris Miller

and at the last ICANN meeting, it was decided to limit the total candidates for any one seat to seven, so this primary process will pick three additional candidates to run for the seat. A large number of people have thrown their hats in the ring for this process -- here's ICANN's list of candidates seeking member-nomination -- and we asked them all this question:

The Internet Democracy Project (www.internetdemocracyproject.org) and the Civil Society Internet Forum (www.civilsocietyinternetforum.org) have been involved in attempting to promote democracy and representation of individual Internet users at ICANN. The Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections -

http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/Statement_July-13.html

- is an attempt to spell out what attributes are desirable in ICANN from such a perspective.

Distinguishing between 50+ possible candidates, with only one endorsement to cast, is likely to be difficult for ICANN's registered voters. Slashdot has talked with Hans Klein of CPSR (www.cpsr.org) and we feel that a reasonable way to allow the candidates to distinguish between themselves is to ask them an open-ended question:

-- What is your response to the Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections?

What follows are the responses we received, edited only for HTML formatting. If you, as an ICANN registered voter, decide that you'd like to see one of these candidates run for the seat, you can endorse them on the ICANN Web site. Whichever three candidates receive the most endorsements (and are endorsed by more than 2% of the voter pool, and from at least two countries) will be on the ballot for the real election, which begins Sept. 1. You may change your endorsement before Sept. 1 by simply endorsing a different candidate. The candidate listing displays a running total of endorsements.

Clear enough? On to the candidates! These responses are listed in the order they were received.

Teri Powell

[Editor's note: Teri Powell informs me she has withdrawn from the ICANN election. --michael]

I have participated heavily and strongly re: ICANN issues on the Public Forums.

I have read and fully understand the position paper you reference. This has been evidenced in my opinions already expressed via any route I can. With this in mind, I have to admit the following: I can Not say it any better than as the Actual Statement linked below.

This will be short and sweet. I will reference (as a link) the Statement which I Totally Agree with.
http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/Statement_July-13.html

My web site can be found at:
http://www.brittany-technologies.com

The Prime Objective is to get Proper Representation onto the ICANN Board which Will Reflect ALL Internet Users.

My Very Best to the Other Candidates! I Believe the At Large Members Will Choose Wisely. I Will Support Whoever is chosen since this will, at least, be a Start in Representation for Us. Liz Bartlett

My candidate page can be found at http://www.khyri.com/icann/ and contains the information on my ICANN page, together with expanded sections on my qualification, background and viewpoints. I intend to add relevent content and links to it at intervals, so feel free to bookmark and return.

1. I strongly believe that ICANN must represent all. I feel I can represent many interests, being female and having lived in England, France and (currently) the U.S.A. I am heavily involved in web accessibility issues, making sure that web content is available to everyone regardless of physical disability, method of accessing the Internet, or level of technology.

2. I have had indirect experience of organizations whose leadership have resisted such transparency, and I know that this mentality is a fast road to destruction. I have always held the view that information must be shared with all interested parties, unless there are very good reasons to withhold it.

3. One of the strongest bases for an organization such as ICANN is the strength of its core membership. I believe the board should be drawn from the membership, that the board should then exercise the proper oversight of the staff, and that the ICANN staff should not be employed from the ranks of board members in order to maintain a proper employee-employer relationship.

4. I believe that only in the clearest cases of intentional misleading or profit motivation should the "first come, first served" domain name policy be overturned.

5. I do not have strong views on the organizational split of IP address and DNS root server management. I feel this issues are best solved on a "what is technically best" basis.

6. I do not believe governmental control over domain name space can be a practical solution, given the global nature of the internet, the increasing abuse of the two-letter country codes, and the absence of a global government.

7. I am strongly against artifical scarcity of names. However, I am ambivalent on the decentralizing of some functions, as I realize that the independent operation of many registration/name lookup/routing functions can cause technical chaos. However I feel, (maybe naively) that it must be possible to retain a single, core central registry without giving any individual, organization or company the temptation of "abuse of power". I see no great problem with the current system.

8. Privacy policies as generally adopted by organizations that hold elections should apply to all ICANN operations.

9. The costs of participating in ICANN activities, and the costs that ICANN itself incurs in its operations should be kept as economically low as possible. Expenses should be looked at with a view to "does this further the ICANN objective" before approval. Adam L. Beberg

I believe the first 3 values aim at something deeper which is that the membership base needs to be informed and educated about the issues they will vote on. Any issue that the members must decide needs to include the technical details, as well as a pro and con argument, all translated into multiple languages. The membership also needs to remain vigilant of the things happening in ICANN that have a public effect, and this can only be done with complete information.

One problem I have seen emerging due to ICANN's relatively few issues to deal with, but of high complexity and with extended impact, is that of "if I can get 50 non-technical friends to sign up, I can tell them all how to vote because they cannot understand the geekspeak". This is just as dangerous as the commercial makeup of the DNSOs, but far more insidious. Unfortunately this will probably be the operating mode for the At Large membership base.

Trademark laws as a social convention are an important thing if people are to know who they are dealing with, and that others with be prevented from pretending to be someone they are not. That said, I don't see how domain names or IP numbers affect free expression or privacy, other then the help privacy by limiting pretenders. Governments do not need ICANN's help to limit freedoms.

The scarcity of domains of any kind is completely artificial, and should be reduced or removed. Any TLD should be allowed, and is technically possible, but should be subject to some critical mass (N people want TLD .xyz) to avoid all domains turning into TLDs. Since other TLD's are not scarce, ccTLD's being a pain to get, if not scarce, doesn't seem to be a large problem. The ccTLD registrars must compete next to the generic registrars, and the market will eliminate the inefficient and unresponsive registrars. ICANN does need to take a role to insure that domain owners can easily change registrars, without hassle or loss/theft of their domains, which several registrars now prevent. Emerson Tiller

I will address each of the guiding principles put forth by the Civil Society.

1. ICANN must be representative.

I agree. In fact, I propose that:

• the majority (not just 9), if not all, of the board members should be elected by the at-large membership.
• Email, fax, and regular mail member registrations should be accepted. Registration should be 1-step.
• ICANN members should enjoy the protections of being members under California's non-profit laws.

Note that, for months, I have engaged in a public information campaign to increase and broaden the ICANN membership (http://www.icannvote.com).

2. ICANN must be transparent.

Absolutely.

3. ICANN must use bottom-up processes.

I agree. I suggest that petition processes be allowed to bring issues up for a membership wide vote. The membership should also vote on whether the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) passed in 1999 should be reauthorized.

4. Intellectual property rights should not be privileged over other rights.

Political, religious, anonymous, and other forms of free speech, as they reveal themselves in domain names or other web content, should be accorded equal standing with intellectual property rights.

5. ICANN should strive at all times to minimize or avoid policy-making on non-technical topics.

I agree. However, we should recognize the in an electronic age, technical decisions produce policy results, and thus in some sense the technical decisions are often policy decisions (much like decisions on process often determine the policy). Rather than ignoring this critical relationship, we would be better off to acknowledge the connection, and then be specific about which technology-driven policy areas ICANN should and should not involve itself. Any expansion of policy making should be authorized by both broad membership voting and broader international representation on the board.

6. The domain name space is a globally-shared public good with public and private functions.

I agree. And the more we can open the TLD space, the more effectively these multiple uses can be met.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided.

I believe that the expansion of the domain name space through the creation of new TLD registries should be one of ICANN's highest priorities. To the extent centralization occurs, or is necessary, it should be legitimized by broad public approval and international representation.

8. ICANN must respect privacy.

I agree. ICANN should avoid technical/policy decisions that compromise anonymity and the security of personal information.

9. Costs should be minimal and equitable.

And shared fairly among all countries, on condition that they have a fair chance at representation on the ICANN board and enjoy the services that ICANN performs.

Final Comments: ICANN is not beyond repair. There are a lot of good people who have worked to make it a forum that responds to the new demands of the Internet society. But ICANN is in need of restructuring, both in terms of process (election procedures, for example) and substance (the UDRP, for example). My platform: http://64.82.55.205/tiller.html. Barbara Simons

I state on my election web page http://barbara.simons.org/:

"I support the values enunciated by the Civil Society Internet Forum. These include 'democratic participation in decision-making, open processes, the right to communicate, and a fair balance between rights of privacy, speech, consumers, and property in Internet governance'. I shall work to defend privacy, speech, and the needs and rights of the smaller players; I sincerely hope that the other candidates will demonstrate their support for these important principles."

I also signed the Civil Society Internet Forum Mission Statement in Yokohama. (See http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/csif/signatories.html).

I am very pleased that you are asking this question of all the candidates. I hope that people will honestly state whether or not they will support the Civil Society principles. My support is public and long standing.

On my web page I also pledge to:

• be accessible and responsive to the members of the at-large community,
• create an advisory group of experts in technological, policy, economics, and the law,
• work to build a decision-making process that is open and inclusive.

The decisions made by the ICANN Board during the next few years will have a major impact on the speech and freedom on the Internet. I have a history of fighting for speech, privacy, and open access. My web page contains links to several policy articles I have written on these topics. Among other actions, I have:

• testified before a Senate subcommittee in favor of the legislation that would significantly reduce export controls on encryption,
• worked to defeat the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),
• spoken out and written letters in opposition to UCITA,
• opposed attempts to censor the Internet,
• submitted a supporting declaration for the defense in the New York DVD trial (See http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/filings/NY/0503-reply.html#Simons),
• fought efforts to establish wide-spread monitoring by law enforcement of the Internet,
• worked to support privacy.

My support for the right to anonymity on the Internet is reflected in my membership on the Advisory Board of ZeroKnowledge Systems Inc.

I hope that the readers of Slashdot will read my statement on the ICANN web page and the material I have posted on my web site. If anyone has comments or suggestions, he or she can reach me at simons@acm.org. Karl Auerbach

I helped write it - I think its a darn fine statement. ;-)

(One can compare it to my rather long set of views as expressed on my election web page at http://www.cavebear.com/ialc/ )

ICANN as it is now constructed and operated seems to be premised on the notion that the Internet is there for the benefit of commercial interests and that ICANN ought to treat those who "merely" use the Internet as babes in the woods who can't be trusted to make decisions and who need paternalistic protection.

The Civil Society Statement is, to my mind, a roadmap of how ICANN can return to a more balanced state - so that the users of the Internet will be respected as people who can make their own decisions about their own interests.

Governance is hard. And ICANN is undertaking something new and difficult. ICANN cripples itself by creating a body of people who feel that they have been disenfranchised. The Civil Society Statement is a reminder to ICANN that it has forgotten to be inclusive of all those who believe they have role in these matters.

If you compare the Civil Society Statement with my own platform, you will see that I have gone rather further in certain areas - particularly with regard to procedures and ICANN structure. It is very much my belief that inclusive processes - even if they appear somewhat more chaotic than today's ICANN staff choreographed dictates - are at least as important as any substantive policy decision.

As a practical matter, whoever wins the election for a board seat is going to be but one person out of 19. So any single candidate's platform is probably not going to become fact, at least not immediately. ICANN's staff has become so entrenched and has taken control of the corporation so completely, that reform of ICANN is going to be a major effort. The Civil Society Statement serves as something we can always look to to see whether ICANN is improving.

Tom Lowenhaupt

Guiding Value 1. ICANN must be representative.

The ICANN needs to represent all of the Internet's current users - not just business interests.

But more than this, the ICANN needs to acknowledge the immense impact the Internet has on all people, and it needs to reserve representation space for those not yet on the net. When America was young it excluded women, workers, and African salves from its representation system. Let's learn from the 150 year struggle to remedy that stupidity. Let's set aside representation space now.

But representation on the ICANN is not a simple matter. How do you represent 5 billion people? I don't have all the answers to this question, but I began my search by asking the following. Who runs the military? Who sets water and air pollution standards? Who determines the direction and usage rules for our roadways? It's not the army or the air and highway bureaucrats. It's civil society - you and me. (Or at least it should be!)

Business might own the net, but it's you and me that pump in the cash that allows them to operate. Let's take control and make sure the net's something that's good for our families and good for our communities.

Guiding Value 2. ICANN must be transparent.
Guiding Value 3. ICANN must use bottom-up processes.

The ICANN's operation and its decision making process must be transparent and inviting to the public. Issues should be framed and brought to the public within a context and with comprehendible background information. Everyone should have the opportunity to comment on upcoming decisions using online forums, listservers, and polling systems.

Guiding Value 4. Intellectual property rights should not be privileged over other rights.
Guiding Value 8. ICANN must respect privacy.

First and foremost the net should be about communication that empowers the individual. It shouldn't be turned into TV 2. When intellectual property rights are treated with undue importance, our access to information and our privacy rights are reduced.

Guiding Value 5. ICANN should strive at all times to minimize or avoid policy-making on non-technical topics.

Rapid growth and technologic change guarantees a tumultuous future for the net. Unsettling developments will be thrown into the ICANN's waiting lap on a regular basis. And human nature will have the organization's employees accreting power.

So I support an open governance system with separation of powers and independent review mechanisms.

Guiding Value 6. The domain name space is a globally-shared public good with public and private functions.
Guiding Value 7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided.

There needn't be any shortage in the domain name space. Look at Karl Auerbach's page for a discussion this. (Karl's also an At Large candidate, see his page at http://www.cavebear.com/ialc/).

An acknowledged expert in the field, Karl's proposed adding 10,000 new names - per year. He says the net should be able to support somewhere between 1,000,000 - 7,000,000 new TLDs.

IP numbers need to the distributed equitably, with set asides for future net users.

Guiding Value 9. Costs should be minimal and equitable.

I agree that we should keep costs to a minimum - who wouldn't? But good governance doesn't come cheep. If you want an open decision making process, you need qualified and well paid employees to create and present balanced presentations. You need good systems to keep the communication channels opened. And you need checks and balances to prevent centralization of power and undue influences by a moneyed class.

The money to pay for the net's operation is coming out of our pockets - ain' t no two ways about it. Let's invest our pennies in a governance system that empowers its users and respects their privacy.

I'll conclude by saying, "Vote for me and I'll do my best to see that the net works for us all." Ted Phipps

The CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON ICANN ELECTIONS addresses 7 guiding values.
I will discuss each in turn.

1. Representation.

ICANN should mirror the people it represents. There needs to be a better balance between technical/non-technical capabilities. I've been involved with advanced IT aviation systems. However, it's my capabilities in understanding and handling international issues that ICANN is most short of.

2. Transparency.

We demand this from 'public for-profit' companies, why would we expect anything less from a 'non-profit?'

3. Bottom-up processes.

ICANN must be of the members, by the members and for the members. Directors must be diligent in protecting your interests. If they don't, then not only should they be removed; but 'you' have an obligation to remove them. This is your global village, not theirs!

4. Intellectual property rights.

Throughout history, property issues have been at the forefront of any new frontier. Interestingly, this virtual property issue was dealt with in 1776. It's roots evolved out of Englishman John Locke's Treatise on Civil Government. Locke identified three rights: life, liberty and property. Jefferson took property a step further. He replaced the word property with "the right to pursuit of happiness." Jefferson wanted to make certain that the rights were not limited to land. In effect, Jefferson made a momentous step toward recognizing virtual rights. James Madison cemented the concept when he said we must "equally respect the rights of property and the property in rights." [Madison went on to list some virtual property examples in a 1792 essay].

For speculators, there are rights in property. For the trademark holder there's property in rights. ICANN must balance these rights. Fortunately, there is a solution- release more gTLD's under different classifications.

5. Policy-making.

The 'White Paper' identifies 4 guiding principles: stability, competition, bottom-up coordination and representation. The directors should follow this course.

6. Domain-space.

I agree that, multiple, parallel and overlapping TLDs registries for various stakeholders should not be excluded from the root. This is not only the basis of a vibrant society, but an empowered one.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization.

We don't need a DeBeers of the Internet. Holding gTLD's back is like building trade barriers - no one wins! Releasing new gTLDs is good for trademark holders, good for ebusiness, and good for the global village as a whole.

8. Privacy.

Information must flow freely across borders. This goes without saying for private users. For commercial users, ICANN's policies and procedures should adhere to Fair Information Practices. A good starting point is the OECD Privacy Guidelines. This policy actually makes life easier since companies' wouldn't have to guess whether they're violating a 'human rights' law.

9. Costs.

ICANN's operations should be transparent. If fees are charged they should be limited to commercial users. I polled the board members of ColorMeHome.com. They agree, as I believe most companies do: that it is better for businesses to contribute, than limit any individuals' access. Eric Grimm

Thank you for this chance to introduce myself and my candidacy to /. In response to your question, the Civil Society Statement reinforces and corroborates my opinion that the ICANN at-large elections, while certainly a welcome development, still are too little, too late. They only represent the first step toward reintroducing ideals of open and equitable decision-making -- including broad-based and fair representation of all interests, transparency, democracy, and freedom - into Internet governance generally and ICANN in particular.

I fully support the ideals of transparency, freedom and democracy not only in this context, but in other trans-national contexts, such as trade regulation, which should serve the long-term interests of the world's population as a whole, including future generations, and not the narrow interests of a tiny minority residing principally in industrial countries.

Following the ICANN vote, representatives of corporate power still will command super-majorities both on the ICANN Board and on every ICANN subcommittee. Therefore, the first at-large representatives will have to shoulder tremendous responsibility to keep things moving in the right direction. The costs of the status quo are already too evident. For example, the dispute resolution process that ICANN has established *COULD* have been designed to be fair and to promote impartiality, and should have included the following simple and obvious safeguards of fairness:

• Respondents should have the right to exercise a peremptory "strike" against the complainant's initial choice of forum. At present, the multiple Fora (WIPO, NAF) have every economic incentive to cater solely to the interests of trademark complainants, because they realize that complainants alone have the choice as to where the arbitration business will go. Respondents, at present, have no choice whatsoever in the process. Complainants naturally will select among fora based on their perception that, with respect to the issues in their particular case, one forum or another happens to be the most biased and unfair in complainants' favor. I have even had counsel for complainants admit this to me directly in particular cases that I have defended.
• Both complainants and respondents should have the right to exercise a limited number of peremptory "strikes" against individual arbitrators, whose track record demonstrates that they disregard the law and clearly fail to measure up to the standard of objectivity and impartiality. Yet, the people in control of ICANN omitted this important and obvious procedural safeguard.
• Complainants should be required, as a condition of invoking the ICANN dispute resolution process, to post a monetary bond, in case the complaint turns out to represent a bad-faith effort to engage in extortion, theft, and "reverse domain name piracy." Defending such a case is expensive, and the process was intended only to be invoked in "clear-cut" cases. In cases where the complainant has initiated arbitration in bad faith or for extortionate purposes, the arbitral panel should have broad discretion to compensate the respondent for the financial burden of defending a frivolous case.
• Each of the arbitration providers - like judges and courts in most forward-thinking jurisdictions - should be forbidden from commenting outside the arbitral process (i.e., to the press) on the merits of pending cases. They certainly should be prohibited from issuing press releases for the evident purpose of trying to drum up more business from new complainants by obliquely promising to "evict" respondents as often as can be managed. Specific press releases issued by more than one of the current arbitration service providers create a clear appearance of impropriety, and arguably constitute conclusive evidence of actual impropriety.
• The process should have a more robust mechanism for appeal from, and correction of, erroneous decisions. Also necessary is a mechanism for removing individual arbitrators who demonstrate a persistent inability to apply the rules fairly, and as those rules were written and intended to be applied. Even the most cursory examination of the output of the two most popular tribunals shows that their decisions are all over the map. Most decisions are mutually irreconcilable with one another. The ICANN process, as it is currently working, more resembles a random "domain name lottery" than a legitimate and balanced effort to administer fair rules in a consistent manner.

