Attendees: ALSC Members Carl Bildt, Chuck Costello, Pierre Dandjinou, Esther Dyson, Olivier Iteanu, Ching-Yi Liu, Tom Niles, Oscar Robles, and Pindar Wong, and ALSC Executive Director, Denise Michel.

Participants (awaiting sign-in list from building security):

Agenda: How to achieve "At-Large" representation and participation in ICANN

4:00 Welcome, introductions by Carl Bildt, ALSC Chair

4:15 Panel #1: What is an At-Large Member? What rights and responsibilities should At- Large Members have?

Panel: Dan Gillmor (moderator), Barbara Simons, Ellen Rony, Kent Crispin (Opening comments by panelists, follow-up questions by moderator, then audience and ALSC members are invited to participate.)

This is a panel-led, audience discussion about the potential ways of defining and implementing At-Large membership. Discussions will address who should be (and who wants to be) involved in ICANN, whether membership should come with any requirements or fees (how to encourage and fund efforts of informed and committed members), and specifically what rights and responsibilities should be conferred on an At-Large membership?

Panelists will give brief remarks to help meeting participants address relevant questions, such as: How should an At-Large member be defined -- from the "open to anyone who's interested" model, to specific membership criteria and fees -- from "individuals only" to membership that includes non-profit and commercial entities. What are positive and negative repercussions of proposed definitions? What should an At- Large member's rights be and how can those rights be protected through At-Large membership participation and representation schemes? Should membership come with some responsibilities, such as knowledge of ICANN's mission, or participation in discussions and decision-making? How should such responsibilities be fulfilled by a global membership? Should there be any membership requirements or fees (and if so should the fees be scaled)?

5:45 Break (refreshments)

6:15 Panel #2: How should an At-Large membership be incorporated in ICANN's structure (for representation and participation)?

Panel: Dan Gillmor (moderator), Jonathan Weinberg, Deborah Kaplan, Daniel Ben-Horin (Opening comments by the panelists, follow-up questions by moderator, then audience and ALSC members are invited to participate.)

This is a panel-led, audience discussion about how to specifically structure At-Large representation and participation in ICANN. Discussions will address the best methods for At-Large members to be involved in ICANN's decision-making process and how they should be represented in ICANN's decision-making structure, particularly on ICANN's Board of Directors.

Panelists will give brief remarks to help meeting participants address relevant questions, such as: What new processes and structures are needed within ICANN for At-Large member involvement? Do ICANN's existing Supporting Organizations need to be changed to accommodate At-Large member participation? Should a country or region-level or other kind of structure be created to facilitate At-Large involvement? How many At-Large Directors should serve on ICANN's Board and how should they be selected? What lessons have been learned from last year's direct election of At-Large Directors, and from At- Large processes/structures (inside and outside ICANN)?

7:45 Closing remarks, Carl Bildt and ALSC Members

8:00 Adjourn

Biographies of panelists

Dan Gilmore is technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. He also writes a daily Web-based column for SiliconValley.com, a KnightRidder.com site that is an online affiliate of the Mercury News. His column runs in many other U.S. newspapers, and he appears regularly on radio and television including National Public Radio's Morning Edition and CNN. Gillmor joined the Mercury News in September 1994 after about six years with the Detroit Free Press. Before that, he was with the Kansas City Times and several newspapers in Vermont. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Vermont, Gillmor received a Herbert Davenport fellowship in 1982 for economics and business reporting at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. During the 1986-87 academic year he was a journalism fellow at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he studied history, political theory and economics. He has won several state and regional journalism awards.

