Re: [ALSC-Forum] Comments on Study: Must groups oppose individuals - Thoughts about the ICANN at-large membership

[Joop Teernstra]

At 08:32 4/06/01 -0400, Diane Cabell wrote:

>Other arguments for an open ALM:
>
>Who represents the outsiders trying to get in...such as the people who
>cannot become domain name owners because of restrictions (expense, language,
>payment technology) in registration policy?
>What about the impact of IP address policy on user access?
>How can users input on protocols that may be introduced (impacting on
>privacy or proprietary rights, for example)?
>What about the fact that the users of the Internet pay for more of its costs
>as consumers (of website content, e-commerce, ISP access) than do domain
>name owners who presently only support the costs of ICANN?
>
>ICANN's charter is not limited to domain names.  Why should user
>representation be limited in such a way?

I fully agree with Diane, here.
User representation *in the @large* should not be limited to Domain Name 
Owners.
What was being discussed in the DNSO General Assembly (and has been 
successfully brought to a vote and brought to the Board's attention) is the 
inclusion of Individual Domain Name holders *in the DNSO*.
This is easily confused, but it is totally different.

The DNSO is supposed to give policy advice to the Board on Domain Name 
issues. The lack of Individual DN holder representation there has been a 
long standing grievance.
To my great disappointment, the Board again refrained from making any 
principled decision on this issue and allowed Vint Cerf to pass the 
question back the the Names Council. (where it does not belong).


--Joop--
Founder of the Cyberspace Association.
Former bootstrap of the IDNO (www.idno.org)
Developer of    The Polling Booth
www.democracy.org.nz