The problems with the status quo are also evident from both (1) the unnecessary and counterproductive delay in introducing new Top Level Domains, and (2) the proposed - arbitrary and unnecessary - barrier to entry of a $50,000 payment in order even to apply to establish a new Top Level Domain.

This is not to say that I believe that commerce is "bad," or that I am opposed to trademark law, or that I have any desire to banish commerce from the Internet. Quite the contrary, I strongly favor the application of TRADITIONAL principles of trademark law, within appropriate contexts. I firmly oppose the unnecessary EXPANSION of IP rights, however, and will fight to roll back the special rights that trademark owners have demanded. I also strongly favor commerce on the Internet -- both by small business as well as by big business. However, commerce is not entitled to a special place among the pantheon of Internet constituencies, and should assume its proper place among all constituencies of the Internet community as a whole.

In short, after reviewing the Civil Society Statement, I wholeheartedly agree with it and promise, if elected, to uphold every single principle listed in the document. I also pledge to work continuously to ensure that the process of democratization and open governance continues to move forward, rather than stagnating or moving in counterproductive directions.

A short biography is probably in order. I am an attorney who specializes in Internet law (including privacy, First Amendment, trademark, encryption, online commerce, and other issues). I represent clients from many different countries, with multiple perspectives on many of these issues (but never any clients in whose causes I do not believe). I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and practice in courtrooms all over the United States. I have experience working for the United States government, as well as for a state Supreme Court, for a large law firm that represents multinational corporations, and for a federal trial court judge. At present, however, I work in a small firm setting by choice principally because of the autonomy it gives me to choose to take positions because I believe in them, and not because a large client representation requires me to subordinate my principles to "the firm's" financial interests.

I have both the time and desire to contribute constructively to improving ICANN and Internet governance, and I thank all of you who choose to give me the opportunity to serve your interests as your ICANN at-large representative. John Alexander

At the outset, I should note that I strongly support the efforts of the CPSR, and the Internet Democracy Project, to keep our civil rights in the forefront at this formative stage of international internet governance. Bodies such as ICANN have a natural tendency to be driven by the most substantive financial interests in a controversy more strongly than by such notions as free speech and diversity.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Yokohama Statement's preamble. Indeed, ICANN must consider how its actions impact the global exercise of free speech and association, as well as the ability of those in the minority to take their places at the internet table.

In fact, this notion not only describes my own deeply-held beliefs, but also my very rationale for volunteering my most valuable asset - time and expertise - to the task of internet domain governance.

My online ICANN candidate statement and web page - http://www.netgaincc.com/icann - give more detail on my professional background and training. I have a great deal of experience as a journalist, attorney and, for the past four years, web designer. Throughout, I have donated my time to the assistance and representation of those whose civil rights have been threatened - in the arenas of federal and state court, and the internet. My company, Net Gain Communications Consultants, designed and hosted the website for a leading affirmative action organization founded by Martin Luther King III, as one example.

Most of the nine issues articulated in the Yokohama Statement describe values over which I suspect there may little debate, if just as little current compliance, by ICANN.

For example, ICANN President Mike Roberts likely would not argue with the second proposition, that ICANN must operate transparent to public scrutiny. Yet the group is woefully deficient in communicating the substance of ongoing issues and proposed resolutions to the impacted internet public with sufficient time to secure meaningful response from all factions.

That is why the first "plank" of my "platform" is Communication: I pledge a commitment of my own time and expertise to ensuring ICANN communicates in a more complete and timely fashion, using with some degree of sophistication the very technology it seeks to regulate. I feel well suited to do this, given my background in journalism, law and the web.

I cannot claim complete consonance with the Yokohama Statement, however. Some of the language is so vague as to be nothing more than the start of a conversation about the topic, while other particulars are simply off-course. For example, within principal number five, the proposition regarding separation of IP address and DNS root server management would simply complicate an otherwise complex process with more bureaucracy serving no reasonable purpose. The stated goal of "decentralizing authority" really does not articulate a valid reason for this move.

While I could take issue with several specifics of this sort, I think what is important is that I generally support the goals of the Yokohama Statement, and of the CPSR. If elected an at-large director, I will listen carefully to the CPSR's views on all issues before ICANN. Robin Bandy

While I certainly think that the CPSR Statement points in the correct direction, I also think that it ignores a few fundamental issues and, on the important issues it does address, it does not go far enough. The focus of most of the Statement can be grouped under the broad heading of "Democratic Representation", and as such they miss a few important considerations.

First and most important, is that ICANN (as a company incorporated under American, and Californian, law) cannot actually be representative of a global usership. ICANN's freedom to structure itself is proscribed by American and Californian laws governing the organization and operation of non-profit corporations and its actual existence is dependant upon the sufferance of these two governments, either of which could revoke its corporate existence at will. An organization so dependant on one country cannot, and should not be expected to, represent the users from or residing in other countries. By ICANN's control of the default DNS root it also illegitimately extends the jurisdiction of American and Californian law to governing interactions between Americans in other states and between citizens or residents of other countries.

While transparency and openness are obvious necessities of a democratic structure, CPSR also does not extend their call for a more democratic ICANN to including procedures for member initiative and referendum nor for member initiated recall of elected Board members, all features of any truly democratic system.

Additionally, a truly democratic ICANN should have no representation of government or corporate interests. Governments and corporations are already representative organizations, the first represent their citizens and the second represent their owners; these interests are already represented by the voting members who are also constituents of governments and corporations. To allow the U.S. government, for example, a representative in ICANN is to multiply the votes of the U.S. ICANN members by giving them two Board members (one shared with Canada and one of their own) while devaluing the votes of all non-American members. To allow NSI or CORE, to take another example, representation is to grant the owners of the corporation, as individuals, vastly greater influence than all other individual members. These are clearly not democratic scenarios, as they are basically the same as if R.J. Reynolds or any other special-interest lobbying group were given a direct seat in the U.S. Congress, but they are the essence of how ICANN now functions.

That CPSR calls for opening the current monolithic DNS root to a collaborative root shared between the ICANN and alternative namespaces is marvelous. In my capacity as a root server maintainer with the OpenNIC, I have been involved in discussing exactly that with several of the existing alternates and obviously am fully in support of that scenario. Though we have already begun discussions with several Linux and BSD distributions about the possibility of their installers supporting the alternative roots, we would obviously much prefer that the current root also support them.

That they also call for an end to the artificial domain name scarcity is also good, but I think they don't consider exactly how it needs to be managed. Simply adding new generic Top-Level Domains (TLDs) would not help solve another of their concerns, that of the over-focus on "Intellectual Property" (i.e. trademark) concerns. By implementing new TLDs with well defined charters, such as the .parody TLD served by OpenNIC, the trademark concerns can be properly confined to appropriately chartered TLDs, leaving space available for parody, criticism and personal sites which would be free from the current ever- present threat of trademark lawsuits. By chartering a geographic series of TLDs, trademark concerns could also be confined to their appropriate geographical regions rather than, as the current system does, allowing conflicts between properly registered trademarks in various countries and regions.

Since Slashdot asked us to keep these down to around 500 words, and I've already gone over that, here are a few additional informational links:

• My Candidacy page
• The OpenNIC, an alternative namespace which, I think, provides a good model

Sondlo Leonard Mhlaba

Response to Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections
by Sondlo Leonard Mhlaba, PhD

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the Civil Society Statement of July 13, 2000.

I have followed the work of CPSR for several years and, more recently, have benefited from the work of the Democracy Project. It should, therefore, come as no surprise to many that I support the nine Guiding Values of the Civil Society Statement. I do have some reservations about some details in Values 1, 7, and 8.

Value #1: Representativeness. The basis of my questions and my perspective on this item can best be appreciated through the mission of The New Franchise Institute at http://www.NewFranchise.Org which I am currently building . I see development of the internet as a momentous event in the history of the world. In 500 Years of Eurocentric Diplomacy: Prospects for the 21st Century (1999), I dared to suggest that the internet may become as integral to human life as the heavy coat is to the polar bear. Looked at in this light, the internet has the potential to separate "internet haves" from the "internet have-nots" so far apart as to constitute separate species. I am a naturalized American citizen and Zimbabwe native, having come to the US in the mid-60s. From where I sit, therefore, the work of ICANN and all the parties to internet development, is epoch-making.

In light of the above perspective, I believe that, at some point, ICANN needs to re-examine how the world is divided for purposes of representation. Should, for example, representatives be assigned in proportion to the at-large members, or in proportion to the population of the region (irrespective of the level of internet participation)? Readers may know that of the 58,000 at-large registrants for the purposes of this up-coming election, only 1,000 came from the Continent of Africa. How should language and the attendant worldview be factored in? A year ago, according to a study cited in my book, about 58% of internet communication was in English and 83% was in European languages. In the long term, I believe that a Eurocentric, and North-American dominated internet is not in our (North America's) political, civic, or economic interest. The North American representative must provide a more globalist, and future-oriented perspective, as he or she endevors to be responsive to his or her North American internet constituency.

Value #7. I believe that some domain name categories ought to be reserved for civic and governmental entities, while other categories are left to the market. Cyber-squatting and the after-market ought to be disallowed in the governmental and civic categories. However, I believe that cyber-squatting and related market techniques should be allowed in the market category. In order for this distinction to work in the interest of the general public, a great deal of care would, of course, need to go into defining the two categories.

Value #8: I support respect for privacy, but I also realize that there are differences among cultures as to what level of privacy is necessary or adequate. I believe that some of the OECD prescriptions, if they become a world standard, could dampen critical debate in the civic arena and complicate normal international market activity.

My major problem with Value # 8 is in the area of member voting. I strongly believe that ICANN board member voting must be open, and not through secret ballot. I think at-large members must be able to hold board members accountable for their votes, and a secret ballot process is inimical to the concept of transparency (Value # 2). Marty Freeman

As far as the Cival Society sataement, I agree completly. I think they sould have included some links or examples, however, to information sugsting that ICANN is not working in the manner it should. www.WIPO.org.uk (World Intelectual Piracy Orginization) has some more info. and examples.

Reading the statement did help me realize the depth of the problem though. The internet is so interseting and usefull because of the content provided by its users. If it becomes too dificult for someone to set up a server and give it an easy to find address, then the internet will loose the very thing everyone loves it for -- ridiculous ammounts of usefull, useless, interesting and funny information. It will become a homogonized channel for the distribution of U.S. corporate propaganda. That sucks. I don't want surfing the internet to be like watching TV. I am really glad to have a chance to change things and hope for at least a chance to be on the final ballot. I would like to note that the ICANN has put the 158,000 people who actually managed to sign up in a tight position. They have only two weeks to decide among the candidates for their area. Plus, the first few people to gain enough support in a area are the only ones to make it. That seams sort of unfair. On one hand you have to study info on 50 people and decide who is best for the job, on the other, you have to decide quickly which candidate to vote for, or all the slots may already be full. This is one of the first things I would change. It makes more sense for the top supported few to make it than the first few to get 2% of the total support. Anyway, thanks for giving me a chance to voice my oppenion. I hope you will all make an informed and responsible decision. Chris Stewart

The Civil Society's "Statement On ICANN Elections" addresses a number of issues that are quite popular amongst candidates seeking member-nomination. The paper focuses on a need for transparency, proportionate representation, fundamental rights, and the "bottom-up" process of administration. However, I am extremely disappointed that, once again consumer rights issues are not mentioned in the context of purchasing, owning, selling, or the security of a domain name.

As well, the paper does not address the need for ICANN to review its accreditation process, or the continued technical and administrative negligence of registrars. It is also disconcerting to conclude that the Civil Society opposes the current practice of selling, renting, or leasing a domain name in excess of its original registration cost incurred by the registrant. The following point taken from the paper's "Guiding Values" supports this conclusion,

Section 7. Artificial Scarcity and Centralization Should Be Avoided

"The use of domain names as a marketing device to index content creates excessive value in domain names and creates disincentives to innovation."

The Civil Society also argues that a "scarcity in domain names creates opportunities for control". However, the solution to this "artificial" scarcity should not be, as suggested by the paper, an unconstrained expansion of the Internet domain name space.

It can be agreed that a greater number of new gTLDs would benefit consumers by potentially reducing registration costs and allowing an increased selection of domains and registrars. However, it is irresponsible to ignore the incidents of technical and administrative negligence that currently hounds registrars and the domain registration/ownership process. These are the issues that need to be addressed prior to any consideration of an "unconstrained" expansion. I refer to two examples of registrar negligence and the lack of accountability on their behalf in the following two articles.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,32974,00.html

http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2615087,00.html

Consumers want a system that will allow them to purchase a domain, maintain its security via an accredited registrar, use the domain in any context they wish without restrictions that impede upon their civil liberties, and the right to profit from the use or sale of that domain. This paper does not address these fundamental concerns with any conviction.

The Civil Society does however appeal to the interests of the Internet community in many aspects of the statement. The need for proportionate representation rather than "democracy deficit", and the minimization or avoidance of ICANN policy-making on non-technical topics are extremely favourable arguments. The latter of the two directly refers to policies such as the UDRP, which has attempted to handcuff the abuse of trademark infringement in the domain registration environment.

However, the paper does not comment on the use of the arbitration system (such as the WIPO) in order to settle disputes. This system has been fraught with negative response from domain name owners and the media alike. The absence of support for or against this system of dispute resolution is unsettling. Decisions from this arbitration panel have been inconsistent, extremely unfair, and unjust in many of the cases, suggesting that the scope of the UDRP has been abused and sometimes ignored altogether. I offer the following site, which addresses some of the specific cases. http://www.domainshame.com/

To view the issues I feel need to be addressed in this election, please visit http://www.iknowicann.com

Sincerely, Christopher Stewart Lee Fulmer

I fully endorse and support the intent of the Civil Society's statement on the ICANN elections.

It seems that since its inception, the internet has been driven by government and corporate interests. I think that ICANN needs to be fully transparent in its operation and accountable to the entire internet community. One of the most important tasks ICANN faces is to deal with the current problems of "scarcity" of domain space by clamping down on speculators and creating new gTLDs. It is equally important the ICANN is representative of the internet community and should include equal representation from all regions as well as from all interest groups (business, government, academia and individuals).

As an individual who has lived and worked in North America, Europe and Australasia across all the interest groups, I feel I have a unique perspective I can contribute to the process. The domain space should be more distributed among the registrars to help keep costs (including ICANN's) down. I certainly don't expect to paid for my work and I would strive to ensure that a balance between public, private, and personal interests is taken.

Please read my candidacy statement on the ICANN site at http://members.icann.org/nom/cp/47.html and visit my site at http://www.fulmer.com/ before you case your vote! Patrick D'Acre

The issues raised by the Internet Democracy white paper have significant merit. As such, they would need to be included in a larger conversation, involving activated participants, with the intention of finding the middle ground. The 'revisionist' approach to providing a 'FREE Internet' for every person, hints at some policies of the past (e.g. Commerce Secretary Hoover in the 20's).

For the Internet to progress, and be made available to the largest population, business practices are mandatory. And attempt to revert to the origins of the Internet would be woefully out of place and inadvertantly restrict access to the most deserving.

I can appreaciate some of the points in the white paper, yet look for more 'centrist' approaches to implementing those same objectives.

For information on my interests see http://www.letsdobizradio.bizland.com/personal/resume.htm. Laurie Williams

1. ICANN must be representative--Agree. Further, consideration should be given to not only developing countries, but also to developing areas within developed countries. For example, interests of those in rural Oklahoma, North Dakota, or in the furthest reaches of Canada, may be more aligned with those of a remote island or developing country, than with the metropolitan areas of the USA or Canada.

2. ICANN must be transparent--Agree.

3. ICANN must use bottom-up process--Agree

4. Intellectual property rights should not be privileged over other rights--ICANN should foster collaboration and cooperation instead of creating antagonism and divisiveness. Domains are not synonymous with trademarks--otherwise the system would have been called the TNS (Trademark Name Service) and not the DNS (Domain Name Service).

5. ICANN should strive at all times to minimize or avoid policy-making on non-technical topics--Agree.

6. The domain space is a globally-shared public good with public and private functions--Agree.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided--Agree, with the caveat that the technical efficacy of the internet should be guaranteed before expansion and diffusion is promoted. Further, registrars should continue to enhance their processes to streamline the needs of clients. In addition, registrars, portals, and search engines should expand to include more effective searches for domain names.

8. ICANN must respect privacy--Agree.

9. Costs should be minimal and equitable--Agree. In addition, the Berkman Center does an excellent job in providing remote participation of ICANN meetings. Emphasis should be placed on enhanced technology to make ICANN webcasts even better in the future so that individuals without the resources of large companies, can participate more effectively.

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ICANN's elections are now underway. (We've covered this before.) ICANN's Nominating Committee has picked several candidates for each of the five open seats in a closed primary process; now there is a "member nomination" process underway where several more candidates will be selected to run for each seat. Civil liberties groups are actively attempting to promote democratic involvement in ICANN, such as the Civil Society Democracy Project being spearheaded by CPSR. We've asked each of the people seeking to be candidates for the North American region board seat to answer one question; here are the responses we've received. Update: 08/17 14:04 by michael : Two more responses added.

