RE: [ALSC-Forum] FYI: Elections not budgeted

[Bruce Young]

Reply to Karl Auerbach:

>There was no "initial intention" that said that there should be some sort
>of "equal representation".  That's simply a myth . . .
>It was only through the work of various groups that the US government
>became embarrassed at the overt structural bias and anti-democratic
>character of the original ICANN design and thus obligated the newly formed
>ICANN to discuss a membership.  (See
>http://www.icann.org/minutes/trans-31oct98.html and
>http://www.icann.org/minutes/notes-31oct98.html )

I checked the links.  Interesting. I began "watching" ICANN in mid-1999, so
missed all this!  It makes the current situation more threatening, if 
anything: reverting to the bad old ways!

>There is a perfectly valid point of view (and it is also my point of view)
>that ICANN's directors should be elected 100% by the at-large.

I'll vote for that!  :)  

>Those "stakeholders" (less euphemistically described as "special
>interests") who are ensconsed in the "Supporting Organizations" of ICANN
>already have plenty of power - according to the ICANN By-Laws those SO's
>have the "primary"  responsibility for the formulation of ICANN policy.
>So there is no need to give them both a policy role *and* a role in
>electing directors . . .
>Those "stakeholders"/special-interests, which already have the
>"primary"  responsiblity of formulating ICANN policy, ought to be limited
>to convincing the electorate of the worth of their suggestions for Board
>members instead of getting to select their own set and then to wander over
>and vote, once again, as at-large members.  (Yes, those folks who are in
>the SO's can join the at-large and get a double vote.)

Makes sense to me. To butcher a quote from Government 101: "they propose, 
we dispose!"

>ICANN is like Gaul - it has three parts: IP addresses, DNS, disputes over
>"protocol parameters".  The former is a prodigious issue that most folks
>are overlooking, the latter is something that has never happened in the 30
>year history of the Internet.  Most people focus only the middle aspect
>and forget the other two.
>In other words, don't think of ICANN as having a role merely over domain
>names.  ICANN's scope is considerably larger.

Yes.  Deploying IPV6 is going to be a major effort. And with recent 
attempts by government to build "digital wiretapping" technology into 
protocols, riding herd over the latter is no a trivial chore either!  But
DNS is the part of ICANN that the "non-techies" have the most concern over,
and domain name issues are going to get worse and not better until new
rules come into play that recognize that a domain name is fundamentally
different from and far more valuable than just a "Internet phone number"
(which is all it is worth according to federal judges so far!).


Bruce Young
Portland, Oregon
byoung651@home.com
http://members.home.net/byoung651/index.html