[ALSC-Forum] Re: Membership

[DannyYounger]

Dear Mike,

The beauty of a "clean-sheet" approach is that it allows for a re-examination 
of issues that have already been long-since been "settled" -- in fact, it is 
what has allowed this committee to recommend against having the nine At-Large 
Directors that the Internet community was promised.  My question was as much 
a query regarding the methodology employed by this committee as it was a 
quest for answers.   In a true "clean-sheet" study it would be immaterial if 
a topic had been "hashed and rehashed innumerable times".  

I take issue with your conclusion that "It's very clear that granting 
corporate statutory membership to 
individuals would fundamentally discriminate against other stakeholder 
interests in ICANN, and more particularly against non-US interests."  Our 
neighbors to the North (CIRA) have an executive Board in which 9 out of 12 
Directors are publicly elected, and an organization that confers real 
membership rights to its domain name holders.  

Please note their Bylaws cited at:  
http://www.atlargestudy.org/forum_archive/msg00424.shtml  
http://www.atlargestudy.org/forum_archive/msg00446.shtml

Why is it that the Canadians can have this type of responsive structure, and 
we cannot?  A full 75% of their Directors are "At-Large", and their "At-Large 
membership" has true membership rights.  They don't seem to believe that they 
are discriminating against other stakeholder interests...

Perhaps you can expand upon your argument, that we may better understand your 
point of view.  You might also wish to ask the formulators of this Draft to 
actually participate in some discussion, as they, not you, crafted the 
proposal under discussion.