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Join ICANN and Make Your Voice Heard
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.
There seams to be 9 at large members on the board who would be elected byt the atlarge membership.
Am I the only one who thinks DNS is past its time? I mean, there's got to be a better way. I think it's time for a new naming service to be developed. I'm thinking context- and location-sensitive, text-based (as opposed to the fixed format of URLs), distributed naming services. CORBA already has some of the features I have in mind, but they're localised to CORBA apps and built in at compile time; I say the next-generation network software will be based on a more general distributed object model, indexed and localised through the use of these naming services.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
I find this story really interesting.
I don't know how the members of the Internet Boards are elected at present and how much influence they have in the development of the net but of course there is (or has been in the past) concern in some countries on the predominance of the USA in most of the internet decission bodies. To give voice to the final users is a bettery way to go.
I think the aim here is to build a more democratic Internet and if this initiative works, soon we will see other boards making the same move.
We will see how all this is finally implemented given the possible problems in any Internet voting system: I have about 20 email addresses and could create thousands more in any of the free email services; it seems easy to vote hundreds of times beeing unnoticed, isn't it?
Anyway, I'm going to register myself immediately.
In reality members will not get to elect board members, or have any other rights commonly associated with membership. Those rights belong only to the special interest constituencies in the DNSO (Domain Name Supporting Organization, donminated by Trademark and Corporate Interests) ASO (Address Supporting Organization - ARIN, RIPE, APNIC) and PSO (Protocol Supporting Organization - IETF). The membership only gets to vote forward a small group of people who then get to elect a board members.
I just registered ICANNT.net and am thinking of posting information like this there. Should I take the time?
Because it's always been that way - unless you read /. or the likes, you probably don't know there are alternatives at all.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Well, as the subject says. /. itself could provide the ground for discussing more or less uniform voting.
How about forming a kind of team slashdot there.
I guess if they really do voting, we could really make our voice heard.
For instance we could try to get someone the linux/slashdot/open source/geek (whatever) to the directors board.
I know not all people have the same opinion on everything, but I do expect even the lowest common denominator here on slashdot to differ often from the AOL/MS/ POV.
$1,000 US ICANN application fee
$5,000 US ICANN annual fee
$70,000 US in working capital
not to mention...
$10,000 US NSI registration fee
$100,000 US performance assurance bond
and even after all that trouble, NSI will take $9 US from every registration I were to put through! It's nice to have a say in who gets to go through, and to perhaps bring NSI back down to earth.
This has brought my conclusion to going through the Tucows OpenSRS system, which is a free registration and free perl based CGI's, through which I can register domains for a simple $10 US per year ($9 of which goes to NSI, $1 going to Tucows for providing us with this great service).
Some more links for those of you ready to become your own registrar:
http://www.iana.org/
http://www.icann.org/
http://www.ietf.org/
http://www.nsiregistry.com/
http://www.internic.net/
Good luck! I hope everyone helps contribute to the OpenSRS project, as it will certainly be the way of the future for small ISP's like myself who can't afford NSI's outrageous costs and bonds.
- EraseMe
Here's a website that is a "reference point for ICANN news and developments, in order to promote informed discussion and debate in shaping this institution"; ICANNWatch.
Hmm, I-CAN sounds like some kind of self-esteem things, but I-CAN-Watch.... that sounds a little strange... =)
Before you jump to sign up for membership, read this article in Web Review by Andy Oram. Entitled "Would I join this Club if it would have me as a Member?", the article outlines some of the good reasons NOT to join ICANN as a member-at-large, as tempting as it may seem.
-cf
I support the fee structure - not only does it suport the organization, but it keeps only serious parties involved.
By the way, if you are halfway serious at all about running a registrar, getting that sort of capital should be a trivial matter. In fact, you should already have it. Visit your local Angel Investor, VC, or bank for more info.
1) You've ALWAYS been able to participate in ICANN. Every time someone's posted anything related to domain policy, I've practically begged people to get involved, join working groups, and work to ensure things like the ICANN UDRP were fair to individuals. All you've ever had to do to get involved was to subscribe to a DNSO mailing list. (You can't join the ASO, but don't feel bad -- they're not letting ISPs join either.)
2) You will not legally be a "member" of anything. ICANN has gone to great lengths to ensure there is no such thing as a legal membership. In fact, they've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal counsel to ensure that there's little if any accountability within ICANN at all.
