[ALSC-Forum] Message to my Congressmen

[Bruce Young]

I just sent the following message to my senators and representative.

Bruce Young
5922 NE 55th Ave
Portland, Oregon 97218-2302
byoung651@home.com
http://members.home.net/byoung651/index.html

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I am writing this to bring to your attention an issue that has received
nearly no attention in the mainstream press, yet has the potential to affect
all of our lives in the future negatively or positively depending on the
outcome.  This issue involves the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN).  This innocuously named organization has been handed
authority by the Department of Commerce to manage all the important features
of the Internet: the number of top-level domains (com, net, org, etc.)
available, who will be allowed to manage them, the rules for registering a
domain name with them, and how to decide who wins when two parties want the
same name, to list a few.  The decisions this organization makes in the next
ten years will determine who controls the Internet, and whose needs are
served.

A board of directors governs ICANN.  The original intent was to have a board
eventually comprised of two groups of people: a group appointed from within
government offices and Internet-related companies, and a second group made
up from nominees voted on by the Internet community at large, in order to
ensure the needs and desires of Internet users worldwide are represented.  A
group called ICANN At Large was formed to manage the registration of the at
large members and conduct the voting.  

>From the beginning, the ICANN board has consistently worked to restrict the
influence of the At Large (@Large) community.  The @Large registration
process was not significantly advertised outside of government and
technology circles, leaving many people who might have been interested in
participating unaware of the election.  Next, egregious registration
requirements were imposed on those that did find out about it, resulting in
many of the individuals who wanted to become involved being rejected.  The
board then decided to only elect five At Large board members, instead of the
original nine as originally planned.  The remaining four "board squatters"
(as they came to be known), who have thus far refused to step down, were to
be replaced in a second @Large election that never materialized.   The final
blow was the announcement this week that the ICANN board's next fiscal year
budget includes no funding for further @Large elections, showing that the
board has no intention of holding further elections.

If ICANN is going to be anything more than a body that rubber-stamps the
wishes of government and corporate interests, the coequal influence of the
@Large membership is essential.  But if the ICANN board is allowed to slowly
diminish and then eliminate the @Large community's influence, a rubber stamp
is exactly what we will have.

Please take the time to join the @Large study forum at
http://www.atlargestudy.org, read the message threads posted there, and feel
free to contact the members involved in the conversation about this issue
via e-mail at forum@atlargestudy.org.  The Internet is too important to this
country's future to be left in the hands of a "star chamber" unwilling to
consider the wishes of the Internet user community.