This is equivalent to a "primary" election - it is selecting the people who will run for the election. We are concentrating only on the election for the North American region, since the majority of Slashdot's readership is from this region. ICANN's nominating committee picked four candidates to run for the seat:

• Lyman Chapin
• Donald Langenberg
• Lawrence Lessig
• Harris Miller

and at the last ICANN meeting, it was decided to limit the total candidates for any one seat to seven, so this primary process will pick three additional candidates to run for the seat. A large number of people have thrown their hats in the ring for this process -- here's ICANN's list of candidates seeking member-nomination -- and we asked them all this question:

The Internet Democracy Project (www.internetdemocracyproject.org) and the Civil Society Internet Forum (www.civilsocietyinternetforum.org) have been involved in attempting to promote democracy and representation of individual Internet users at ICANN. The Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections -

http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/Statement_July-13.html

- is an attempt to spell out what attributes are desirable in ICANN from such a perspective.

Distinguishing between 50+ possible candidates, with only one endorsement to cast, is likely to be difficult for ICANN's registered voters. Slashdot has talked with Hans Klein of CPSR (www.cpsr.org) and we feel that a reasonable way to allow the candidates to distinguish between themselves is to ask them an open-ended question:

-- What is your response to the Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections?

What follows are the responses we received, edited only for HTML formatting. If you, as an ICANN registered voter, decide that you'd like to see one of these candidates run for the seat, you can endorse them on the ICANN Web site. Whichever three candidates receive the most endorsements (and are endorsed by more than 2% of the voter pool, and from at least two countries) will be on the ballot for the real election, which begins Sept. 1. You may change your endorsement before Sept. 1 by simply endorsing a different candidate. The candidate listing displays a running total of endorsements.

Clear enough? On to the candidates! These responses are listed in the order they were received.

Teri Powell

[Editor's note: Teri Powell informs me she has withdrawn from the ICANN election. --michael]

I have participated heavily and strongly re: ICANN issues on the Public Forums.

I have read and fully understand the position paper you reference. This has been evidenced in my opinions already expressed via any route I can. With this in mind, I have to admit the following: I can Not say it any better than as the Actual Statement linked below.

This will be short and sweet. I will reference (as a link) the Statement which I Totally Agree with.
http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/Statement_July-13.html

My web site can be found at:
http://www.brittany-technologies.com

The Prime Objective is to get Proper Representation onto the ICANN Board which Will Reflect ALL Internet Users.

My Very Best to the Other Candidates! I Believe the At Large Members Will Choose Wisely. I Will Support Whoever is chosen since this will, at least, be a Start in Representation for Us. Liz Bartlett

My candidate page can be found at http://www.khyri.com/icann/ and contains the information on my ICANN page, together with expanded sections on my qualification, background and viewpoints. I intend to add relevent content and links to it at intervals, so feel free to bookmark and return.

1. I strongly believe that ICANN must represent all. I feel I can represent many interests, being female and having lived in England, France and (currently) the U.S.A. I am heavily involved in web accessibility issues, making sure that web content is available to everyone regardless of physical disability, method of accessing the Internet, or level of technology.

2. I have had indirect experience of organizations whose leadership have resisted such transparency, and I know that this mentality is a fast road to destruction. I have always held the view that information must be shared with all interested parties, unless there are very good reasons to withhold it.

3. One of the strongest bases for an organization such as ICANN is the strength of its core membership. I believe the board should be drawn from the membership, that the board should then exercise the proper oversight of the staff, and that the ICANN staff should not be employed from the ranks of board members in order to maintain a proper employee-employer relationship.

4. I believe that only in the clearest cases of intentional misleading or profit motivation should the "first come, first served" domain name policy be overturned.

5. I do not have strong views on the organizational split of IP address and DNS root server management. I feel this issues are best solved on a "what is technically best" basis.

6. I do not believe governmental control over domain name space can be a practical solution, given the global nature of the internet, the increasing abuse of the two-letter country codes, and the absence of a global government.

7. I am strongly against artifical scarcity of names. However, I am ambivalent on the decentralizing of some functions, as I realize that the independent operation of many registration/name lookup/routing functions can cause technical chaos. However I feel, (maybe naively) that it must be possible to retain a single, core central registry without giving any individual, organization or company the temptation of "abuse of power". I see no great problem with the current system.

8. Privacy policies as generally adopted by organizations that hold elections should apply to all ICANN operations.

9. The costs of participating in ICANN activities, and the costs that ICANN itself incurs in its operations should be kept as economically low as possible. Expenses should be looked at with a view to "does this further the ICANN objective" before approval. Adam L. Beberg

I believe the first 3 values aim at something deeper which is that the membership base needs to be informed and educated about the issues they will vote on. Any issue that the members must decide needs to include the technical details, as well as a pro and con argument, all translated into multiple languages. The membership also needs to remain vigilant of the things happening in ICANN that have a public effect, and this can only be done with complete information.

One problem I have seen emerging due to ICANN's relatively few issues to deal with, but of high complexity and with extended impact, is that of "if I can get 50 non-technical friends to sign up, I can tell them all how to vote because they cannot understand the geekspeak". This is just as dangerous as the commercial makeup of the DNSOs, but far more insidious. Unfortunately this will probably be the operating mode for the At Large membership base.

Trademark laws as a social convention are an important thing if people are to know who they are dealing with, and that others with be prevented from pretending to be someone they are not. That said, I don't see how domain names or IP numbers affect free expression or privacy, other then the help privacy by limiting pretenders. Governments do not need ICANN's help to limit freedoms.

The scarcity of domains of any kind is completely artificial, and should be reduced or removed. Any TLD should be allowed, and is technically possible, but should be subject to some critical mass (N people want TLD .xyz) to avoid all domains turning into TLDs. Since other TLD's are not scarce, ccTLD's being a pain to get, if not scarce, doesn't seem to be a large problem. The ccTLD registrars must compete next to the generic registrars, and the market will eliminate the inefficient and unresponsive registrars. ICANN does need to take a role to insure that domain owners can easily change registrars, without hassle or loss/theft of their domains, which several registrars now prevent. Emerson Tiller

I will address each of the guiding principles put forth by the Civil Society.

1. ICANN must be representative.

I agree. In fact, I propose that:

• the majority (not just 9), if not all, of the board members should be elected by the at-large membership.
• Email, fax, and regular mail member registrations should be accepted. Registration should be 1-step.
• ICANN members should enjoy the protections of being members under California's non-profit laws.

Note that, for months, I have engaged in a public information campaign to increase and broaden the ICANN membership (http://www.icannvote.com).

2. ICANN must be transparent.

Absolutely.

3. ICANN must use bottom-up processes.

I agree. I suggest that petition processes be allowed to bring issues up for a membership wide vote. The membership should also vote on whether the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) passed in 1999 should be reauthorized.

4. Intellectual property rights should not be privileged over other rights.

Political, religious, anonymous, and other forms of free speech, as they reveal themselves in domain names or other web content, should be accorded equal standing with intellectual property rights.

5. ICANN should strive at all times to minimize or avoid policy-making on non-technical topics.

I agree. However, we should recognize the in an electronic age, technical decisions produce policy results, and thus in some sense the technical decisions are often policy decisions (much like decisions on process often determine the policy). Rather than ignoring this critical relationship, we would be better off to acknowledge the connection, and then be specific about which technology-driven policy areas ICANN should and should not involve itself. Any expansion of policy making should be authorized by both broad membership voting and broader international representation on the board.

6. The domain name space is a globally-shared public good with public and private functions.

I agree. And the more we can open the TLD space, the more effectively these multiple uses can be met.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided.

I believe that the expansion of the domain name space through the creation of new TLD registries should be one of ICANN's highest priorities. To the extent centralization occurs, or is necessary, it should be legitimized by broad public approval and international representation.

8. ICANN must respect privacy.

I agree. ICANN should avoid technical/policy decisions that compromise anonymity and the security of personal information.

9. Costs should be minimal and equitable.

And shared fairly among all countries, on condition that they have a fair chance at representation on the ICANN board and enjoy the services that ICANN performs.

Final Comments: ICANN is not beyond repair. There are a lot of good people who have worked to make it a forum that responds to the new demands of the Internet society. But ICANN is in need of restructuring, both in terms of process (election procedures, for example) and substance (the UDRP, for example). My platform: http://64.82.55.205/tiller.html. Barbara Simons

I state on my election web page http://barbara.simons.org/:

"I support the values enunciated by the Civil Society Internet Forum. These include 'democratic participation in decision-making, open processes, the right to communicate, and a fair balance between rights of privacy, speech, consumers, and property in Internet governance'. I shall work to defend privacy, speech, and the needs and rights of the smaller players; I sincerely hope that the other candidates will demonstrate their support for these important principles."

I also signed the Civil Society Internet Forum Mission Statement in Yokohama. (See http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/csif/signatories.html).

I am very pleased that you are asking this question of all the candidates. I hope that people will honestly state whether or not they will support the Civil Society principles. My support is public and long standing.

On my web page I also pledge to:

• be accessible and responsive to the members of the at-large community,
• create an advisory group of experts in technological, policy, economics, and the law,
• work to build a decision-making process that is open and inclusive.

The decisions made by the ICANN Board during the next few years will have a major impact on the speech and freedom on the Internet. I have a history of fighting for speech, privacy, and open access. My web page contains links to several policy articles I have written on these topics. Among other actions, I have:

• testified before a Senate subcommittee in favor of the legislation that would significantly reduce export controls on encryption,
• worked to defeat the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),
• spoken out and written letters in opposition to UCITA,
• opposed attempts to censor the Internet,
• submitted a supporting declaration for the defense in the New York DVD trial (See http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/filings/NY/0503-reply.html#Simons),
• fought efforts to establish wide-spread monitoring by law enforcement of the Internet,
• worked to support privacy.

My support for the right to anonymity on the Internet is reflected in my membership on the Advisory Board of ZeroKnowledge Systems Inc.

I hope that the readers of Slashdot will read my statement on the ICANN web page and the material I have posted on my web site. If anyone has comments or suggestions, he or she can reach me at simons@acm.org. Karl Auerbach

I helped write it - I think its a darn fine statement. ;-)

(One can compare it to my rather long set of views as expressed on my election web page at http://www.cavebear.com/ialc/ )

ICANN as it is now constructed and operated seems to be premised on the notion that the Internet is there for the benefit of commercial interests and that ICANN ought to treat those who "merely" use the Internet as babes in the woods who can't be trusted to make decisions and who need paternalistic protection.

The Civil Society Statement is, to my mind, a roadmap of how ICANN can return to a more balanced state - so that the users of the Internet will be respected as people who can make their own decisions about their own interests.

Governance is hard. And ICANN is undertaking something new and difficult. ICANN cripples itself by creating a body of people who feel that they have been disenfranchised. The Civil Society Statement is a reminder to ICANN that it has forgotten to be inclusive of all those who believe they have role in these matters.

If you compare the Civil Society Statement with my own platform, you will see that I have gone rather further in certain areas - particularly with regard to procedures and ICANN structure. It is very much my belief that inclusive processes - even if they appear somewhat more chaotic than today's ICANN staff choreographed dictates - are at least as important as any substantive policy decision.

As a practical matter, whoever wins the election for a board seat is going to be but one person out of 19. So any single candidate's platform is probably not going to become fact, at least not immediately. ICANN's staff has become so entrenched and has taken control of the corporation so completely, that reform of ICANN is going to be a major effort. The Civil Society Statement serves as something we can always look to to see whether ICANN is improving.

Tom Lowenhaupt

Guiding Value 1. ICANN must be representative.

The ICANN needs to represent all of the Internet's current users - not just business interests.

But more than this, the ICANN needs to acknowledge the immense impact the Internet has on all people, and it needs to reserve representation space for those not yet on the net. When America was young it excluded women, workers, and African salves from its representation system. Let's learn from the 150 year struggle to remedy that stupidity. Let's set aside representation space now.

But representation on the ICANN is not a simple matter. How do you represent 5 billion people? I don't have all the answers to this question, but I began my search by asking the following. Who runs the military? Who sets water and air pollution standards? Who determines the direction and usage rules for our roadways? It's not the army or the air and highway bureaucrats. It's civil society - you and me. (Or at least it should be!)

Business might own the net, but it's you and me that pump in the cash that allows them to operate. Let's take control and make sure the net's something that's good for our families and good for our communities.

Guiding Value 2. ICANN must be transparent.
Guiding Value 3. ICANN must use bottom-up processes.

The ICANN's operation and its decision making process must be transparent and inviting to the public. Issues should be framed and brought to the public within a context and with comprehendible background information. Everyone should have the opportunity to comment on upcoming decisions using online forums, listservers, and polling systems.

Guiding Value 4. Intellectual property rights should not be privileged over other rights.
Guiding Value 8. ICANN must respect privacy.

First and foremost the net should be about communication that empowers the individual. It shouldn't be turned into TV 2. When intellectual property rights are treated with undue importance, our access to information and our privacy rights are reduced.

Guiding Value 5. ICANN should strive at all times to minimize or avoid policy-making on non-technical topics.

Rapid growth and technologic change guarantees a tumultuous future for the net. Unsettling developments will be thrown into the ICANN's waiting lap on a regular basis. And human nature will have the organization's employees accreting power.

So I support an open governance system with separation of powers and independent review mechanisms.

Guiding Value 6. The domain name space is a globally-shared public good with public and private functions.
Guiding Value 7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided.

There needn't be any shortage in the domain name space. Look at Karl Auerbach's page for a discussion this. (Karl's also an At Large candidate, see his page at http://www.cavebear.com/ialc/).

An acknowledged expert in the field, Karl's proposed adding 10,000 new names - per year. He says the net should be able to support somewhere between 1,000,000 - 7,000,000 new TLDs.

IP numbers need to the distributed equitably, with set asides for future net users.

Guiding Value 9. Costs should be minimal and equitable.

I agree that we should keep costs to a minimum - who wouldn't? But good governance doesn't come cheep. If you want an open decision making process, you need qualified and well paid employees to create and present balanced presentations. You need good systems to keep the communication channels opened. And you need checks and balances to prevent centralization of power and undue influences by a moneyed class.

The money to pay for the net's operation is coming out of our pockets - ain' t no two ways about it. Let's invest our pennies in a governance system that empowers its users and respects their privacy.

I'll conclude by saying, "Vote for me and I'll do my best to see that the net works for us all." Ted Phipps

The CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON ICANN ELECTIONS addresses 7 guiding values.
I will discuss each in turn.

1. Representation.

ICANN should mirror the people it represents. There needs to be a better balance between technical/non-technical capabilities. I've been involved with advanced IT aviation systems. However, it's my capabilities in understanding and handling international issues that ICANN is most short of.

2. Transparency.

We demand this from 'public for-profit' companies, why would we expect anything less from a 'non-profit?'

3. Bottom-up processes.

ICANN must be of the members, by the members and for the members. Directors must be diligent in protecting your interests. If they don't, then not only should they be removed; but 'you' have an obligation to remove them. This is your global village, not theirs!

4. Intellectual property rights.

Throughout history, property issues have been at the forefront of any new frontier. Interestingly, this virtual property issue was dealt with in 1776. It's roots evolved out of Englishman John Locke's Treatise on Civil Government. Locke identified three rights: life, liberty and property. Jefferson took property a step further. He replaced the word property with "the right to pursuit of happiness." Jefferson wanted to make certain that the rights were not limited to land. In effect, Jefferson made a momentous step toward recognizing virtual rights. James Madison cemented the concept when he said we must "equally respect the rights of property and the property in rights." [Madison went on to list some virtual property examples in a 1792 essay].

For speculators, there are rights in property. For the trademark holder there's property in rights. ICANN must balance these rights. Fortunately, there is a solution- release more gTLD's under different classifications.

5. Policy-making.

The 'White Paper' identifies 4 guiding principles: stability, competition, bottom-up coordination and representation. The directors should follow this course.

6. Domain-space.

I agree that, multiple, parallel and overlapping TLDs registries for various stakeholders should not be excluded from the root. This is not only the basis of a vibrant society, but an empowered one.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization.

We don't need a DeBeers of the Internet. Holding gTLD's back is like building trade barriers - no one wins! Releasing new gTLDs is good for trademark holders, good for ebusiness, and good for the global village as a whole.

8. Privacy.

Information must flow freely across borders. This goes without saying for private users. For commercial users, ICANN's policies and procedures should adhere to Fair Information Practices. A good starting point is the OECD Privacy Guidelines. This policy actually makes life easier since companies' wouldn't have to guess whether they're violating a 'human rights' law.

9. Costs.

ICANN's operations should be transparent. If fees are charged they should be limited to commercial users. I polled the board members of ColorMeHome.com. They agree, as I believe most companies do: that it is better for businesses to contribute, than limit any individuals' access. Eric Grimm

Thank you for this chance to introduce myself and my candidacy to /. In response to your question, the Civil Society Statement reinforces and corroborates my opinion that the ICANN at-large elections, while certainly a welcome development, still are too little, too late. They only represent the first step toward reintroducing ideals of open and equitable decision-making -- including broad-based and fair representation of all interests, transparency, democracy, and freedom - into Internet governance generally and ICANN in particular.

I fully support the ideals of transparency, freedom and democracy not only in this context, but in other trans-national contexts, such as trade regulation, which should serve the long-term interests of the world's population as a whole, including future generations, and not the narrow interests of a tiny minority residing principally in industrial countries.

Following the ICANN vote, representatives of corporate power still will command super-majorities both on the ICANN Board and on every ICANN subcommittee. Therefore, the first at-large representatives will have to shoulder tremendous responsibility to keep things moving in the right direction. The costs of the status quo are already too evident. For example, the dispute resolution process that ICANN has established *COULD* have been designed to be fair and to promote impartiality, and should have included the following simple and obvious safeguards of fairness:

• Respondents should have the right to exercise a peremptory "strike" against the complainant's initial choice of forum. At present, the multiple Fora (WIPO, NAF) have every economic incentive to cater solely to the interests of trademark complainants, because they realize that complainants alone have the choice as to where the arbitration business will go. Respondents, at present, have no choice whatsoever in the process. Complainants naturally will select among fora based on their perception that, with respect to the issues in their particular case, one forum or another happens to be the most biased and unfair in complainants' favor. I have even had counsel for complainants admit this to me directly in particular cases that I have defended.
• Both complainants and respondents should have the right to exercise a limited number of peremptory "strikes" against individual arbitrators, whose track record demonstrates that they disregard the law and clearly fail to measure up to the standard of objectivity and impartiality. Yet, the people in control of ICANN omitted this important and obvious procedural safeguard.
• Complainants should be required, as a condition of invoking the ICANN dispute resolution process, to post a monetary bond, in case the complaint turns out to represent a bad-faith effort to engage in extortion, theft, and "reverse domain name piracy." Defending such a case is expensive, and the process was intended only to be invoked in "clear-cut" cases. In cases where the complainant has initiated arbitration in bad faith or for extortionate purposes, the arbitral panel should have broad discretion to compensate the respondent for the financial burden of defending a frivolous case.
• Each of the arbitration providers - like judges and courts in most forward-thinking jurisdictions - should be forbidden from commenting outside the arbitral process (i.e., to the press) on the merits of pending cases. They certainly should be prohibited from issuing press releases for the evident purpose of trying to drum up more business from new complainants by obliquely promising to "evict" respondents as often as can be managed. Specific press releases issued by more than one of the current arbitration service providers create a clear appearance of impropriety, and arguably constitute conclusive evidence of actual impropriety.
• The process should have a more robust mechanism for appeal from, and correction of, erroneous decisions. Also necessary is a mechanism for removing individual arbitrators who demonstrate a persistent inability to apply the rules fairly, and as those rules were written and intended to be applied. Even the most cursory examination of the output of the two most popular tribunals shows that their decisions are all over the map. Most decisions are mutually irreconcilable with one another. The ICANN process, as it is currently working, more resembles a random "domain name lottery" than a legitimate and balanced effort to administer fair rules in a consistent manner.