3) You will not get to elect board members. You will get to elect a handful of people, who will then CHOOSE the 9 new board members, and only then with the consent of the existing board.
4) Did I mention that you've ALWAYS had the ability to participate in ICANN and have your voice heard?
5) If you join the At Large Membership without informing yourself first, you'll only be harming EVERYONE. Take some time and learn what's been going on before you jump in and implicitly support what ICANN's been up to:
Go read how WIPO is using the ICANN UDRP to enfore implicit beliefs that the Net is nothing but the web, only businesses should own domain names, and only trademark owners should have rights to those names: WIPO dispute decisions
Go read how the UDRP was created in the DNSO WG-A. Go read how corporations want to prohibit you from registering any domain name that contains a trademarked substring (e.g., whereitsatt.com contains ATT) in WG-B. Go read how members of WG-B are trying everything they can to stop the rollout of new top-level domains in WG-C. Go see how the DNSO general assembly deteriorated, destroyed itself and was censored...the GA is the precursor of the ICANN At-Large membership, and should serve as a warning to any considering joining: DNSO Archives
In short, go read up on the history of ICANN and domain name policy before you lend your name to it. Rest assured, Mike Roberts is going to take every opportunity to hold up your membership as implicit support for what ICANN's doing. And you should think long and hard about whether you do support what ICANN's been up to. It may be trendy and cool to bash NSI, but to support ICANN just because they're not NSI may be the poorest decision you've ever made.
Go see for yourself what ICANN is before you lend your name to it.
.@.
The IDNO is in the process of becoming officially recognized, and needs your help. It's a very good organization, run as a true digital democracy.
--
It's interesting that you point that out.
The internet is not a publicly held entity anymore as it was before 1995 when the National Science Foundation lost control of it and it was given to corporate entities. Has anybody noticed how before 1995 the media referred to the internet as the "Information Superhighway" but now all we ever hear is "E-Commerce". This is not an accident. I suspect that ICANN is doing this free membership thing to create the illusion of public inclusion in the process. What you pointed out of course makes this clear.
- Minister of Propaganda,
- Minister of Propaganda,
Activist News Network
Well, even if the members won't have much power, think about it. icann gave in. they let us get a little farther, but not what we want. If something is pushed into giving you a little of what you want, but not all, what do you do? Just sit there and do nothing? No, you keep pushing, that's what. So we join the membership and make a fuss until they actually give us some say.
On a side note, yes, post it up on icannt. people need to know this stuff.
---- Sig? What sig? Who needs one, anyway?
The following opinions are mine, and reflect absolutely noone else's except coincidentally. Especially those corporate entities that would like to sue me. ;)
Anyways, yeah. I put in for my AtLarge membership. Why? I'm a longtime member of the internet community. I hold several domain names. I'm currently the DNS admin for waaaaaaaaaaaay too many domains. It's my responsibility more than my desire, to join as an at large member of ICANN.
However, this also opens the door for people who do NOT hold domains, who are only on the internet because they want to 'MAKE MOUNEY FAST' and things like that. ICANN is sending all PINs for at large membership accounts via USPS "snail mail". That's not much protection. I can honestly forsee problems.
What scares me most is that there will become splinter groups in the at large membership community - groups that want spam, groups that want a total abolishment of copyrights, groups that want businesses given preference in all domain related matters.
It may or may not be an actual overall sampling of the internet community in this at large community. Instead, we may end up with so many splinter and special interest groups that nothing changes.
ICANN seems to be trying to change their administration structure somewhat - to involve more of the people that their desicions affect. And I commend that. Wholeheartedly. That's been my biggest gripe about domain name systems and IP allocations for the past 6 years - there's no involvement with the people who have to put up with the desicions except when it's time to pay those bills.
The problem is that they are not looking at the possibilities and ramifications of an open at large membership system, though. There are not enough requirements. And some of the requirements are somewhat silly. You must be at least 16 years of age - why? Legally binding age for contracts is 18, and I saw no contracts when I signed up for my membership. And I have talked to 15 year olds who are doing consulting that have some fairly intelligent input on a variety of things relating to the internet. They do not require that you hold a domain name, as far as I can tell, to sign up for membership. That shouldn't be the only question - ICANN is also working with ARIN/APNIC/etc to oversee allocation of IP addresses. I'm overseeing DNS for over 200,000 IP addresses right now. (Yes, that number is correct and genuine.) And that's just the public ARIN allocated addresses.