Barbara Simons was elected President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) from July 1998 until June 2000. She founded and co-chairs ACM's US Public Policy Committee (USACM). She is on the Board of Directors of the U.C. Berkeley Engineering Fund and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, as well as the Advisory Board of Zeroknowledge. Simons earned her Ph.D. in computer science from U.C. Berkeley, worked at IBM Research for many years, holds several patents, and has authored numerous technical papers. Simons is a Fellow of ACM and of American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received the Alumnus of the Year Award from the Berkeley Computer Science Department, the Norbert Wiener Award from CPSR, and the Pioneer Award from EFF. She was selected by c|net as one of its 26 Internet "Visionaries" and by Open Computing as one of the "Top 100 Women in Computing". Science Magazine featured her in a special edition on women in science. Simons currently serves on the President's Export Council's Subcommittee on Encryption. She has testified before both the U.S. and the California legislatures and at government sponsored hearings. She placed second in the first election for the North America seat on the ICANN Board.

Ellen Rony is co-author of The Domain Name Handbook: High Stakes and Strategies in Cyberspace, published by R&D Books. This 645-page treatise provides a practical history of domain name policies, protocols, disputes and initiatives, as well as detailed guidance on the domain name registration process of Network Solutions, Inc. Rony has monitored the evolution of the domain name system on a daily basis for 5.5 years. She served as a scribe for the International Forum on the White Paper in the summer of 1998 and was a signatory to the Boston Working Group Bylaws Proposal submitted to the U.S. Department of Commerce on September 28, 1998. In January of 1999, she launched a campaign calling for ICANN to open its board meetings to the public. In March of 1999, she testified before the World Intellectual Property Organization for its first study on the administration of domain names. Rony maintains a website at DOMAINHANDBOOK.COM, with extensive links to Congressional policies, news reports, domain name disputes, and the activities of ICANN. She also provides domain litigation support and has been qualified in federal court to appear as an expert witness on domain names. She testified in the celebrated SEX.COM dispute, which resulted in a $65 million plaintiff's judgment. Rony has two decades of experience in the computer industry. She has held positions in communication management, marketing administration, public relations and technical writing. She currently operates the Alexander Works in Marin County, California, providing Internet training to local clients and domain name dispute consultation. Rony holds a Master of Arts degree in Communication from Stanford University and a Bachelor's degree from Pomona College. She resides in Tiburon, California.

Kent Crispin is a Computer Scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, working in the Security Technologies Group. He has been the individual registrant of the domain "songbird.com" since 1995, and has been involved in domain name issues since 1996. He was Chair of the Policy Advisory Body and a member of the Policy Oversight Committee of the gTLD- MoU. He provided technical support to ICANN for the At-Large membership registration and voting process, has provided the technical support for elections for two DNSO constituencies, and has implemented several email or web based voting systems.

Jonathan Weinberg is a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He has been a legal scholar in residence at the FCC's Office of Plans and Policy; a visiting scholar at Cardozo Law School; a professor in residence at the U.S. Justice Department; a visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Journalism and Communication Studies; a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; and a law clerk to then-judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In 1999-2000, Jon chaired the Domain Name Supporting Organization's Working Group C, which had the job of developing recommendations on the creation of new generic top-level domains.

Deborah Kaplan is Executive Director of the World Institute on Disability (WID), a public policy, research and training center in Oakland, California. WID serves as the policy arm of the disability rights and independent living movement at the national level, as well as internationally. As Executive Director, Ms. Kaplan is involved in a wide variety of disability policy initiatives and also operates as CEO of the organization. She received a law degree from Boalt Hall at U.C. Berkeley in 1976. After that, she founded the Disability Rights Center in Washington, D.C. with support from Ralph Nader. She has also served as a staff attorney at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and has worked in private practice. Most recently, she was Vice President for West Coast Operations for Issue Dynamics, Inc., a consulting firm. At WID, Ms. Kaplan directed the Division on Technology Policy before becoming the Executive Director. Her work focused on ensuring that new information and communication technologies will be accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities at the policy level. The Clinton Administration appointed her to its National Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee, which presented its recommendations and report to the President and Vice President in January 1996. She is a founder of the Alliance for Public Technology. Ms. Kaplan has served on the National Governing Board of Common Cause, on the American Bar Association's Commission on Disability Law, and was a founding Board member of the Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America. She is currently President of the Board of the Center for the Common Good in Oakland, California and Secretary for the Board of the American Association of Persons with Disabilities. She is also a member of Pacific Bell's Advisory Group for Persons with Disabilities.