The problems with the status quo are also evident from both (1) the unnecessary and counterproductive delay in introducing new Top Level Domains, and (2) the proposed - arbitrary and unnecessary - barrier to entry of a $50,000 payment in order even to apply to establish a new Top Level Domain.

This is not to say that I believe that commerce is "bad," or that I am opposed to trademark law, or that I have any desire to banish commerce from the Internet. Quite the contrary, I strongly favor the application of TRADITIONAL principles of trademark law, within appropriate contexts. I firmly oppose the unnecessary EXPANSION of IP rights, however, and will fight to roll back the special rights that trademark owners have demanded. I also strongly favor commerce on the Internet -- both by small business as well as by big business. However, commerce is not entitled to a special place among the pantheon of Internet constituencies, and should assume its proper place among all constituencies of the Internet community as a whole.

In short, after reviewing the Civil Society Statement, I wholeheartedly agree with it and promise, if elected, to uphold every single principle listed in the document. I also pledge to work continuously to ensure that the process of democratization and open governance continues to move forward, rather than stagnating or moving in counterproductive directions.

A short biography is probably in order. I am an attorney who specializes in Internet law (including privacy, First Amendment, trademark, encryption, online commerce, and other issues). I represent clients from many different countries, with multiple perspectives on many of these issues (but never any clients in whose causes I do not believe). I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and practice in courtrooms all over the United States. I have experience working for the United States government, as well as for a state Supreme Court, for a large law firm that represents multinational corporations, and for a federal trial court judge. At present, however, I work in a small firm setting by choice principally because of the autonomy it gives me to choose to take positions because I believe in them, and not because a large client representation requires me to subordinate my principles to "the firm's" financial interests.

I have both the time and desire to contribute constructively to improving ICANN and Internet governance, and I thank all of you who choose to give me the opportunity to serve your interests as your ICANN at-large representative. John Alexander

At the outset, I should note that I strongly support the efforts of the CPSR, and the Internet Democracy Project, to keep our civil rights in the forefront at this formative stage of international internet governance. Bodies such as ICANN have a natural tendency to be driven by the most substantive financial interests in a controversy more strongly than by such notions as free speech and diversity.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Yokohama Statement's preamble. Indeed, ICANN must consider how its actions impact the global exercise of free speech and association, as well as the ability of those in the minority to take their places at the internet table.

In fact, this notion not only describes my own deeply-held beliefs, but also my very rationale for volunteering my most valuable asset - time and expertise - to the task of internet domain governance.

My online ICANN candidate statement and web page - http://www.netgaincc.com/icann - give more detail on my professional background and training. I have a great deal of experience as a journalist, attorney and, for the past four years, web designer. Throughout, I have donated my time to the assistance and representation of those whose civil rights have been threatened - in the arenas of federal and state court, and the internet. My company, Net Gain Communications Consultants, designed and hosted the website for a leading affirmative action organization founded by Martin Luther King III, as one example.

Most of the nine issues articulated in the Yokohama Statement describe values over which I suspect there may little debate, if just as little current compliance, by ICANN.

For example, ICANN President Mike Roberts likely would not argue with the second proposition, that ICANN must operate transparent to public scrutiny. Yet the group is woefully deficient in communicating the substance of ongoing issues and proposed resolutions to the impacted internet public with sufficient time to secure meaningful response from all factions.

That is why the first "plank" of my "platform" is Communication: I pledge a commitment of my own time and expertise to ensuring ICANN communicates in a more complete and timely fashion, using with some degree of sophistication the very technology it seeks to regulate. I feel well suited to do this, given my background in journalism, law and the web.

I cannot claim complete consonance with the Yokohama Statement, however. Some of the language is so vague as to be nothing more than the start of a conversation about the topic, while other particulars are simply off-course. For example, within principal number five, the proposition regarding separation of IP address and DNS root server management would simply complicate an otherwise complex process with more bureaucracy serving no reasonable purpose. The stated goal of "decentralizing authority" really does not articulate a valid reason for this move.

While I could take issue with several specifics of this sort, I think what is important is that I generally support the goals of the Yokohama Statement, and of the CPSR. If elected an at-large director, I will listen carefully to the CPSR's views on all issues before ICANN. Robin Bandy

While I certainly think that the CPSR Statement points in the correct direction, I also think that it ignores a few fundamental issues and, on the important issues it does address, it does not go far enough. The focus of most of the Statement can be grouped under the broad heading of "Democratic Representation", and as such they miss a few important considerations.

First and most important, is that ICANN (as a company incorporated under American, and Californian, law) cannot actually be representative of a global usership. ICANN's freedom to structure itself is proscribed by American and Californian laws governing the organization and operation of non-profit corporations and its actual existence is dependant upon the sufferance of these two governments, either of which could revoke its corporate existence at will. An organization so dependant on one country cannot, and should not be expected to, represent the users from or residing in other countries. By ICANN's control of the default DNS root it also illegitimately extends the jurisdiction of American and Californian law to governing interactions between Americans in other states and between citizens or residents of other countries.

While transparency and openness are obvious necessities of a democratic structure, CPSR also does not extend their call for a more democratic ICANN to including procedures for member initiative and referendum nor for member initiated recall of elected Board members, all features of any truly democratic system.

Additionally, a truly democratic ICANN should have no representation of government or corporate interests. Governments and corporations are already representative organizations, the first represent their citizens and the second represent their owners; these interests are already represented by the voting members who are also constituents of governments and corporations. To allow the U.S. government, for example, a representative in ICANN is to multiply the votes of the U.S. ICANN members by giving them two Board members (one shared with Canada and one of their own) while devaluing the votes of all non-American members. To allow NSI or CORE, to take another example, representation is to grant the owners of the corporation, as individuals, vastly greater influence than all other individual members. These are clearly not democratic scenarios, as they are basically the same as if R.J. Reynolds or any other special-interest lobbying group were given a direct seat in the U.S. Congress, but they are the essence of how ICANN now functions.

That CPSR calls for opening the current monolithic DNS root to a collaborative root shared between the ICANN and alternative namespaces is marvelous. In my capacity as a root server maintainer with the OpenNIC, I have been involved in discussing exactly that with several of the existing alternates and obviously am fully in support of that scenario. Though we have already begun discussions with several Linux and BSD distributions about the possibility of their installers supporting the alternative roots, we would obviously much prefer that the current root also support them.

That they also call for an end to the artificial domain name scarcity is also good, but I think they don't consider exactly how it needs to be managed. Simply adding new generic Top-Level Domains (TLDs) would not help solve another of their concerns, that of the over-focus on "Intellectual Property" (i.e. trademark) concerns. By implementing new TLDs with well defined charters, such as the .parody TLD served by OpenNIC, the trademark concerns can be properly confined to appropriately chartered TLDs, leaving space available for parody, criticism and personal sites which would be free from the current ever- present threat of trademark lawsuits. By chartering a geographic series of TLDs, trademark concerns could also be confined to their appropriate geographical regions rather than, as the current system does, allowing conflicts between properly registered trademarks in various countries and regions.

Since Slashdot asked us to keep these down to around 500 words, and I've already gone over that, here are a few additional informational links:

• My Candidacy page
• The OpenNIC, an alternative namespace which, I think, provides a good model

Sondlo Leonard Mhlaba

Response to Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections
by Sondlo Leonard Mhlaba, PhD

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the Civil Society Statement of July 13, 2000.

I have followed the work of CPSR for several years and, more recently, have benefited from the work of the Democracy Project. It should, therefore, come as no surprise to many that I support the nine Guiding Values of the Civil Society Statement. I do have some reservations about some details in Values 1, 7, and 8.

Value #1: Representativeness. The basis of my questions and my perspective on this item can best be appreciated through the mission of The New Franchise Institute at http://www.NewFranchise.Org which I am currently building . I see development of the internet as a momentous event in the history of the world. In 500 Years of Eurocentric Diplomacy: Prospects for the 21st Century (1999), I dared to suggest that the internet may become as integral to human life as the heavy coat is to the polar bear. Looked at in this light, the internet has the potential to separate "internet haves" from the "internet have-nots" so far apart as to constitute separate species. I am a naturalized American citizen and Zimbabwe native, having come to the US in the mid-60s. From where I sit, therefore, the work of ICANN and all the parties to internet development, is epoch-making.

In light of the above perspective, I believe that, at some point, ICANN needs to re-examine how the world is divided for purposes of representation. Should, for example, representatives be assigned in proportion to the at-large members, or in proportion to the population of the region (irrespective of the level of internet participation)? Readers may know that of the 58,000 at-large registrants for the purposes of this up-coming election, only 1,000 came from the Continent of Africa. How should language and the attendant worldview be factored in? A year ago, according to a study cited in my book, about 58% of internet communication was in English and 83% was in European languages. In the long term, I believe that a Eurocentric, and North-American dominated internet is not in our (North America's) political, civic, or economic interest. The North American representative must provide a more globalist, and future-oriented perspective, as he or she endevors to be responsive to his or her North American internet constituency.

Value #7. I believe that some domain name categories ought to be reserved for civic and governmental entities, while other categories are left to the market. Cyber-squatting and the after-market ought to be disallowed in the governmental and civic categories. However, I believe that cyber-squatting and related market techniques should be allowed in the market category. In order for this distinction to work in the interest of the general public, a great deal of care would, of course, need to go into defining the two categories.

Value #8: I support respect for privacy, but I also realize that there are differences among cultures as to what level of privacy is necessary or adequate. I believe that some of the OECD prescriptions, if they become a world standard, could dampen critical debate in the civic arena and complicate normal international market activity.

My major problem with Value # 8 is in the area of member voting. I strongly believe that ICANN board member voting must be open, and not through secret ballot. I think at-large members must be able to hold board members accountable for their votes, and a secret ballot process is inimical to the concept of transparency (Value # 2). Marty Freeman

As far as the Cival Society sataement, I agree completly. I think they sould have included some links or examples, however, to information sugsting that ICANN is not working in the manner it should. www.WIPO.org.uk (World Intelectual Piracy Orginization) has some more info. and examples.

Reading the statement did help me realize the depth of the problem though. The internet is so interseting and usefull because of the content provided by its users. If it becomes too dificult for someone to set up a server and give it an easy to find address, then the internet will loose the very thing everyone loves it for -- ridiculous ammounts of usefull, useless, interesting and funny information. It will become a homogonized channel for the distribution of U.S. corporate propaganda. That sucks. I don't want surfing the internet to be like watching TV. I am really glad to have a chance to change things and hope for at least a chance to be on the final ballot. I would like to note that the ICANN has put the 158,000 people who actually managed to sign up in a tight position. They have only two weeks to decide among the candidates for their area. Plus, the first few people to gain enough support in a area are the only ones to make it. That seams sort of unfair. On one hand you have to study info on 50 people and decide who is best for the job, on the other, you have to decide quickly which candidate to vote for, or all the slots may already be full. This is one of the first things I would change. It makes more sense for the top supported few to make it than the first few to get 2% of the total support. Anyway, thanks for giving me a chance to voice my oppenion. I hope you will all make an informed and responsible decision. Chris Stewart

The Civil Society's "Statement On ICANN Elections" addresses a number of issues that are quite popular amongst candidates seeking member-nomination. The paper focuses on a need for transparency, proportionate representation, fundamental rights, and the "bottom-up" process of administration. However, I am extremely disappointed that, once again consumer rights issues are not mentioned in the context of purchasing, owning, selling, or the security of a domain name.

As well, the paper does not address the need for ICANN to review its accreditation process, or the continued technical and administrative negligence of registrars. It is also disconcerting to conclude that the Civil Society opposes the current practice of selling, renting, or leasing a domain name in excess of its original registration cost incurred by the registrant. The following point taken from the paper's "Guiding Values" supports this conclusion,

Section 7. Artificial Scarcity and Centralization Should Be Avoided

"The use of domain names as a marketing device to index content creates excessive value in domain names and creates disincentives to innovation."

The Civil Society also argues that a "scarcity in domain names creates opportunities for control". However, the solution to this "artificial" scarcity should not be, as suggested by the paper, an unconstrained expansion of the Internet domain name space.

It can be agreed that a greater number of new gTLDs would benefit consumers by potentially reducing registration costs and allowing an increased selection of domains and registrars. However, it is irresponsible to ignore the incidents of technical and administrative negligence that currently hounds registrars and the domain registration/ownership process. These are the issues that need to be addressed prior to any consideration of an "unconstrained" expansion. I refer to two examples of registrar negligence and the lack of accountability on their behalf in the following two articles.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,32974,00.html

http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2615087,00.html

Consumers want a system that will allow them to purchase a domain, maintain its security via an accredited registrar, use the domain in any context they wish without restrictions that impede upon their civil liberties, and the right to profit from the use or sale of that domain. This paper does not address these fundamental concerns with any conviction.

The Civil Society does however appeal to the interests of the Internet community in many aspects of the statement. The need for proportionate representation rather than "democracy deficit", and the minimization or avoidance of ICANN policy-making on non-technical topics are extremely favourable arguments. The latter of the two directly refers to policies such as the UDRP, which has attempted to handcuff the abuse of trademark infringement in the domain registration environment.

However, the paper does not comment on the use of the arbitration system (such as the WIPO) in order to settle disputes. This system has been fraught with negative response from domain name owners and the media alike. The absence of support for or against this system of dispute resolution is unsettling. Decisions from this arbitration panel have been inconsistent, extremely unfair, and unjust in many of the cases, suggesting that the scope of the UDRP has been abused and sometimes ignored altogether. I offer the following site, which addresses some of the specific cases. http://www.domainshame.com/

To view the issues I feel need to be addressed in this election, please visit http://www.iknowicann.com

Sincerely, Christopher Stewart Lee Fulmer

I fully endorse and support the intent of the Civil Society's statement on the ICANN elections.

It seems that since its inception, the internet has been driven by government and corporate interests. I think that ICANN needs to be fully transparent in its operation and accountable to the entire internet community. One of the most important tasks ICANN faces is to deal with the current problems of "scarcity" of domain space by clamping down on speculators and creating new gTLDs. It is equally important the ICANN is representative of the internet community and should include equal representation from all regions as well as from all interest groups (business, government, academia and individuals).

As an individual who has lived and worked in North America, Europe and Australasia across all the interest groups, I feel I have a unique perspective I can contribute to the process. The domain space should be more distributed among the registrars to help keep costs (including ICANN's) down. I certainly don't expect to paid for my work and I would strive to ensure that a balance between public, private, and personal interests is taken.

Please read my candidacy statement on the ICANN site at http://members.icann.org/nom/cp/47.html and visit my site at http://www.fulmer.com/ before you case your vote! Patrick D'Acre

The issues raised by the Internet Democracy white paper have significant merit. As such, they would need to be included in a larger conversation, involving activated participants, with the intention of finding the middle ground. The 'revisionist' approach to providing a 'FREE Internet' for every person, hints at some policies of the past (e.g. Commerce Secretary Hoover in the 20's).

For the Internet to progress, and be made available to the largest population, business practices are mandatory. And attempt to revert to the origins of the Internet would be woefully out of place and inadvertantly restrict access to the most deserving.

I can appreaciate some of the points in the white paper, yet look for more 'centrist' approaches to implementing those same objectives.

For information on my interests see http://www.letsdobizradio.bizland.com/personal/resume.htm. Laurie Williams

1. ICANN must be representative--Agree. Further, consideration should be given to not only developing countries, but also to developing areas within developed countries. For example, interests of those in rural Oklahoma, North Dakota, or in the furthest reaches of Canada, may be more aligned with those of a remote island or developing country, than with the metropolitan areas of the USA or Canada.

2. ICANN must be transparent--Agree.

3. ICANN must use bottom-up process--Agree

4. Intellectual property rights should not be privileged over other rights--ICANN should foster collaboration and cooperation instead of creating antagonism and divisiveness. Domains are not synonymous with trademarks--otherwise the system would have been called the TNS (Trademark Name Service) and not the DNS (Domain Name Service).

5. ICANN should strive at all times to minimize or avoid policy-making on non-technical topics--Agree.

6. The domain space is a globally-shared public good with public and private functions--Agree.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided--Agree, with the caveat that the technical efficacy of the internet should be guaranteed before expansion and diffusion is promoted. Further, registrars should continue to enhance their processes to streamline the needs of clients. In addition, registrars, portals, and search engines should expand to include more effective searches for domain names.

8. ICANN must respect privacy--Agree.

9. Costs should be minimal and equitable--Agree. In addition, the Berkman Center does an excellent job in providing remote participation of ICANN meetings. Emphasis should be placed on enhanced technology to make ICANN webcasts even better in the future so that individuals without the resources of large companies, can participate more effectively.

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ICANN's elections are now underway. (We've covered this before.) ICANN's Nominating Committee has picked several candidates for each of the five open seats in a closed primary process; now there is a "member nomination" process underway where several more candidates will be selected to run for each seat. Civil liberties groups are actively attempting to promote democratic involvement in ICANN, such as the Civil Society Democracy Project being spearheaded by CPSR. We've asked each of the people seeking to be candidates for the North American region board seat to answer one question; here are the responses we've received. Update: 08/17 14:04 by michael : Two more responses added.

This is equivalent to a "primary" election - it is selecting the people who will run for the election. We are concentrating only on the election for the North American region, since the majority of Slashdot's readership is from this region. ICANN's nominating committee picked four candidates to run for the seat:

• Lyman Chapin
• Donald Langenberg
• Lawrence Lessig
• Harris Miller

and at the last ICANN meeting, it was decided to limit the total candidates for any one seat to seven, so this primary process will pick three additional candidates to run for the seat. A large number of people have thrown their hats in the ring for this process -- here's ICANN's list of candidates seeking member-nomination -- and we asked them all this question:

The Internet Democracy Project (www.internetdemocracyproject.org) and the Civil Society Internet Forum (www.civilsocietyinternetforum.org) have been involved in attempting to promote democracy and representation of individual Internet users at ICANN. The Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections -

http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/Statement_July-13.html

- is an attempt to spell out what attributes are desirable in ICANN from such a perspective.