However, only time will tell, I suppose. However, I suspect that every big business in the world is signing up for atlarge membership right now, so they can get their voices heard. And they'll try throwing around money too. I only hope that's not what happens, and we do get a genuine sampling of the people that really make the internet work.
=RISCy Business
your company here.
shelby != ford
Just a few days ago we had an interesting article about DeCSS, DVD, corporate interests and personal involvement. The rant went along the lines: "It's very difficult to have any say about corporate policies. Let's create a fund and buy shares to be at least heard on shareholder meetings." Many people agreed that it would be a great idea. (Now, I don't know how many actually did something, but that's another story).
And here we are today... Someone else paid their money just to make sure that your voice can be heard. What a nice way to say thank you. So what if you can't directly change policies? It's not like you have direct influence on what laws are passed in Congress. Life sucks, get used to it. Your opinion can be heard and it just might keep people with power within reasonable boundaries.
when the consititution of the United States was first being written, most of the people behind it worried that "political parties" would rise into power and ruin the democratic system, the way that they had in Britain.
Political parties rose into power anyway within a fairly short amount of time, and more or less ruined the democratic system in america.
Please, please-- let's not let this happen to ICANN. Never mind whether or not normal "at large membership" voters have much say-- choosing who you vote for on the basis of whether they have a specific orginisation's endorsement, as opposed to the individual candidates themselves, is a recipe for disaster in many ways.
Not that the different candidates shouldn't be _discussed_ on slashdot.. just that if we get to the point where people just go in the booth and vote a "straight democratic ticket" or "straight republican ticket" or "straight slashdot ticket", you can expect all kinds of bad effects.
-mcc-baka
i'm tired
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Is it really "worth a try"? In it's short history (18 months), ICANN has shown at every turn that it prefers vacuous PR about "transparency," "bottom-up governance," and "consensus" to the messy facts of actually functioning according to those ideals. By signing up for At-large Membership -- a body that has no direct power whatsoever within ICANN's policy-defining structure -- you give ICANN grounds for claiming that it's listening to netizens. ICANN has managed to outmaneuver and circumvent hundreds of people who've been involved in net-governance processes for decades; what makes you think it won't be able to diddle thousands of ill-informed newbies?
For some history of ICANN's hijinks, take a look at the long essays by Gordon Cook, an expert on telecom issues: What's Behind ICANN (Sept 1999) and ICANN Internet Takeover" (June 1999). "ICANN Watch" is another good resource for learning about ICANN's dubious dealings, though it hasn't been updated much lately. For an explanation of the strange circumstances under which ICANN passed the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy before its board was elected, see this short "roving reporter" column and Keith Dawson's excellent chronology of the DNS debates. And here's a summary of some critical views of ICANN from a conference last fall.
There are lots more resources. If you plan to "get involved," you'd do well to know what you're getting involved with. But if you think your voice will be heard, you've got another thing coming. Don't believe me? Here's ICANN's organizational chart.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is probably a gross oversimplification of the matter, but you get the gist of it :-)
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+++For-pay Internet distributed processing.+++
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Most of the Internet community probably won't know what ICANN is, and likely not care. Unless there's some type of awareness campaign going on (via traditional media) to alert the world what ICANN is, then the only people that will be registering will be the geeks/hackers/sysadmins of the world.
Therefore, this likely won't make a difference at all in what new policies are enacted.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
The IDNO is FAR FAR away from ever being considered as a constituency by ICANN. It is not democratic, it has absolutely no cohesion, and it is not representative of the group it purports to be a constituency for.
I am not just a simple detractor. I was one of the founding members, betrayed by the ego of the founder who abused our trust to create a bully pulpit for his own views, rather than a really open place for domain owners to be represented.
If it doesn't fit his view of what is right for domain owners, it doesn't get included in the IDNO agenda. Plain and simple. Until this changes, the IDNO is not a legitimate effort, and I do not encourage people to join it.
A few of us fed up members have talked about a truly open IDNO, with an open sourced polling booth with auditing tools of the results, and with a structure that works for all the members, and doesn't let anyone one person's personality or agenda dominate. If you are interested in being a part of this, please email me.