Daniel Ben-Horin, President and Founder of CompuMentor Equipped with $2,500 in seed funding, Daniel Ben-Horin created CompuMentor, one of the nation's first nonprofit technology assistance providers, in 1987. For the past 14 years, he has been guiding the evolution of this nonprofit, which today has a budget of more than $3.5 million. From 1980-84, Ben-Horin served as the Executive Director of Media Alliance in San Francisco during which period he also taught journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prior to this assignment, Ben-Horin spent more than ten years writing for The New York Times, The Nation, Harper's Weekly, Mother Jones, Redbook and many other publications.

Scribes Notes of Meeting:

Carl Bildt: Opening remarks with overview of ALSC purpose, At-Large history, ALSC's activities to date, and emphasized that the ALSC wants to *listen* to ICANN stakeholders in and outside of ICANN on their views on At-Large. Introduced ALSC members and Dan Gilmore, meeting moderator.

Dan Gilmore: Not sure if I was flattered or dismayed to be invited to be the moderator of this. Not certain if I am an "At-Large member" - I was never entirely sure whether I made it through the registration hurdles. I registered partly as an experiment to see if I could do it. I am particularly interested in what ICANN is doing and think it's essential that the public have a role. The ALSC strikes me as something important. Glad to see the audience out numbers the ALSC members here tonight. Glad to see you care enough to come and share your views. The panelists have each been asked to speak for a few minutes and then I will ask them to respond to a question and then turn this thing into a conversation. The ALSC wants to hear what you think so we will invite brief statements from the audience and questions. This is an important part of the meeting.

Barbara Simons: Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to testify today. I hope whatever recommendations you make you will reaffirm ICANN's obligation to reserve at least half of the Board seats for Directors democratically elected by At-Large members. I was an At-Large candidate last year because I think what ICANN does is critical decisions made by Board will have critical impact on Internet. I would like to share my experiences with you as a candidate and how the election can be improved. I urge you to improve, rather than abolish, direct elections. Also, numerous people told me they supported my candidacy because it's important to have women represented on the Board (only 1 woman on current Board). In addition, the Nomination Committee only selected one woman last year. I urge support for a more open process to achieve more diverse results. I hope you will lend your experience and expertise to this endeavor.

An AL member should any individual who has an email address or webpage - a fair and proper definition to allow all interested individuals to participate. What rights should an AL member have - right to run for office, timely notification of future decisions, the ability to be involved in considerations, transparency and understanding of how their comments are taken into account, ability to obtain information, and representation on Board of individuals and small businesses when trademark and IP issues are addressed. And, finally, the ability to vote for Directors. What responsibilities should AL members have - should be knowledgeable (study issues to be addressed). There should be no membership fee - no poll tax.

What are rights and responsibilities of ICANN Board and staff toward AL members? Adequate funding and resources for AL so they can organize, register and vote. AL members with respect - not as second class citizens. Facilitate communications, host websites, and change attitude so AL is acknowledged as important members of ICANN community. Guarantee that future elections systems scale and can handle response. An election system that does not put regions at a disadvantage (regions with problems of net access or snail mail problems), which may mean an on-line alternative for some areas. Urge you to use AL member resources to find alternatives. Finally one of most important responsibilities of Board and staff is to define well-defined timely procedures for dealing with issues pending before the Board. Without this individuals will be at a disadvantage. Board and staff have rights too - right to be properly supported, right to hear from AL in organized ways, right not to be verbally abused... It is obvious that elimination of some AL seats would de-legitimize ICANN in general - would disenfranchise user community and AL voters, and contradict commitments made by ICANN and key Board members. During DOC procedures, which created ICANN, comments were overwhelmingly critical of lack of membership accountability. Becky Burr and Ira Magaziner directed to ICANN organizers to meet with those who proposed membership structure and consequently Articles of Incorporation were changed to include membership. To renege would go back on fundamental commitment made in its organization. Finally, cease and desist orders to individuals, non-commercial organizations, and even children, are chilling to individual rights - must be represented on Board - if public is not well represented on Board then those with the most money and power will dictate ICANN's actions - that is already happening. Thank you for spending time and energy on these issues. Your decisions will determine what direction the Net will take. Will you allow individuals speak for themselves as promised? I hope you will do the right thing and support democratic elections for *at least* half the Board.