Distinguishing between 50+ possible candidates, with only one endorsement to cast, is likely to be difficult for ICANN's registered voters. Slashdot has talked with Hans Klein of CPSR (www.cpsr.org) and we feel that a reasonable way to allow the candidates to distinguish between themselves is to ask them an open-ended question:

-- What is your response to the Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections?

What follows are the responses we received, edited only for HTML formatting. If you, as an ICANN registered voter, decide that you'd like to see one of these candidates run for the seat, you can endorse them on the ICANN Web site. Whichever three candidates receive the most endorsements (and are endorsed by more than 2% of the voter pool, and from at least two countries) will be on the ballot for the real election, which begins Sept. 1. You may change your endorsement before Sept. 1 by simply endorsing a different candidate. The candidate listing displays a running total of endorsements.

Clear enough? On to the candidates! These responses are listed in the order they were received.

Teri Powell

[Editor's note: Teri Powell informs me she has withdrawn from the ICANN election. --michael]

I have participated heavily and strongly re: ICANN issues on the Public Forums.

I have read and fully understand the position paper you reference. This has been evidenced in my opinions already expressed via any route I can. With this in mind, I have to admit the following: I can Not say it any better than as the Actual Statement linked below.

This will be short and sweet. I will reference (as a link) the Statement which I Totally Agree with.
http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/Statement_July-13.html

My web site can be found at:
http://www.brittany-technologies.com

The Prime Objective is to get Proper Representation onto the ICANN Board which Will Reflect ALL Internet Users.

My Very Best to the Other Candidates! I Believe the At Large Members Will Choose Wisely. I Will Support Whoever is chosen since this will, at least, be a Start in Representation for Us. Liz Bartlett

My candidate page can be found at http://www.khyri.com/icann/ and contains the information on my ICANN page, together with expanded sections on my qualification, background and viewpoints. I intend to add relevent content and links to it at intervals, so feel free to bookmark and return.

1. I strongly believe that ICANN must represent all. I feel I can represent many interests, being female and having lived in England, France and (currently) the U.S.A. I am heavily involved in web accessibility issues, making sure that web content is available to everyone regardless of physical disability, method of accessing the Internet, or level of technology.

2. I have had indirect experience of organizations whose leadership have resisted such transparency, and I know that this mentality is a fast road to destruction. I have always held the view that information must be shared with all interested parties, unless there are very good reasons to withhold it.

3. One of the strongest bases for an organization such as ICANN is the strength of its core membership. I believe the board should be drawn from the membership, that the board should then exercise the proper oversight of the staff, and that the ICANN staff should not be employed from the ranks of board members in order to maintain a proper employee-employer relationship.

4. I believe that only in the clearest cases of intentional misleading or profit motivation should the "first come, first served" domain name policy be overturned.

5. I do not have strong views on the organizational split of IP address and DNS root server management. I feel this issues are best solved on a "what is technically best" basis.

6. I do not believe governmental control over domain name space can be a practical solution, given the global nature of the internet, the increasing abuse of the two-letter country codes, and the absence of a global government.

7. I am strongly against artifical scarcity of names. However, I am ambivalent on the decentralizing of some functions, as I realize that the independent operation of many registration/name lookup/routing functions can cause technical chaos. However I feel, (maybe naively) that it must be possible to retain a single, core central registry without giving any individual, organization or company the temptation of "abuse of power". I see no great problem with the current system.

8. Privacy policies as generally adopted by organizations that hold elections should apply to all ICANN operations.

9. The costs of participating in ICANN activities, and the costs that ICANN itself incurs in its operations should be kept as economically low as possible. Expenses should be looked at with a view to "does this further the ICANN objective" before approval. Adam L. Beberg

I believe the first 3 values aim at something deeper which is that the membership base needs to be informed and educated about the issues they will vote on. Any issue that the members must decide needs to include the technical details, as well as a pro and con argument, all translated into multiple languages. The membership also needs to remain vigilant of the things happening in ICANN that have a public effect, and this can only be done with complete information.

One problem I have seen emerging due to ICANN's relatively few issues to deal with, but of high complexity and with extended impact, is that of "if I can get 50 non-technical friends to sign up, I can tell them all how to vote because they cannot understand the geekspeak". This is just as dangerous as the commercial makeup of the DNSOs, but far more insidious. Unfortunately this will probably be the operating mode for the At Large membership base.

Trademark laws as a social convention are an important thing if people are to know who they are dealing with, and that others with be prevented from pretending to be someone they are not. That said, I don't see how domain names or IP numbers affect free expression or privacy, other then the help privacy by limiting pretenders. Governments do not need ICANN's help to limit freedoms.

The scarcity of domains of any kind is completely artificial, and should be reduced or removed. Any TLD should be allowed, and is technically possible, but should be subject to some critical mass (N people want TLD .xyz) to avoid all domains turning into TLDs. Since other TLD's are not scarce, ccTLD's being a pain to get, if not scarce, doesn't seem to be a large problem. The ccTLD registrars must compete next to the generic registrars, and the market will eliminate the inefficient and unresponsive registrars. ICANN does need to take a role to insure that domain owners can easily change registrars, without hassle or loss/theft of their domains, which several registrars now prevent. Emerson Tiller

I will address each of the guiding principles put forth by the Civil Society.

1. ICANN must be representative.

I agree. In fact, I propose that:

• the majority (not just 9), if not all, of the board members should be elected by the at-large membership.
• Email, fax, and regular mail member registrations should be accepted. Registration should be 1-step.
• ICANN members should enjoy the protections of being members under California's non-profit laws.

Note that, for months, I have engaged in a public information campaign to increase and broaden the ICANN membership (http://www.icannvote.com).

2. ICANN must be transparent.

Absolutely.

3. ICANN must use bottom-up processes.

I agree. I suggest that petition processes be allowed to bring issues up for a membership wide vote. The membership should also vote on whether the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) passed in 1999 should be reauthorized.

4. Intellectual property rights should not be privileged over other rights.

Political, religious, anonymous, and other forms of free speech, as they reveal themselves in domain names or other web content, should be accorded equal standing with intellectual property rights.

5. ICANN should strive at all times to minimize or avoid policy-making on non-technical topics.

I agree. However, we should recognize the in an electronic age, technical decisions produce policy results, and thus in some sense the technical decisions are often policy decisions (much like decisions on process often determine the policy). Rather than ignoring this critical relationship, we would be better off to acknowledge the connection, and then be specific about which technology-driven policy areas ICANN should and should not involve itself. Any expansion of policy making should be authorized by both broad membership voting and broader international representation on the board.

6. The domain name space is a globally-shared public good with public and private functions.

I agree. And the more we can open the TLD space, the more effectively these multiple uses can be met.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided.

I believe that the expansion of the domain name space through the creation of new TLD registries should be one of ICANN's highest priorities. To the extent centralization occurs, or is necessary, it should be legitimized by broad public approval and international representation.

8. ICANN must respect privacy.

I agree. ICANN should avoid technical/policy decisions that compromise anonymity and the security of personal information.

9. Costs should be minimal and equitable.

And shared fairly among all countries, on condition that they have a fair chance at representation on the ICANN board and enjoy the services that ICANN performs.

Final Comments: ICANN is not beyond repair. There are a lot of good people who have worked to make it a forum that responds to the new demands of the Internet society. But ICANN is in need of restructuring, both in terms of process (election procedures, for example) and substance (the UDRP, for example). My platform: http://64.82.55.205/tiller.html. Barbara Simons

I state on my election web page http://barbara.simons.org/:

"I support the values enunciated by the Civil Society Internet Forum. These include 'democratic participation in decision-making, open processes, the right to communicate, and a fair balance between rights of privacy, speech, consumers, and property in Internet governance'. I shall work to defend privacy, speech, and the needs and rights of the smaller players; I sincerely hope that the other candidates will demonstrate their support for these important principles."

I also signed the Civil Society Internet Forum Mission Statement in Yokohama. (See http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/csif/signatories.html).

I am very pleased that you are asking this question of all the candidates. I hope that people will honestly state whether or not they will support the Civil Society principles. My support is public and long standing.

On my web page I also pledge to:

• be accessible and responsive to the members of the at-large community,
• create an advisory group of experts in technological, policy, economics, and the law,
• work to build a decision-making process that is open and inclusive.

The decisions made by the ICANN Board during the next few years will have a major impact on the speech and freedom on the Internet. I have a history of fighting for speech, privacy, and open access. My web page contains links to several policy articles I have written on these topics. Among other actions, I have:

• testified before a Senate subcommittee in favor of the legislation that would significantly reduce export controls on encryption,
• worked to defeat the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),
• spoken out and written letters in opposition to UCITA,
• opposed attempts to censor the Internet,
• submitted a supporting declaration for the defense in the New York DVD trial (See http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/filings/NY/0503-reply.html#Simons),
• fought efforts to establish wide-spread monitoring by law enforcement of the Internet,
• worked to support privacy.

My support for the right to anonymity on the Internet is reflected in my membership on the Advisory Board of ZeroKnowledge Systems Inc.

I hope that the readers of Slashdot will read my statement on the ICANN web page and the material I have posted on my web site. If anyone has comments or suggestions, he or she can reach me at simons@acm.org. Karl Auerbach

I helped write it - I think its a darn fine statement. ;-)

(One can compare it to my rather long set of views as expressed on my election web page at http://www.cavebear.com/ialc/ )

ICANN as it is now constructed and operated seems to be premised on the notion that the Internet is there for the benefit of commercial interests and that ICANN ought to treat those who "merely" use the Internet as babes in the woods who can't be trusted to make decisions and who need paternalistic protection.

The Civil Society Statement is, to my mind, a roadmap of how ICANN can return to a more balanced state - so that the users of the Internet will be respected as people who can make their own decisions about their own interests.

Governance is hard. And ICANN is undertaking something new and difficult. ICANN cripples itself by creating a body of people who feel that they have been disenfranchised. The Civil Society Statement is a reminder to ICANN that it has forgotten to be inclusive of all those who believe they have role in these matters.

If you compare the Civil Society Statement with my own platform, you will see that I have gone rather further in certain areas - particularly with regard to procedures and ICANN structure. It is very much my belief that inclusive processes - even if they appear somewhat more chaotic than today's ICANN staff choreographed dictates - are at least as important as any substantive policy decision.

As a practical matter, whoever wins the election for a board seat is going to be but one person out of 19. So any single candidate's platform is probably not going to become fact, at least not immediately. ICANN's staff has become so entrenched and has taken control of the corporation so completely, that reform of ICANN is going to be a major effort. The Civil Society Statement serves as something we can always look to to see whether ICANN is improving.

Tom Lowenhaupt

Guiding Value 1. ICANN must be representative.

The ICANN needs to represent all of the Internet's current users - not just business interests.

But more than this, the ICANN needs to acknowledge the immense impact the Internet has on all people, and it needs to reserve representation space for those not yet on the net. When America was young it excluded women, workers, and African salves from its representation system. Let's learn from the 150 year struggle to remedy that stupidity. Let's set aside representation space now.

But representation on the ICANN is not a simple matter. How do you represent 5 billion people? I don't have all the answers to this question, but I began my search by asking the following. Who runs the military? Who sets water and air pollution standards? Who determines the direction and usage rules for our roadways? It's not the army or the air and highway bureaucrats. It's civil society - you and me. (Or at least it should be!)

Business might own the net, but it's you and me that pump in the cash that allows them to operate. Let's take control and make sure the net's something that's good for our families and good for our communities.

Guiding Value 2. ICANN must be transparent.
Guiding Value 3. ICANN must use bottom-up processes.

The ICANN's operation and its decision making process must be transparent and inviting to the public. Issues should be framed and brought to the public within a context and with comprehendible background information. Everyone should have the opportunity to comment on upcoming decisions using online forums, listservers, and polling systems.

Guiding Value 4. Intellectual property rights should not be privileged over other rights.
Guiding Value 8. ICANN must respect privacy.

First and foremost the net should be about communication that empowers the individual. It shouldn't be turned into TV 2. When intellectual property rights are treated with undue importance, our access to information and our privacy rights are reduced.

Guiding Value 5. ICANN should strive at all times to minimize or avoid policy-making on non-technical topics.

Rapid growth and technologic change guarantees a tumultuous future for the net. Unsettling developments will be thrown into the ICANN's waiting lap on a regular basis. And human nature will have the organization's employees accreting power.

So I support an open governance system with separation of powers and independent review mechanisms.

Guiding Value 6. The domain name space is a globally-shared public good with public and private functions.
Guiding Value 7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided.

There needn't be any shortage in the domain name space. Look at Karl Auerbach's page for a discussion this. (Karl's also an At Large candidate, see his page at http://www.cavebear.com/ialc/).

An acknowledged expert in the field, Karl's proposed adding 10,000 new names - per year. He says the net should be able to support somewhere between 1,000,000 - 7,000,000 new TLDs.

IP numbers need to the distributed equitably, with set asides for future net users.

Guiding Value 9. Costs should be minimal and equitable.

I agree that we should keep costs to a minimum - who wouldn't? But good governance doesn't come cheep. If you want an open decision making process, you need qualified and well paid employees to create and present balanced presentations. You need good systems to keep the communication channels opened. And you need checks and balances to prevent centralization of power and undue influences by a moneyed class.

The money to pay for the net's operation is coming out of our pockets - ain' t no two ways about it. Let's invest our pennies in a governance system that empowers its users and respects their privacy.

I'll conclude by saying, "Vote for me and I'll do my best to see that the net works for us all." Ted Phipps

The CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON ICANN ELECTIONS addresses 7 guiding values.
I will discuss each in turn.

1. Representation.

ICANN should mirror the people it represents. There needs to be a better balance between technical/non-technical capabilities. I've been involved with advanced IT aviation systems. However, it's my capabilities in understanding and handling international issues that ICANN is most short of.

2. Transparency.

We demand this from 'public for-profit' companies, why would we expect anything less from a 'non-profit?'

3. Bottom-up processes.

ICANN must be of the members, by the members and for the members. Directors must be diligent in protecting your interests. If they don't, then not only should they be removed; but 'you' have an obligation to remove them. This is your global village, not theirs!

4. Intellectual property rights.

Throughout history, property issues have been at the forefront of any new frontier. Interestingly, this virtual property issue was dealt with in 1776. It's roots evolved out of Englishman John Locke's Treatise on Civil Government. Locke identified three rights: life, liberty and property. Jefferson took property a step further. He replaced the word property with "the right to pursuit of happiness." Jefferson wanted to make certain that the rights were not limited to land. In effect, Jefferson made a momentous step toward recognizing virtual rights. James Madison cemented the concept when he said we must "equally respect the rights of property and the property in rights." [Madison went on to list some virtual property examples in a 1792 essay].

For speculators, there are rights in property. For the trademark holder there's property in rights. ICANN must balance these rights. Fortunately, there is a solution- release more gTLD's under different classifications.

5. Policy-making.

The 'White Paper' identifies 4 guiding principles: stability, competition, bottom-up coordination and representation. The directors should follow this course.

6. Domain-space.

I agree that, multiple, parallel and overlapping TLDs registries for various stakeholders should not be excluded from the root. This is not only the basis of a vibrant society, but an empowered one.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization.

We don't need a DeBeers of the Internet. Holding gTLD's back is like building trade barriers - no one wins! Releasing new gTLDs is good for trademark holders, good for ebusiness, and good for the global village as a whole.

8. Privacy.

Information must flow freely across borders. This goes without saying for private users. For commercial users, ICANN's policies and procedures should adhere to Fair Information Practices. A good starting point is the OECD Privacy Guidelines. This policy actually makes life easier since companies' wouldn't have to guess whether they're violating a 'human rights' law.

9. Costs.

ICANN's operations should be transparent. If fees are charged they should be limited to commercial users. I polled the board members of ColorMeHome.com. They agree, as I believe most companies do: that it is better for businesses to contribute, than limit any individuals' access. Eric Grimm

Thank you for this chance to introduce myself and my candidacy to /. In response to your question, the Civil Society Statement reinforces and corroborates my opinion that the ICANN at-large elections, while certainly a welcome development, still are too little, too late. They only represent the first step toward reintroducing ideals of open and equitable decision-making -- including broad-based and fair representation of all interests, transparency, democracy, and freedom - into Internet governance generally and ICANN in particular.

I fully support the ideals of transparency, freedom and democracy not only in this context, but in other trans-national contexts, such as trade regulation, which should serve the long-term interests of the world's population as a whole, including future generations, and not the narrow interests of a tiny minority residing principally in industrial countries.

Following the ICANN vote, representatives of corporate power still will command super-majorities both on the ICANN Board and on every ICANN subcommittee. Therefore, the first at-large representatives will have to shoulder tremendous responsibility to keep things moving in the right direction. The costs of the status quo are already too evident. For example, the dispute resolution process that ICANN has established *COULD* have been designed to be fair and to promote impartiality, and should have included the following simple and obvious safeguards of fairness:

• Respondents should have the right to exercise a peremptory "strike" against the complainant's initial choice of forum. At present, the multiple Fora (WIPO, NAF) have every economic incentive to cater solely to the interests of trademark complainants, because they realize that complainants alone have the choice as to where the arbitration business will go. Respondents, at present, have no choice whatsoever in the process. Complainants naturally will select among fora based on their perception that, with respect to the issues in their particular case, one forum or another happens to be the most biased and unfair in complainants' favor. I have even had counsel for complainants admit this to me directly in particular cases that I have defended.
• Both complainants and respondents should have the right to exercise a limited number of peremptory "strikes" against individual arbitrators, whose track record demonstrates that they disregard the law and clearly fail to measure up to the standard of objectivity and impartiality. Yet, the people in control of ICANN omitted this important and obvious procedural safeguard.
• Complainants should be required, as a condition of invoking the ICANN dispute resolution process, to post a monetary bond, in case the complaint turns out to represent a bad-faith effort to engage in extortion, theft, and "reverse domain name piracy." Defending such a case is expensive, and the process was intended only to be invoked in "clear-cut" cases. In cases where the complainant has initiated arbitration in bad faith or for extortionate purposes, the arbitral panel should have broad discretion to compensate the respondent for the financial burden of defending a frivolous case.
• Each of the arbitration providers - like judges and courts in most forward-thinking jurisdictions - should be forbidden from commenting outside the arbitral process (i.e., to the press) on the merits of pending cases. They certainly should be prohibited from issuing press releases for the evident purpose of trying to drum up more business from new complainants by obliquely promising to "evict" respondents as often as can be managed. Specific press releases issued by more than one of the current arbitration service providers create a clear appearance of impropriety, and arguably constitute conclusive evidence of actual impropriety.
• The process should have a more robust mechanism for appeal from, and correction of, erroneous decisions. Also necessary is a mechanism for removing individual arbitrators who demonstrate a persistent inability to apply the rules fairly, and as those rules were written and intended to be applied. Even the most cursory examination of the output of the two most popular tribunals shows that their decisions are all over the map. Most decisions are mutually irreconcilable with one another. The ICANN process, as it is currently working, more resembles a random "domain name lottery" than a legitimate and balanced effort to administer fair rules in a consistent manner.

The problems with the status quo are also evident from both (1) the unnecessary and counterproductive delay in introducing new Top Level Domains, and (2) the proposed - arbitrary and unnecessary - barrier to entry of a $50,000 payment in order even to apply to establish a new Top Level Domain.

This is not to say that I believe that commerce is "bad," or that I am opposed to trademark law, or that I have any desire to banish commerce from the Internet. Quite the contrary, I strongly favor the application of TRADITIONAL principles of trademark law, within appropriate contexts. I firmly oppose the unnecessary EXPANSION of IP rights, however, and will fight to roll back the special rights that trademark owners have demanded. I also strongly favor commerce on the Internet -- both by small business as well as by big business. However, commerce is not entitled to a special place among the pantheon of Internet constituencies, and should assume its proper place among all constituencies of the Internet community as a whole.

In short, after reviewing the Civil Society Statement, I wholeheartedly agree with it and promise, if elected, to uphold every single principle listed in the document. I also pledge to work continuously to ensure that the process of democratization and open governance continues to move forward, rather than stagnating or moving in counterproductive directions.

A short biography is probably in order. I am an attorney who specializes in Internet law (including privacy, First Amendment, trademark, encryption, online commerce, and other issues). I represent clients from many different countries, with multiple perspectives on many of these issues (but never any clients in whose causes I do not believe). I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and practice in courtrooms all over the United States. I have experience working for the United States government, as well as for a state Supreme Court, for a large law firm that represents multinational corporations, and for a federal trial court judge. At present, however, I work in a small firm setting by choice principally because of the autonomy it gives me to choose to take positions because I believe in them, and not because a large client representation requires me to subordinate my principles to "the firm's" financial interests.

I have both the time and desire to contribute constructively to improving ICANN and Internet governance, and I thank all of you who choose to give me the opportunity to serve your interests as your ICANN at-large representative. John Alexander

At the outset, I should note that I strongly support the efforts of the CPSR, and the Internet Democracy Project, to keep our civil rights in the forefront at this formative stage of international internet governance. Bodies such as ICANN have a natural tendency to be driven by the most substantive financial interests in a controversy more strongly than by such notions as free speech and diversity.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Yokohama Statement's preamble. Indeed, ICANN must consider how its actions impact the global exercise of free speech and association, as well as the ability of those in the minority to take their places at the internet table.

In fact, this notion not only describes my own deeply-held beliefs, but also my very rationale for volunteering my most valuable asset - time and expertise - to the task of internet domain governance.

My online ICANN candidate statement and web page - http://www.netgaincc.com/icann - give more detail on my professional background and training. I have a great deal of experience as a journalist, attorney and, for the past four years, web designer. Throughout, I have donated my time to the assistance and representation of those whose civil rights have been threatened - in the arenas of federal and state court, and the internet. My company, Net Gain Communications Consultants, designed and hosted the website for a leading affirmative action organization founded by Martin Luther King III, as one example.

Most of the nine issues articulated in the Yokohama Statement describe values over which I suspect there may little debate, if just as little current compliance, by ICANN.

For example, ICANN President Mike Roberts likely would not argue with the second proposition, that ICANN must operate transparent to public scrutiny. Yet the group is woefully deficient in communicating the substance of ongoing issues and proposed resolutions to the impacted internet public with sufficient time to secure meaningful response from all factions.

That is why the first "plank" of my "platform" is Communication: I pledge a commitment of my own time and expertise to ensuring ICANN communicates in a more complete and timely fashion, using with some degree of sophistication the very technology it seeks to regulate. I feel well suited to do this, given my background in journalism, law and the web.

I cannot claim complete consonance with the Yokohama Statement, however. Some of the language is so vague as to be nothing more than the start of a conversation about the topic, while other particulars are simply off-course. For example, within principal number five, the proposition regarding separation of IP address and DNS root server management would simply complicate an otherwise complex process with more bureaucracy serving no reasonable purpose. The stated goal of "decentralizing authority" really does not articulate a valid reason for this move.

While I could take issue with several specifics of this sort, I think what is important is that I generally support the goals of the Yokohama Statement, and of the CPSR. If elected an at-large director, I will listen carefully to the CPSR's views on all issues before ICANN. Robin Bandy

While I certainly think that the CPSR Statement points in the correct direction, I also think that it ignores a few fundamental issues and, on the important issues it does address, it does not go far enough. The focus of most of the Statement can be grouped under the broad heading of "Democratic Representation", and as such they miss a few important considerations.

First and most important, is that ICANN (as a company incorporated under American, and Californian, law) cannot actually be representative of a global usership. ICANN's freedom to structure itself is proscribed by American and Californian laws governing the organization and operation of non-profit corporations and its actual existence is dependant upon the sufferance of these two governments, either of which could revoke its corporate existence at will. An organization so dependant on one country cannot, and should not be expected to, represent the users from or residing in other countries. By ICANN's control of the default DNS root it also illegitimately extends the jurisdiction of American and Californian law to governing interactions between Americans in other states and between citizens or residents of other countries.

While transparency and openness are obvious necessities of a democratic structure, CPSR also does not extend their call for a more democratic ICANN to including procedures for member initiative and referendum nor for member initiated recall of elected Board members, all features of any truly democratic system.

Additionally, a truly democratic ICANN should have no representation of government or corporate interests. Governments and corporations are already representative organizations, the first represent their citizens and the second represent their owners; these interests are already represented by the voting members who are also constituents of governments and corporations. To allow the U.S. government, for example, a representative in ICANN is to multiply the votes of the U.S. ICANN members by giving them two Board members (one shared with Canada and one of their own) while devaluing the votes of all non-American members. To allow NSI or CORE, to take another example, representation is to grant the owners of the corporation, as individuals, vastly greater influence than all other individual members. These are clearly not democratic scenarios, as they are basically the same as if R.J. Reynolds or any other special-interest lobbying group were given a direct seat in the U.S. Congress, but they are the essence of how ICANN now functions.

That CPSR calls for opening the current monolithic DNS root to a collaborative root shared between the ICANN and alternative namespaces is marvelous. In my capacity as a root server maintainer with the OpenNIC, I have been involved in discussing exactly that with several of the existing alternates and obviously am fully in support of that scenario. Though we have already begun discussions with several Linux and BSD distributions about the possibility of their installers supporting the alternative roots, we would obviously much prefer that the current root also support them.

That they also call for an end to the artificial domain name scarcity is also good, but I think they don't consider exactly how it needs to be managed. Simply adding new generic Top-Level Domains (TLDs) would not help solve another of their concerns, that of the over-focus on "Intellectual Property" (i.e. trademark) concerns. By implementing new TLDs with well defined charters, such as the .parody TLD served by OpenNIC, the trademark concerns can be properly confined to appropriately chartered TLDs, leaving space available for parody, criticism and personal sites which would be free from the current ever- present threat of trademark lawsuits. By chartering a geographic series of TLDs, trademark concerns could also be confined to their appropriate geographical regions rather than, as the current system does, allowing conflicts between properly registered trademarks in various countries and regions.

Since Slashdot asked us to keep these down to around 500 words, and I've already gone over that, here are a few additional informational links:

• My Candidacy page
• The OpenNIC, an alternative namespace which, I think, provides a good model

Sondlo Leonard Mhlaba

Response to Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections
by Sondlo Leonard Mhlaba, PhD

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the Civil Society Statement of July 13, 2000.

I have followed the work of CPSR for several years and, more recently, have benefited from the work of the Democracy Project. It should, therefore, come as no surprise to many that I support the nine Guiding Values of the Civil Society Statement. I do have some reservations about some details in Values 1, 7, and 8.

Value #1: Representativeness. The basis of my questions and my perspective on this item can best be appreciated through the mission of The New Franchise Institute at http://www.NewFranchise.Org which I am currently building . I see development of the internet as a momentous event in the history of the world. In 500 Years of Eurocentric Diplomacy: Prospects for the 21st Century (1999), I dared to suggest that the internet may become as integral to human life as the heavy coat is to the polar bear. Looked at in this light, the internet has the potential to separate "internet haves" from the "internet have-nots" so far apart as to constitute separate species. I am a naturalized American citizen and Zimbabwe native, having come to the US in the mid-60s. From where I sit, therefore, the work of ICANN and all the parties to internet development, is epoch-making.

In light of the above perspective, I believe that, at some point, ICANN needs to re-examine how the world is divided for purposes of representation. Should, for example, representatives be assigned in proportion to the at-large members, or in proportion to the population of the region (irrespective of the level of internet participation)? Readers may know that of the 58,000 at-large registrants for the purposes of this up-coming election, only 1,000 came from the Continent of Africa. How should language and the attendant worldview be factored in? A year ago, according to a study cited in my book, about 58% of internet communication was in English and 83% was in European languages. In the long term, I believe that a Eurocentric, and North-American dominated internet is not in our (North America's) political, civic, or economic interest. The North American representative must provide a more globalist, and future-oriented perspective, as he or she endevors to be responsive to his or her North American internet constituency.

Value #7. I believe that some domain name categories ought to be reserved for civic and governmental entities, while other categories are left to the market. Cyber-squatting and the after-market ought to be disallowed in the governmental and civic categories. However, I believe that cyber-squatting and related market techniques should be allowed in the market category. In order for this distinction to work in the interest of the general public, a great deal of care would, of course, need to go into defining the two categories.

Value #8: I support respect for privacy, but I also realize that there are differences among cultures as to what level of privacy is necessary or adequate. I believe that some of the OECD prescriptions, if they become a world standard, could dampen critical debate in the civic arena and complicate normal international market activity.

My major problem with Value # 8 is in the area of member voting. I strongly believe that ICANN board member voting must be open, and not through secret ballot. I think at-large members must be able to hold board members accountable for their votes, and a secret ballot process is inimical to the concept of transparency (Value # 2). Marty Freeman

As far as the Cival Society sataement, I agree completly. I think they sould have included some links or examples, however, to information sugsting that ICANN is not working in the manner it should. www.WIPO.org.uk (World Intelectual Piracy Orginization) has some more info. and examples.

Reading the statement did help me realize the depth of the problem though. The internet is so interseting and usefull because of the content provided by its users. If it becomes too dificult for someone to set up a server and give it an easy to find address, then the internet will loose the very thing everyone loves it for -- ridiculous ammounts of usefull, useless, interesting and funny information. It will become a homogonized channel for the distribution of U.S. corporate propaganda. That sucks. I don't want surfing the internet to be like watching TV. I am really glad to have a chance to change things and hope for at least a chance to be on the final ballot. I would like to note that the ICANN has put the 158,000 people who actually managed to sign up in a tight position. They have only two weeks to decide among the candidates for their area. Plus, the first few people to gain enough support in a area are the only ones to make it. That seams sort of unfair. On one hand you have to study info on 50 people and decide who is best for the job, on the other, you have to decide quickly which candidate to vote for, or all the slots may already be full. This is one of the first things I would change. It makes more sense for the top supported few to make it than the first few to get 2% of the total support. Anyway, thanks for giving me a chance to voice my oppenion. I hope you will all make an informed and responsible decision. Chris Stewart

The Civil Society's "Statement On ICANN Elections" addresses a number of issues that are quite popular amongst candidates seeking member-nomination. The paper focuses on a need for transparency, proportionate representation, fundamental rights, and the "bottom-up" process of administration. However, I am extremely disappointed that, once again consumer rights issues are not mentioned in the context of purchasing, owning, selling, or the security of a domain name.

As well, the paper does not address the need for ICANN to review its accreditation process, or the continued technical and administrative negligence of registrars. It is also disconcerting to conclude that the Civil Society opposes the current practice of selling, renting, or leasing a domain name in excess of its original registration cost incurred by the registrant. The following point taken from the paper's "Guiding Values" supports this conclusion,

Section 7. Artificial Scarcity and Centralization Should Be Avoided

"The use of domain names as a marketing device to index content creates excessive value in domain names and creates disincentives to innovation."

The Civil Society also argues that a "scarcity in domain names creates opportunities for control". However, the solution to this "artificial" scarcity should not be, as suggested by the paper, an unconstrained expansion of the Internet domain name space.

It can be agreed that a greater number of new gTLDs would benefit consumers by potentially reducing registration costs and allowing an increased selection of domains and registrars. However, it is irresponsible to ignore the incidents of technical and administrative negligence that currently hounds registrars and the domain registration/ownership process. These are the issues that need to be addressed prior to any consideration of an "unconstrained" expansion. I refer to two examples of registrar negligence and the lack of accountability on their behalf in the following two articles.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,32974,00.html

http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2615087,00.html

Consumers want a system that will allow them to purchase a domain, maintain its security via an accredited registrar, use the domain in any context they wish without restrictions that impede upon their civil liberties, and the right to profit from the use or sale of that domain. This paper does not address these fundamental concerns with any conviction.

The Civil Society does however appeal to the interests of the Internet community in many aspects of the statement. The need for proportionate representation rather than "democracy deficit", and the minimization or avoidance of ICANN policy-making on non-technical topics are extremely favourable arguments. The latter of the two directly refers to policies such as the UDRP, which has attempted to handcuff the abuse of trademark infringement in the domain registration environment.

However, the paper does not comment on the use of the arbitration system (such as the WIPO) in order to settle disputes. This system has been fraught with negative response from domain name owners and the media alike. The absence of support for or against this system of dispute resolution is unsettling. Decisions from this arbitration panel have been inconsistent, extremely unfair, and unjust in many of the cases, suggesting that the scope of the UDRP has been abused and sometimes ignored altogether. I offer the following site, which addresses some of the specific cases. http://www.domainshame.com/

To view the issues I feel need to be addressed in this election, please visit http://www.iknowicann.com

Sincerely, Christopher Stewart Lee Fulmer

I fully endorse and support the intent of the Civil Society's statement on the ICANN elections.

It seems that since its inception, the internet has been driven by government and corporate interests. I think that ICANN needs to be fully transparent in its operation and accountable to the entire internet community. One of the most important tasks ICANN faces is to deal with the current problems of "scarcity" of domain space by clamping down on speculators and creating new gTLDs. It is equally important the ICANN is representative of the internet community and should include equal representation from all regions as well as from all interest groups (business, government, academia and individuals).

As an individual who has lived and worked in North America, Europe and Australasia across all the interest groups, I feel I have a unique perspective I can contribute to the process. The domain space should be more distributed among the registrars to help keep costs (including ICANN's) down. I certainly don't expect to paid for my work and I would strive to ensure that a balance between public, private, and personal interests is taken.

Please read my candidacy statement on the ICANN site at http://members.icann.org/nom/cp/47.html and visit my site at http://www.fulmer.com/ before you case your vote! Patrick D'Acre

The issues raised by the Internet Democracy white paper have significant merit. As such, they would need to be included in a larger conversation, involving activated participants, with the intention of finding the middle ground. The 'revisionist' approach to providing a 'FREE Internet' for every person, hints at some policies of the past (e.g. Commerce Secretary Hoover in the 20's).

For the Internet to progress, and be made available to the largest population, business practices are mandatory. And attempt to revert to the origins of the Internet would be woefully out of place and inadvertantly restrict access to the most deserving.

I can appreaciate some of the points in the white paper, yet look for more 'centrist' approaches to implementing those same objectives.

For information on my interests see http://www.letsdobizradio.bizland.com/personal/resume.htm. Laurie Williams

1. ICANN must be representative--Agree. Further, consideration should be given to not only developing countries, but also to developing areas within developed countries. For example, interests of those in rural Oklahoma, North Dakota, or in the furthest reaches of Canada, may be more aligned with those of a remote island or developing country, than with the metropolitan areas of the USA or Canada.

2. ICANN must be transparent--Agree.

3. ICANN must use bottom-up process--Agree

4. Intellectual property rights should not be privileged over other rights--ICANN should foster collaboration and cooperation instead of creating antagonism and divisiveness. Domains are not synonymous with trademarks--otherwise the system would have been called the TNS (Trademark Name Service) and not the DNS (Domain Name Service).

5. ICANN should strive at all times to minimize or avoid policy-making on non-technical topics--Agree.

6. The domain space is a globally-shared public good with public and private functions--Agree.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided--Agree, with the caveat that the technical efficacy of the internet should be guaranteed before expansion and diffusion is promoted. Further, registrars should continue to enhance their processes to streamline the needs of clients. In addition, registrars, portals, and search engines should expand to include more effective searches for domain names.

8. ICANN must respect privacy--Agree.

9. Costs should be minimal and equitable--Agree. In addition, the Berkman Center does an excellent job in providing remote participation of ICANN meetings. Emphasis should be placed on enhanced technology to make ICANN webcasts even better in the future so that individuals without the resources of large companies, can participate more effectively.

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drbonzo writes: "On Aug. 1, the ICANN Nominating Committee announced a set of 18 nominees for the 5 At-Large Directors of the ICANN Board. For details, see the announcement and the list of nominees. Note that there will be a member-nomination process that will run through August. Let's get ready to vote, people! But first, let's discuss the announced nominees (who include among them Lawrence Lessig), and consider getting behind one or more member-nominated candidates."

drbonzo writes: "On Aug. 1, the ICANN Nominating Committee announced a set of 18 nominees for the 5 At-Large Directors of the ICANN Board. For details, see the announcement and the list of nominees. Note that there will be a member-nomination process that will run through August. Let's get ready to vote, people! But first, let's discuss the announced nominees (who include among them Lawrence Lessig), and consider getting behind one or more member-nominated candidates."

drbonzo writes: "On Aug. 1, the ICANN Nominating Committee announced a set of 18 nominees for the 5 At-Large Directors of the ICANN Board. For details, see the announcement and the list of nominees. Note that there will be a member-nomination process that will run through August. Let's get ready to vote, people! But first, let's discuss the announced nominees (who include among them Lawrence Lessig), and consider getting behind one or more member-nominated candidates."