Ellen Roney: Thank you for inviting me. Gilmore used phrase "heavily nuanced" to describe these issues. I think AL is the ultimate "tar baby" of ICANN (situation from which its impossible to disengage yourselves). We would not be here if the Board trusted people with voting. We are reason d'etre of ICANN but have not been allowed to elect 9 Directors. We are system admin, network operators, website developers, students, ...we are users - the ones effected by ICANN's decisions. Those who created ICANN - membership model has never been tried. We still don't have all 9 elected Directors. Last year's election was called a compromise. AL membership raised to challenge - despite problems - and result is 5 AL Directors on Board and no one questions their legitimacy. But no one questions the non-elected 4 AL Directors on Board. ICANN will not get legitimacy until all 9 are elected. 9 not magic number but was a balance with the supporting organizations. AL covers broader area of interest, as does ICANN. Some say ICANN doesn't need it because of ICANN's narrow technical mission. ICANN's discretionary decision making has broad effect - i.e. UDRP is not technical, nor is revised ICANN/VeriSign agreement, which was an economic/political decision - not technical. In September Board is going to consider evicting some of .org's 2.8 million domain name holders. Is that technical? I think not. Why should only technical people be involved in ICANN's process? ICANN is more than technodeals -- with pricing, intellectual property, competition, domain use, privacy - these are areas that affect broader community. I agree SO structure needs overhaul. You can't look at AL in isolation. Whole structure should be examined. Meanwhile you have Board members who have voting right but who have not been elected. The NAIS report says AL representation on Board is obvious necessity. Which I underscore. For legitimacy, to represent public opinion to advise on policy and provide checks and balances. I think there needs to be AL representation. My advise is concentrate on immediate remedies because the Net is moving quickly and people are aggravated with what's happening. Suggest - ICANN should not be allowed to make any more decisions until 4 Directors are replaced. Board can make appointments so I think Board should look at last year's election result and use some criteria to appoint candidates to the Board. Imperfect situation but the alternative is you have 4 people making decisions who did not receive a single vote or who did not meet any threshold requirements of support and they're making policy. This is one of my main issues! Public interest in ICANN must be reflected in ICANN's policy structure - public participation is antidote to lack of accountability, which ICANN lacks. Commitment to AL membership should be written into Articles of Incorporation - bylaws have been amended 9 times and they give weak protection. Avoid creating thicket of complications for participation for AL. ICANN cachet is trust with community - its undermined this trust because its processes are opaque. Plus restraints have been placed on membership's activities. Plus ICANN engages in semantic gymnastics that are confusing (e.g. corp. shall not have members notwithstanding use of term members in its bylaws) I urge ALSC to make strong clear statement to establish fully formed and empowered AL membership. ICANN ignores this at its own peril.