The New York Times has a nice summary of the DeCSS case and the issues at stake with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Reporter Amy Harmon managed to put together the facts correctly, probably because she didn't spend too much time talking to the plaintiff's lawyers. There's a nice picture of Emmanuel Goldstein and Macki from 2600.com (mislabeled as Jon Johansen). See our last story for transcripts and other info from the trial. (Last day to sign up to vote in the ICANN elections!) Update: 07/31 15:32 by michael : The NYT has changed out the single picture of Macki and Goldstein to two separate pictures of Johansen and Goldstein. It's good to know they read slashdot. :)

General_Corto writes "The BBC has an article on the decision of the Channel Islands domain registrar to not give ICANN any money until there is a real contract in place giving assurances on such things as quality of service. The Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries is also backing them up, to some extent. When oh when will ICANN manage not to screw things up?" See our previous article about the row between ICANN and Centr.

dilip writes: "An Associated Press story mentions that new TLD's have been given the green light. It also mentions that there is no decision on how they will be doled out, what they will be or how trademarks will be handled. Please note however that ICANN's own website doesn't have any mention of this yet (The story is dated the 16th, which is a Sunday, no doubt that the ICANN site will be updated on the Monday)" [timothy butts in:] John Jorsett points to this ZDNet article which says the domains include .shop, .tel and .news.

ICANN is meeting once again, this time in Yokohama, Japan. And once again, No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session. Slashdot takes a look at ICANN and at the various attempts to beat some semblance of democracy and representation into the organization.

Before we even get into this, I'm going to recommend again that everyone sign up for ICANN's At-Large membership. The deadline is July 31 - if you haven't signed up by then, you've missed your chance to be one of a few thousand voters who will affect the course of the internet's development. U.S. registration is way below that of other internet-savvy nations on a percentage-of-internet-users basis, because the media in those countries has been running extensive registration campaigns. Slashdot will be covering the election process - register to vote! (Note: if you're planning to self-nominate yourself for one of the open board seats, even if it's not the North America seat, please email me - I'd like to talk to you.) We'll also take this opportunity to plug an unofficial site for the At-Large community created by a slashdot reader, www.applyatlarge.com. It's just getting started, but the At-Large community could use some non-ICANN methods of communication.

Jett writes "TomPaine.com has an interesting article discussing the upcoming ICANN elections. The article gives a lot of good info on how ICANN is set up as well as some analysis on some of the problems they are facing to ensure fair and democratic elections."

There's some information about the actual on-going meeting available in near-real-time, supposedly even a web-based chat though I haven't seen it in operation, sponsored by the Berkman Center. Keep in mind that Japan is ~14 hours ahead of the U.S., so the Saturday meetings will be occuring Friday night in the U.S.

Probably the most important news at this meeting is not the wrangling over new .TLDs, even though that is the only aspect of the ICANN meeting getting any press coverage. Though the vote hasn't happened yet, I'm willing to wager that the restrictive NSI proposals will win out - a few new .TLDs will be started, NSI will be running at least one of them (way to diversify!), with massive trademark protections so that most "good" domains will be unregistrable. That battle isn't going to be won any time soon. Note that every single problem associated with domain names - every single one, from squatting to scalping to companies hijacking domains from individuals - is caused by artificial scarcity of names. Eliminate the two sources of artificial scarcity (limited TLDs and trademark law) and all domain name problems vanish.

But the most important initiative at this meeting is the ambitiously-named Internet Democracy Project, started by the American Civil Liberties Union, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The site is already a great collection of links on ICANN, and promises more content in the future; it's a good place to start if you're new to this whole thing. They've articulated a civil society perspective on the ICANN elections process, ICANN itself, and the domain name system - excellent reading, excellent goals, I support them entirely. It remains to be seen what will come of this, but I hope that these organizations continue to do their utmost to push their views. Imagine a world where DNS was structured as they envision.

ICANN is meeting once again, this time in Yokohama, Japan. And once again, No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session. Slashdot takes a look at ICANN and at the various attempts to beat some semblance of democracy and representation into the organization.

Before we even get into this, I'm going to recommend again that everyone sign up for ICANN's At-Large membership. The deadline is July 31 - if you haven't signed up by then, you've missed your chance to be one of a few thousand voters who will affect the course of the internet's development. U.S. registration is way below that of other internet-savvy nations on a percentage-of-internet-users basis, because the media in those countries has been running extensive registration campaigns. Slashdot will be covering the election process - register to vote! (Note: if you're planning to self-nominate yourself for one of the open board seats, even if it's not the North America seat, please email me - I'd like to talk to you.) We'll also take this opportunity to plug an unofficial site for the At-Large community created by a slashdot reader, www.applyatlarge.com. It's just getting started, but the At-Large community could use some non-ICANN methods of communication.

Jett writes "TomPaine.com has an interesting article discussing the upcoming ICANN elections. The article gives a lot of good info on how ICANN is set up as well as some analysis on some of the problems they are facing to ensure fair and democratic elections."

There's some information about the actual on-going meeting available in near-real-time, supposedly even a web-based chat though I haven't seen it in operation, sponsored by the Berkman Center. Keep in mind that Japan is ~14 hours ahead of the U.S., so the Saturday meetings will be occuring Friday night in the U.S.

Probably the most important news at this meeting is not the wrangling over new .TLDs, even though that is the only aspect of the ICANN meeting getting any press coverage. Though the vote hasn't happened yet, I'm willing to wager that the restrictive NSI proposals will win out - a few new .TLDs will be started, NSI will be running at least one of them (way to diversify!), with massive trademark protections so that most "good" domains will be unregistrable. That battle isn't going to be won any time soon. Note that every single problem associated with domain names - every single one, from squatting to scalping to companies hijacking domains from individuals - is caused by artificial scarcity of names. Eliminate the two sources of artificial scarcity (limited TLDs and trademark law) and all domain name problems vanish.

But the most important initiative at this meeting is the ambitiously-named Internet Democracy Project, started by the American Civil Liberties Union, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The site is already a great collection of links on ICANN, and promises more content in the future; it's a good place to start if you're new to this whole thing. They've articulated a civil society perspective on the ICANN elections process, ICANN itself, and the domain name system - excellent reading, excellent goals, I support them entirely. It remains to be seen what will come of this, but I hope that these organizations continue to do their utmost to push their views. Imagine a world where DNS was structured as they envision.

Ötti asks: "I just noticed that InterNIC started to restrict access to its WHOIS database. That puts sites like Allwhois into an awkward situation, since they cannot provide lookups anymore. That might sound like a minor problem to those of you located in the U.S., but in other parts of the world it is very convenient to have a unified interface to all registrars in the world. And once again it raises the ultimate questions: Who owns the informations on domain name holders? Why is it not publicly accessible and how can organizations like ICANN help to improve matters?"

bigfluffybunny writes "The BBC are running a story here about how the European Domain Registrars refuse to pay a tax to ICANN claiming that an American organisation has no right to tax a European one. The interesting part of the article for me was that Centr are raising questions about the reliability of the webs root name servers." We've already run one article about this, but this makes a nice counterpoint from the other side of the pond...

ChrisBennett writes: "ICANN has just suggested a policy for introducing new Top Level Domains. This policy will be considered at the ICANN meeting on July 15-16, 2000 in Yokohama, Japan. I guess we'll be seeing the .rob and .dot TLDs that CmdrTaco wanted after all."

ChrisBennett writes: "ICANN has just suggested a policy for introducing new Top Level Domains. This policy will be considered at the ICANN meeting on July 15-16, 2000 in Yokohama, Japan. I guess we'll be seeing the .rob and .dot TLDs that CmdrTaco wanted after all."

Thirty European country-code Top Level Domain operators have gotten together and told ICANN they won't pay the full amount of dues that ICANN says they owe. (NYT article, free reg. req.) Not good news for ICANN -- when you owe someone $100, you have a problem, but when you owe someone $1,000,000, they have a problem. The domain-name operators see ICANN as a U.S., not international, organization, and worry that their "tenuous and largely undefined" relationship with ICANN allows the latter to reassign curatorship of their domain-name databases -- as has already once been attempted.

BlueCalx- writes "I was pleased this morning when I opened up my mailbox and I found my PIN number for ICANN's Members at Large program. This means that just about everyone who expressed interest at their first Slashdotting has either gotten their letter or will get it very soon." I received mine in the mail yesterday. For lots more information on ICANN, click below.

ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Essentially, they have power over the entire internet addressing system: domain names and IP addresses. People criticize the U.S. FCC for stifling low-power radio, or Congress for trying to ban indecent speech - well, ICANN has more power over communications than either of those entities, and far less accountability.

ICANN's board structure is a complex one. Probably it cannot be fully analyzed except by people devoted to the task full-time. It was designed to give corporations the dominant voice in administering the internet. A great amount of effort has been expended in stacking the deck, making sure that individuals and public interest groups do not gain any significant voice in the process. You've already seen the results of these actions. One such is the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which ICANN required all domain name registrars to adopt, and which makes sure that if any corporation covets your domain name, they can take it away without any problems.

But enough of that. ICANN is run by a 19-member Board of Directors. The original members were picked out of the blue (literally; no one knows how the original members were chosen, or , more precisely, whoever knows isn't telling). ICANN has been directed to move to an election process by the Commerce Department, and that's what is now underway.

Of course, the elections also have to be stacked. Business interests have already spoken. They get to pick 9 of the 19 members. Originally, nine more were supposed to be picked by the At-Large membership (that is, the general population of internet users). (The final seat would be the President of ICANN-the-Corporation.) So already, business interests would have had a 10-9 majority on the Board. I say, "would have had", because 10-9 seemed a little too close for comfort, and the At-Large elections have been cut down to just five members, to make sure they wouldn't get too much power compared to the corporate interests in ICANN. Each of ICANN's five geographic regions will elect one member.

(This is the way committees in the U.S. Congress works as well - the political party with a majority in either of the Houses gets a majority on all the committees as well, to ensure that if push comes to shove, their party wins. It is a poor omen for the future to note that corporate interests have a permanent majority in running the internet.)

The At-Large Nomination process is also skewed. The business interests in ICANN get to nominate candidates for the At-Large elections as well, and though it's theoretically possible to get nominated without going through the Nominating Committee (sort of akin to a write-in candidate), the bar is set so high that probably no one will succeed in such a candidacy. So it's likely that the choice of candidates for the At-Large election is going to look something like the choice between Gush and Bore for U.S. President - a choice between business representative X and business representative Y.

Nevertheless, you should get involved. It's your internet that ICANN is governing, and if you plan to spend any time on the net in the future, you'd better speak now. The electorate (the number of people who've registered to vote in ICANN's elections) is extremely small - less than 20,000 people all told. Because of the regional split, the members for Africa and Latin America could be elected with only a few hundred people participating! Your vote will count much more than it would in almost any other election process, and you're controlling the future of the worldwide communications network. It's worth the effort.

A few links:

• Declan McCullagh posted some info on the election process and statistics on the electorate
• ICANNWATCH's comments on the Board elections
• Join Now. The registration process could close at any time.

BlueCalx- writes "I was pleased this morning when I opened up my mailbox and I found my PIN number for ICANN's Members at Large program. This means that just about everyone who expressed interest at their first Slashdotting has either gotten their letter or will get it very soon." I received mine in the mail yesterday. For lots more information on ICANN, click below.

ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Essentially, they have power over the entire internet addressing system: domain names and IP addresses. People criticize the U.S. FCC for stifling low-power radio, or Congress for trying to ban indecent speech - well, ICANN has more power over communications than either of those entities, and far less accountability.

ICANN's board structure is a complex one. Probably it cannot be fully analyzed except by people devoted to the task full-time. It was designed to give corporations the dominant voice in administering the internet. A great amount of effort has been expended in stacking the deck, making sure that individuals and public interest groups do not gain any significant voice in the process. You've already seen the results of these actions. One such is the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which ICANN required all domain name registrars to adopt, and which makes sure that if any corporation covets your domain name, they can take it away without any problems.

But enough of that. ICANN is run by a 19-member Board of Directors. The original members were picked out of the blue (literally; no one knows how the original members were chosen, or , more precisely, whoever knows isn't telling). ICANN has been directed to move to an election process by the Commerce Department, and that's what is now underway.

Of course, the elections also have to be stacked. Business interests have already spoken. They get to pick 9 of the 19 members. Originally, nine more were supposed to be picked by the At-Large membership (that is, the general population of internet users). (The final seat would be the President of ICANN-the-Corporation.) So already, business interests would have had a 10-9 majority on the Board. I say, "would have had", because 10-9 seemed a little too close for comfort, and the At-Large elections have been cut down to just five members, to make sure they wouldn't get too much power compared to the corporate interests in ICANN. Each of ICANN's five geographic regions will elect one member.

(This is the way committees in the U.S. Congress works as well - the political party with a majority in either of the Houses gets a majority on all the committees as well, to ensure that if push comes to shove, their party wins. It is a poor omen for the future to note that corporate interests have a permanent majority in running the internet.)

The At-Large Nomination process is also skewed. The business interests in ICANN get to nominate candidates for the At-Large elections as well, and though it's theoretically possible to get nominated without going through the Nominating Committee (sort of akin to a write-in candidate), the bar is set so high that probably no one will succeed in such a candidacy. So it's likely that the choice of candidates for the At-Large election is going to look something like the choice between Gush and Bore for U.S. President - a choice between business representative X and business representative Y.

Nevertheless, you should get involved. It's your internet that ICANN is governing, and if you plan to spend any time on the net in the future, you'd better speak now. The electorate (the number of people who've registered to vote in ICANN's elections) is extremely small - less than 20,000 people all told. Because of the regional split, the members for Africa and Latin America could be elected with only a few hundred people participating! Your vote will count much more than it would in almost any other election process, and you're controlling the future of the worldwide communications network. It's worth the effort.

A few links:

• Declan McCullagh posted some info on the election process and statistics on the electorate
• ICANNWATCH's comments on the Board elections
• Join Now. The registration process could close at any time.

BlueCalx- writes "I was pleased this morning when I opened up my mailbox and I found my PIN number for ICANN's Members at Large program. This means that just about everyone who expressed interest at their first Slashdotting has either gotten their letter or will get it very soon." I received mine in the mail yesterday. For lots more information on ICANN, click below.

ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Essentially, they have power over the entire internet addressing system: domain names and IP addresses. People criticize the U.S. FCC for stifling low-power radio, or Congress for trying to ban indecent speech - well, ICANN has more power over communications than either of those entities, and far less accountability.

ICANN's board structure is a complex one. Probably it cannot be fully analyzed except by people devoted to the task full-time. It was designed to give corporations the dominant voice in administering the internet. A great amount of effort has been expended in stacking the deck, making sure that individuals and public interest groups do not gain any significant voice in the process. You've already seen the results of these actions. One such is the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which ICANN required all domain name registrars to adopt, and which makes sure that if any corporation covets your domain name, they can take it away without any problems.

But enough of that. ICANN is run by a 19-member Board of Directors. The original members were picked out of the blue (literally; no one knows how the original members were chosen, or , more precisely, whoever knows isn't telling). ICANN has been directed to move to an election process by the Commerce Department, and that's what is now underway.

Of course, the elections also have to be stacked. Business interests have already spoken. They get to pick 9 of the 19 members. Originally, nine more were supposed to be picked by the At-Large membership (that is, the general population of internet users). (The final seat would be the President of ICANN-the-Corporation.) So already, business interests would have had a 10-9 majority on the Board. I say, "would have had", because 10-9 seemed a little too close for comfort, and the At-Large elections have been cut down to just five members, to make sure they wouldn't get too much power compared to the corporate interests in ICANN. Each of ICANN's five geographic regions will elect one member.

(This is the way committees in the U.S. Congress works as well - the political party with a majority in either of the Houses gets a majority on all the committees as well, to ensure that if push comes to shove, their party wins. It is a poor omen for the future to note that corporate interests have a permanent majority in running the internet.)

The At-Large Nomination process is also skewed. The business interests in ICANN get to nominate candidates for the At-Large elections as well, and though it's theoretically possible to get nominated without going through the Nominating Committee (sort of akin to a write-in candidate), the bar is set so high that probably no one will succeed in such a candidacy. So it's likely that the choice of candidates for the At-Large election is going to look something like the choice between Gush and Bore for U.S. President - a choice between business representative X and business representative Y.

Nevertheless, you should get involved. It's your internet that ICANN is governing, and if you plan to spend any time on the net in the future, you'd better speak now. The electorate (the number of people who've registered to vote in ICANN's elections) is extremely small - less than 20,000 people all told. Because of the regional split, the members for Africa and Latin America could be elected with only a few hundred people participating! Your vote will count much more than it would in almost any other election process, and you're controlling the future of the worldwide communications network. It's worth the effort.

A few links:

• Declan McCullagh posted some info on the election process and statistics on the electorate
• ICANNWATCH's comments on the Board elections
• Join Now. The registration process could close at any time.

BlueCalx- writes "I was pleased this morning when I opened up my mailbox and I found my PIN number for ICANN's Members at Large program. This means that just about everyone who expressed interest at their first Slashdotting has either gotten their letter or will get it very soon." I received mine in the mail yesterday. For lots more information on ICANN, click below.

ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Essentially, they have power over the entire internet addressing system: domain names and IP addresses. People criticize the U.S. FCC for stifling low-power radio, or Congress for trying to ban indecent speech - well, ICANN has more power over communications than either of those entities, and far less accountability.

ICANN's board structure is a complex one. Probably it cannot be fully analyzed except by people devoted to the task full-time. It was designed to give corporations the dominant voice in administering the internet. A great amount of effort has been expended in stacking the deck, making sure that individuals and public interest groups do not gain any significant voice in the process. You've already seen the results of these actions. One such is the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which ICANN required all domain name registrars to adopt, and which makes sure that if any corporation covets your domain name, they can take it away without any problems.

But enough of that. ICANN is run by a 19-member Board of Directors. The original members were picked out of the blue (literally; no one knows how the original members were chosen, or , more precisely, whoever knows isn't telling). ICANN has been directed to move to an election process by the Commerce Department, and that's what is now underway.

Of course, the elections also have to be stacked. Business interests have already spoken. They get to pick 9 of the 19 members. Originally, nine more were supposed to be picked by the At-Large membership (that is, the general population of internet users). (The final seat would be the President of ICANN-the-Corporation.) So already, business interests would have had a 10-9 majority on the Board. I say, "would have had", because 10-9 seemed a little too close for comfort, and the At-Large elections have been cut down to just five members, to make sure they wouldn't get too much power compared to the corporate interests in ICANN. Each of ICANN's five geographic regions will elect one member.