Kent Crispin: I'm going to focus my remarks in ICANN elections. I have unique perspective in that I did some work on ICANN server and had exposure to some of the problems they had. Lauren Weinstein co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility and moderator of Privacy Forum published PFIR statement on Net voting - stated "Trust in election process is at heart of world's democracy. Net voting is example of where application where rushing into deployment could have repercussions of enormous importance. Dan Gear, CTO Net security applications company, states "Net voting is anti-democracy and those who cant' stir themselves to....can in a word shut-up" came for mail list on cryptography where others agreed. Peter Tray said.....ballot should be counted...." Terry Metzger list moderator said regarding the US system that " system is far from perfect but in general the low-tech adversarial approach seems to work quite well - developed over centuries of experience with attempts at fraud by experts. Every time fraud uncovered it was changed to prevent it.. Net voting lacks checks and balances of system I just outline contains. MIT Study outlined similar points noting that traditional system have strengths and resilience lacking in Net voting. Avi Rubin noted that examining Net voting and addressing security limitations concluded infrastructure is inadequate for remote Net voting. It should be noted that cryptographers are usually pro-privacy and individual rights. They're not anti-democratic. Another CA Internet Voting Task Force said substantial issues must be addressed before Net voting is possible. Bottom line is from purely tech standpoint there are serious questions about running large-scale elections over the net. Large-scale elections can't be considered anything more than experiments. Should be noted that comments above referred to political elections within single domain and these problems would be overwhelming in a global context. Regarding ICANN elections - it was noted that 1500 registrations came from 1 address in Japan. Normally this would raise a red flag for a govt. vote, but ICANN is not a government and was not equipped to deal with this. Email to web gateways were established allowing others to register by email. Some organizations put up their own ICANN sites but since they were in other languages we didn't know whether they were simple translations or not. It appeared was a complete ICANN clone registering people in ICANN's name. I could multiply these examples. A number of activities demonstrate problems. Lauren Weinstein discusses many problems and ICANN experienced many of these problems he discusses. Whether these vulnerabilities were exploited or not it is unknowable. If someone breaks in you don't necessarily know. The fact that we can't know is a bigger problem than that the vulnerabilities exist. It is irresponsible to conduct the global election. Some other means must be found.

Simons: Kent is right, there are a lot of problems with Net voting. I was on NSF Panel looking at this issue and we recommended against it. However, Net voting has occurred and reasonable successful for other kinds of elections, such as corporate boards, which is more similar. Despite problems, we must have direct elections by AL members and we'll have to use imperfect method. Very few voting is free of problems - many examples of problems with traditional voting (Bush in Florida). We wish we didn't have problems with voting, but its an exaggeration to say that Net voting is terrible and other forms are perfect. ICANN is about the Net and we should use it to vote.

Rony: Characteristics of election Secure reliable private and scaleable. Financial transactions meet that criteria on the Net. Airline reservations and financial transactions and stockholder voting all meet these criteria. Maybe we should ask people who handle these transactions. Its working. Many of people trust this and we can do this for the election as well.

Crispin: It doesn't follow. There are many kinds of applications on the Net. Elections are specific app and have specific concerns. Because some transactions can be done securely doesn't mean elections ca. Corporate proxies are address on the crypt forum as well and are excoriated and security of them is called heavily into question. There's important difference - with proxy votes the whole point is to buy votes - its implicit - its not one person one vote. The question of the infrastructure being in place is a concern. Like saying we need a bank and we don't have any walls or anything and its like saying we need a bank so we'll put the money in an open room anyway.

Karl Auerbach: We have elections and they're faulty - Tammany Hall, Florida, etc. What are we going to do - ban democracy? We don't have an alternative. We live with the risks; that's part of life. But I just heard about a new risk - the risk of alleged flaws in ICANN voting process. Is there anything backing up fraud allegations (1500 votes) This raises what I believe to be institutional tampering by the vote counter. This is the first time its been brought up and I consider it vote tampering.

Audience: It was addressed at Stockholm meeting and is addressed in NAIS report.

Crispin: Election.com was probably very secure (can't say for sure). Information they were given to conduct the vote was done in double-blind fashion. I can't say for sure there was fraud (just said 1500 names from 1 address looked strange) We do know that there were instances in Japan people were asked to fax in their registration and they were entered into computer. There is a mountain of data that might have inclinations of fraud and you can't tell. Not that fraud occurred but there's no way to know!

Auerbach: You've been against elections for a long time.

Mark Leeson??: Want to address Crispin's comments on Net voting. I agree with everything you said. You're right. These flaws exist. But they were talking about a system in comparison to existing system. ICANN doesn't have anything to fall back on there are no ballot boxes in every country. I wouldn't suggest a paper ballot world vote or a local electronic vote. When you talk about a vote with everyone in the world electronic voting is the only way to go. You go for best possible solution that works in the circumstance. Net voting even though it's flaws - it works. The federal government allowed it for overseas personnel in last election. Keep that in mind.

Crispin: The fact that net voting can be used in certain specialized circumstances is fine. The fact that in these circumstances you have a fallback allows you the luxury of using net voting. But if you only have net voting you're open to enormous number of problems. Seems like people are so entranced with voting as means of selecting Board members that the problems don't matter. Grabbing monkeys from jungle would be ok if they voted.

Marilyn Cade: (With AT&T) One size doesn't fit all. Net voting may be OK in one setting may not be in other due to language and other barriers. I heard great deal from constituencies concerned about AL net voting. So whatever system we design I would caution simply basing it on our own system (language, net access, etc) Try to design system that respects culture and diversity on Net.

Simons: I agree paper voting may be better in some countries. Even in US voting is difficult or impossible for some people - cause ICANN hadn't expected the demand. Part is getting infrastructure that scales and if we need to consider other options we should make sure...franchised.

Dyson: If we think voting is the best thing to do lets make it work. If we don't lets say that. The ALSC is trying to address what should happen and how to make that happen. Here's a question - I would've said that direct voting is superior to indirect. There's the Board and then there's policy development, which is done by the SOs. How do you get participation into policy development (aside from mailing lists which don't scale) One way is selecting large number of people who would choose the Directors and also be involve in policy development.

Simons: People tend to be turned off by indirect voting and more countries moving that way. Structures to allow people to have input to policy are important. ICANN should have more mechanisms to enable this - websites, etc. Facilitate communication among AL members. ICANN has put obstacles in the way. This is important to give ICANN credibility.

Rony: On every domain registration there could be a box that people check to join I. This puts ICANN in their consciousness. You have immediate communication and information about that party and screen out multiple domain name holders. The other thing I've thought about is in the current st5ructure with 9 AL and 9 SO Directors - we hear a lot about consensus-based decisions. I don't know what that means, but I would propose if they stick to this structure there should be an SO and AL that concur. You have two parts of structure that are agreeing on this. Ultimately the effect of the policies is larger than one SO.

Simons: A check box is an opt-in. A frustration of the candidates is we couldn't reach the electorate. We were told there was a privacy issue. People should be able to tell ICANN to give candidates their name.

Christian Sandvig: Switching topics - there's website for Santa Clara County here that tells you all of its citizens' electoral responsibilities - these include State Senate and US House of Rep. And Community College District Board and Water Board. I'm a domain name owner and I care about domains but I also care about water. I can't tell you who my Water Board Director is. I'm skeptical about Al membership and voting. I think its very unclear. Assumption made that fundamental difference between my interest as citizen and interest as Net user. Don't know if that's true. Further assumption that representation should include only ISP and other certain groups. What does representation mean in this context?

Simons: ICANN is hard to understand. ICANN is making policy and its impacting all of us. If there is to be public representation than this is our opportunity. Otherwise policy made by people who have power and money.