(This is the way committees in the U.S. Congress works as well - the political party with a majority in either of the Houses gets a majority on all the committees as well, to ensure that if push comes to shove, their party wins. It is a poor omen for the future to note that corporate interests have a permanent majority in running the internet.)

The At-Large Nomination process is also skewed. The business interests in ICANN get to nominate candidates for the At-Large elections as well, and though it's theoretically possible to get nominated without going through the Nominating Committee (sort of akin to a write-in candidate), the bar is set so high that probably no one will succeed in such a candidacy. So it's likely that the choice of candidates for the At-Large election is going to look something like the choice between Gush and Bore for U.S. President - a choice between business representative X and business representative Y.

Nevertheless, you should get involved. It's your internet that ICANN is governing, and if you plan to spend any time on the net in the future, you'd better speak now. The electorate (the number of people who've registered to vote in ICANN's elections) is extremely small - less than 20,000 people all told. Because of the regional split, the members for Africa and Latin America could be elected with only a few hundred people participating! Your vote will count much more than it would in almost any other election process, and you're controlling the future of the worldwide communications network. It's worth the effort.

A few links:

• Declan McCullagh posted some info on the election process and statistics on the electorate
• ICANNWATCH's comments on the Board elections
• Join Now. The registration process could close at any time.

BlueCalx- writes "I was pleased this morning when I opened up my mailbox and I found my PIN number for ICANN's Members at Large program. This means that just about everyone who expressed interest at their first Slashdotting has either gotten their letter or will get it very soon." I received mine in the mail yesterday. For lots more information on ICANN, click below.

ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Essentially, they have power over the entire internet addressing system: domain names and IP addresses. People criticize the U.S. FCC for stifling low-power radio, or Congress for trying to ban indecent speech - well, ICANN has more power over communications than either of those entities, and far less accountability.

ICANN's board structure is a complex one. Probably it cannot be fully analyzed except by people devoted to the task full-time. It was designed to give corporations the dominant voice in administering the internet. A great amount of effort has been expended in stacking the deck, making sure that individuals and public interest groups do not gain any significant voice in the process. You've already seen the results of these actions. One such is the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which ICANN required all domain name registrars to adopt, and which makes sure that if any corporation covets your domain name, they can take it away without any problems.

But enough of that. ICANN is run by a 19-member Board of Directors. The original members were picked out of the blue (literally; no one knows how the original members were chosen, or , more precisely, whoever knows isn't telling). ICANN has been directed to move to an election process by the Commerce Department, and that's what is now underway.

Of course, the elections also have to be stacked. Business interests have already spoken. They get to pick 9 of the 19 members. Originally, nine more were supposed to be picked by the At-Large membership (that is, the general population of internet users). (The final seat would be the President of ICANN-the-Corporation.) So already, business interests would have had a 10-9 majority on the Board. I say, "would have had", because 10-9 seemed a little too close for comfort, and the At-Large elections have been cut down to just five members, to make sure they wouldn't get too much power compared to the corporate interests in ICANN. Each of ICANN's five geographic regions will elect one member.

(This is the way committees in the U.S. Congress works as well - the political party with a majority in either of the Houses gets a majority on all the committees as well, to ensure that if push comes to shove, their party wins. It is a poor omen for the future to note that corporate interests have a permanent majority in running the internet.)

The At-Large Nomination process is also skewed. The business interests in ICANN get to nominate candidates for the At-Large elections as well, and though it's theoretically possible to get nominated without going through the Nominating Committee (sort of akin to a write-in candidate), the bar is set so high that probably no one will succeed in such a candidacy. So it's likely that the choice of candidates for the At-Large election is going to look something like the choice between Gush and Bore for U.S. President - a choice between business representative X and business representative Y.

Nevertheless, you should get involved. It's your internet that ICANN is governing, and if you plan to spend any time on the net in the future, you'd better speak now. The electorate (the number of people who've registered to vote in ICANN's elections) is extremely small - less than 20,000 people all told. Because of the regional split, the members for Africa and Latin America could be elected with only a few hundred people participating! Your vote will count much more than it would in almost any other election process, and you're controlling the future of the worldwide communications network. It's worth the effort.

A few links:

• Declan McCullagh posted some info on the election process and statistics on the electorate
• ICANNWATCH's comments on the Board elections
• Join Now. The registration process could close at any time.

commodoresloat writes: "According to this article, the top-level domain (TLD) .god will soon be available. Most interesting is that Joe Baptista, who will be selling domain names under the TLD, says outright that he will not respect trademarks or even court decisions ordering him to respect trademarks. Does this mean anyone can register microsoft.god?" Available, maybe, but not very useful if ICANN doesn't care to ever recognize them. Note, though, the site is only semi-functional. "The registry will allow you to look up dot.god names for availability but it will not allow you to register at this time." Pity. I hope CmdrTaco gets credit.

BlueCalx- writes: "ICANN seems to be at it again. Last night, they sent a message to all their potential members at large, and they accidentally left the list open for all its members to post. Between midnight and 10 AM EST, ICANN's members-to-be received a wealth of unsolicited email from fellow members. You can view the text of the emails here." A special tip of the maildump to the Kevin McMaster, the first twonk to actually spam the list with an ad for his site, Alberta Register.

BlueCalx- writes: "ICANN seems to be at it again. Last night, they sent a message to all their potential members at large, and they accidentally left the list open for all its members to post. Between midnight and 10 AM EST, ICANN's members-to-be received a wealth of unsolicited email from fellow members. You can view the text of the emails here." A special tip of the maildump to the Kevin McMaster, the first twonk to actually spam the list with an ad for his site, Alberta Register.

Cy Guy writes "Quantum physicist Freeman Dyson, (father of the Dyson Sphere and Esther Dyson) who has written about religion's role in modern culture, won the $940,000 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. 'Religion has a much more important role in human destiny than science.' Here's a link to the wire story."

ICANN has been in the news quite a bit recently. Although new TLD's have been in the works for more than five years now, ICANN has given in to the lobbying of its patron mega-corps and stated that no new TLD's would be created unless trademark holders got first dibs on them. So much for a personal TLD exempt from trademark considerations... ICANN is currently pushing its At-Large Membership, which everyone should join, even though the system has been carefully rigged so that the public cannot make meaningful changes in the composition of ICANN's Board. All these and more will be discussed in their Cairo meeting, which will be Webcast starting 2 a.m. EST on March 8.

ICANN has been in the news quite a bit recently. Although new TLD's have been in the works for more than five years now, ICANN has given in to the lobbying of its patron mega-corps and stated that no new TLD's would be created unless trademark holders got first dibs on them. So much for a personal TLD exempt from trademark considerations... ICANN is currently pushing its At-Large Membership, which everyone should join, even though the system has been carefully rigged so that the public cannot make meaningful changes in the composition of ICANN's Board. All these and more will be discussed in their Cairo meeting, which will be Webcast starting 2 a.m. EST on March 8.

ICANN has been in the news quite a bit recently. Although new TLD's have been in the works for more than five years now, ICANN has given in to the lobbying of its patron mega-corps and stated that no new TLD's would be created unless trademark holders got first dibs on them. So much for a personal TLD exempt from trademark considerations... ICANN is currently pushing its At-Large Membership, which everyone should join, even though the system has been carefully rigged so that the public cannot make meaningful changes in the composition of ICANN's Board. All these and more will be discussed in their Cairo meeting, which will be Webcast starting 2 a.m. EST on March 8.

GuNgA-DiN writes, "ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced at large memberships available to the public." Yes, it's true - and it's free. Instead of leaving Internet policy decisions to AOL and other biggies, you can now help select "at large" ICANN board members and generally help make Internet policy. Will individual ICANN members like you and me get heard as loudly as the corporates? Hard to say, but worth a try. It's more voice than we've had in the past, anyway.

GuNgA-DiN writes, "ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced at large memberships available to the public." Yes, it's true - and it's free. Instead of leaving Internet policy decisions to AOL and other biggies, you can now help select "at large" ICANN board members and generally help make Internet policy. Will individual ICANN members like you and me get heard as loudly as the corporates? Hard to say, but worth a try. It's more voice than we've had in the past, anyway.

It's been a long week for etoy.com. On Monday, a judge issued a preliminary injuction fining them $10,000 each day that their website was hosted at their domain. They shut it down right away, of course. They're just internet artists. They don't have six billion dollars like the company that filed the suit: eToys.com. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Click More. Update: For more information about etoy, see the freshly-updated dmoz category.

etoy was founded in 1994 by a group of European artists who worked on the cutting edge, doing performance art at techno events and raves. Their focus has always been on the internet as new medium; this interview gives a feel for their perspective.

They picked the name "etoy" literally by consensus and running code. Being from Italy, England, and Switzerland, physical collaboration was difficult, so they got together on an IRC channel and went through a list of random names generated by a perl script. When "etoy" came up, they all knew that was the name they wanted; they first used it in October of 1994. In October 1995 they put up their website at etoy.com.

Christmas 1995 came and went.

In 1996, etoy won their first artistic award. Their work typically blurs the line between real world and art; in this case, they had undertaken to demonstrate how important and yet how fragile the system of search engines was. By subverting the meta tags of prominent websites like Playboy, they pulled inexperienced surfers to their site, where they put in a plug for Kevin Mitnick, and had a few laughs at the newbies' expense. They called it the "Digital Hijack."

A curious kind of art. In 1996 it was original enough to win an award from Ars Electronica. Nowadays everyone knows the trick, the search engines find it and disregard it, and some underhanded websites try to make a fast buck by stealing trademarks - but etoy did it first, for fun.

Christmas 1996 came and went.

In June 1997 etoys.com, with an S, began operations. It wasn't until October that their website went online. They filed for a U.S. trademark on their domain, at which point etoy got a little alarmed and filed for their own trademark on their own domain. Maybe because they're based in Europe, or maybe for some other reason, etoy says their application is still pending on some technicalities.

But it doesn't matter when their trademark is granted. Their website went online in October 1995, two full years before etoys', and it's date of first use that's important - not the date of filing.

Christmas 1997 came and went.

Christmas 1998 came and went.

But now it's 1999, the year of the e-tailer. Suddenly etoys.com, with an S, has gone public and is worth six billion dollars. Meanwhile etoy.com, without an S, again putting the spotlight on corporations and society, has raised money by "selling shares" of itself. I'm not quite sure how they did it, but at an artists' gathering, a half-serious, half-mocking exhibition-slash-fundraising they pulled in something over ten thousand dollars. (Which they then donated to their friends in the U.S., also working at the boundary of society and corporations, RTMark, best-known for their George W. Bush parody site.)

In the year of the e-tailer, what kind of speech scares corporations more than anything? Disrespect. Artists who don't play by the rules. People who don't understand that business is serious business.

Etoys.com, with an S, wants etoy.com, with no S. They offered money. At one point they were offering cash and (mostly) stock that would have been worth almost half a million dollars. No sale.

But that should give us an idea of how much they're willing to spend on lawyers.

Finally, in September, eToys filed a lawsuit against etoy, on the grounds that a potential customer had mistakenly gone to the wrong site and had seen the message that - if they wanted to enjoy etoy.com to its fullest extent - they should download "the fucking flash plugin." They also didn't like the pierced breasts or etoy's sense of humor.

To be precise, they claim that "the antisocial, obscene, and offensive images associated with defendants' use of the mark 'etoy,' both on the Internet and elsewhere, have tarnished the ETOYS® mark and the eToys brand name..."

Let this be a lesson to anyone whose domain is coveted by a multi-billion-dollar company: careful with the F-word.

In October and November the case was bounced from an L.A. court to U.S. District Court, and finally to a California State Court. In late November the judge refused a request to let the European artists attend the proceedings by teleconference. In those proceedings, the judge was told that the artists had engaged in "digital hijacking" (the 1996 project), and had sold shares of stock without being properly regulated on an official stock exchange (the 1999 fundraising exhibition). Worst of all, they were hosting illegal hardcore pornography (which was actually just a link to another site).

They claim:

"Defendants use the mark ETOY indiscriminately and in random association with unrelated concepts. For example, on the etoy web site alone, defendants use the mark ETOY in conjunction with other, randomly selected words to create phrases such as: 'etoy.research,' 'etoy.eternity,' 'etoy.timezone,' 'etoy.history,' 'etoy.servers,' 'etoy.strategy,' 'etoy.journeys,' 'etoy.universe,' and 'etoy.crew.'

"By using the mark ETOY in this random, indiscriminate manner, defendants cause both ETOY and the ETOYS® mark to lose any distinctive, signifying meaning."

Serious business.

The lawyers also kindly suggested that, since at least one etoy member is from Switzerland, they really would be more suited to a website in the .ch domain: etoy.ch. Never mind the years of work and the reputation that the artists have built around etoy.com - we all know that "dot-com" belongs to America!

Faced with a torrent of buzzwords, the judge issued a preliminary injunction barring etoy from: operating a website in the etoy.com domain; associating their domain name with the "digital hijack"; or selling their "shares" in the U.S.

Penalty for disobeying the injuction: $10,000 per day in fines.

On November 30, etoy.com shut down its Apache webserver. Its last access came from the eToys law firm (which has been monitoring it closely). They had no choice, really. In fact, when I talked with a member of etoy, he was very nervous about saying things which might get him in more legal trouble. Suddenly, the artists are afraid to speak.

How can this be, when, as the Village Voice wrote in an excellent article, this lawsuit doesn't even pass the "giggle test"? It's absurd to think that one website can shut down another for having a similar domain name - when the second site is not a domain poacher and has been operating two years longer than the first.

The date of the next court hearing, at which this preliminary injunction will surely be overturned: December 27th. How convenient! Just after the Christmas shopping season.

If you'd like to see more about etoy, their domain is down of course, and I don't know of any mirrors, but their fans have constructed a site at toywar.com that has some information. And etoy may put some or all of its site back online at its IP number (not name!): 146.228.204.72:8080.

Good rules have been written to prevent things like this from happening. Unfortunately, the rules have not taken effect yet for most domains. Even after they do take effect, their legal status will be uncertain until they are tested in court.

Those rules are ICANN's Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. This policy ensures that the conditions under which a domain name can be disputed are strictly limited. For such a dispute even to proceed, a complainant must assert that each of three things is true:

your domain name infringes on a trademark;

you have "no rights or legitimate interests" to your domain;

and your domain name is being used "in bad faith."

As long as you're operating in good faith, or you have any legitimate interest in your domain, there is not even cause to bring up a dispute over a domain. Clearly this puts etoy.com on firm ground, because regardless of the trademark issue (which should be resolved once their mark registration is granted) they win on the other two points. This doesn't stop clueless judges from issuing injuctions, of course. But having these rules codified as official policy will give the legal system better guidelines to operate by.

These rules went into effect for some domain name registries on Wednesday, but will not apply to the most popular registry, Network Solutions, until January.

I can't even complain to eToys.com. I clicked all over their website looking for an email contact address and couldn't find one. When I filled in the web form to ask that someone get in touch with me for this story, all I got was a email form letter:

It is our goal to respond to all order-related e-mail within 24 hours. If your e-mail is not order-related, we will do our best to take care of your questions, concerns and suggestions as soon as possible.

It's 72 hours later, so my email must not have been sufficiently order-related.

In the meantime, I can at least have the satisfaction of taking my order-related business elsewhere this holiday season. I'm sure eToys couldn't care less, but it will serve me as a small comfort during the remaining 22 holy shopping days. In a world run by retailers, e-tailers, and lawyers, I need everything I can get to help me make sense of the bizarre orgy of spirituality-soaked commerce that serves as the endcap of each year. Hohoho.

The philanthropic Markle Foundation has announced it will help fund the cash-strapped ICANN. But it's not stopping there. The election campaign for the second half of ICANN's Board of Directors is just beginning, and Markle intends to find "a legitimate way for individuals" - as opposed to corporate interests - "to vote and create an authority they can trust." Five respected organizations are joining the effort, including the CDT, the ALA, and Common Cause. (If you're new to the subject, check out Common Cause's Why You Should Care About ICANN.)

An Anonymous Coward points out that NSI has removed the date registered, date modified and date the database was last updated from whois queries. This is in specific violation of the recently agreed-to amendments to the Cooperative Agreement between NSI and the Dept. of Commerce, which provide that "NSI shall provide an interactive Registry WHOIS service providing free public query-based access to up-to-date registry database data which, in response to input of an SLD name, shall report at least the following data elements in response to queries: ... (e) the date of the most recent modification to the domain name record in the registry database...".

The House will probably vote next week on HR3028, the Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act. The intention is to prevent "bad faith" squatting on trademarked domain names; penalties go up to $100,000. This would definitely put an end to domain-name speculation. Isn't ICANN supposed to be deciding these issues?

What the world needs a really good webpage explaining the importance of ICANN in plain English. Until someone writes it, we'll just keep bringing you the news. This week, the controversial organization begins replacing its 9-member interim board with an 18-member real board. There are interesting tidbits in both the New York Times story (free reg. required) and the CNET story.

Zigg asks: "With the story on NSI's webmail "service" and the rant I posted therein, I got a little more information with regards to alternative registrars that have apparently been around a few months now, thanks to ICANN. I was hoping that Slashdot readers could contribute stories of their experiences with some of these guys, to see if any of them really are better than NSI or are just worth checking out because they're not NSI?"

Zigg asks: "With the story on NSI's webmail "service" and the rant I posted therein, I got a little more information with regards to alternative registrars that have apparently been around a few months now, thanks to ICANN. I was hoping that Slashdot readers could contribute stories of their experiences with some of these guys, to see if any of them really are better than NSI or are just worth checking out because they're not NSI?"

The Dev writes "The Cook Report has published a very long and detailed article about ICANN. It gives a chilling view of what interests are controlling ICANN (legacy telco's, trademark, big business and gov't) and how they have ben menuvering to make themselves unaccountable to anyone. It goes on to describe some of the (dire) consequences of this new power structure."

Quite an interesting article and worth reading for anyone who has or plans to have a domain name. Yes, it's long. But it's important. While you're at it, you can check out archives of the Santiago meeting. The hearings on the domain name dispute resolution process are an especially good example of the total lack of accountability, as they rush through a pre-determined script, ignoring audience comments entirely. This is your Internet government. -- michael

In related news, ICANN announced yesterday that 12 more registrars have been approved. Their registry testbed period ends Sep.30. --jamie

As many of you know, today is the day that ICANN is supposed to announce the 5 companies that will be competing with NSI for registering domain names. You can see the announcements here... except that the server is bogged. Update: 04/21 04:16 by CT : Here is the List:America Online , CORE (Internet Council of Registrars), France Telecom/Oléane, Melbourne IT, and register.com. You can see more on ICANN if it wasn't so slow.