Edward Hasbrook: I am not an AL member cause I didn't get the letter. And ICANN said they didn't have enough money to send another. I'd like to address Esther Dyson's question - how do you translate AL membership. Already a consensus that there should be an AL membership and they need to elect Directors. How do we translate that into real involvement? Elections at central level don't ensure involvement in decision-making. So elections have been followed by transparency in government laws, etc. People are most concerned about local issues. Nothing ALSC limits it to ICANN Board. Board does not do most ICANN decision-making and it will decrease as more gTLDs are set up. As that increases more decisions s at gTLD level and other distributed levels. So ICANN should enact mandate for delegated organizations to which Board has delegated responsibility requires transparent and open participation processes/practices. Different organizations and different countries will find different ways of doing it. State doesn't mandate certain type of mechanisms for public participation for each Water Board, but they do have general requirements. If ICANN Board had requirement for public input and transparency at every level and mechanism for oversight to ensure compliance we would see variety of innovative means for public input. Problem is need top down mechanisms to ensure bottom up participations. ICANN posted in forum at greater length. ALSC should address critical decisions being made by gTLDs.

Dyson: Interesting notion, but ICANN makes policy for things that can't be decided locally. At gTLD level you constrain them by virtue of competition.

Hasbrook: If there were thousands or millions of gTLDs that would be true. That's not the case. Example is .aero, which was supposed to be open to airline community and then limited it greatly. Very important precedent about what will happen with gTLDs

Crispin: What differences does this make? If .aero is restricted, so what? Why do you care if particular segment runs a TLD?

Hasbrook: Cause my personal involvement in air transport community and I'm being defined out of it by aero and there aren't others in which I can participate. .com doesn't identify me as being in the airline community.

Crispin: I see people registering a variety of names in .com and it doesn't seem to be that important. Presumably there will be other hundreds of domain names.

Auerbach: We're talking about real money. This company (VeriSign) increased net value by 3.5 billion after they got the long-term .com contract. I think requirements for those whom vote in AL should not be more severe than for ICANN 's other SO's. Other point is to whom is ICANN accountable. Direct vs. indirect election system. Link between people who vote and people who represent them there's not a feeling of connectedness. We mechanism so people who are elected feel accountable to people who elect them.

Bildt: Question about democracy and election. Democracy a big word and I use it with care. The world is a big place and if we're to have global democracy this is an enormous thing. For democracy to be credible there's some level of participation required. Accordingly what kind of minimum level of participation do you see to attain the requisite level of credibility (so it can't be taken away by UN or ITU or whatever because they can claim global credibility and accountability to electorate)? When US has elections with turnout less than 20% Europeans are amazed because we consider turnout less than 80% a crisis for democracy. In terms of Net, half a billion people using the Net and its growing fast. By the end of this decade I think we'll have more IP addresses than people on the planet. If we're talking about domain names were dealing with 40 million or so and growing every day. What participation level are we talking about for credibility? And what's the fallback if it goes below that level. If you had a US turnout of less than 1% would it be credible?

Rony: If you make process available and open and publicly accessible and they self-select and you have low numbers than you consider what's wrong with the organization. But I don't think you need to set a minimum threshold.

Simons: It was a complicated system last time but 150,000 did register and a lot more would have if they got through. We need to develop a robust system and encourage people to vote.

Bildt: You aren't concerned that if we have a less than 1% turnout we shouldn't be concerned?

Simons: No

Crispin: A conundrum that we need to deal with. ICANN 's policies are totally irrelevant to 99.9% of the human race. Nobody really cares about ICANN's policies. Of the 150,000 who registered, there were people who registered who didn't know why they registered or what ICANN did. In fact ICANN was publicized in some countries as "the government of the Net." The things that ICANN does with domain name policy are not something most people care about. Do people on the street care about domain name policies? No. They're more concerned about their Water Board than I.

Derek Conant: [Pres. And Chair of DNSGA] ICANN is not rushing into accepting AL voting process, which is the right way to proceed. AL is still developing its voting process. ICANN is doing this to protect the DNS system. I am concerned about fraud. Online merchant systems give people the ability to review your credit card transactions and correct errors. With AL voting there is no immediate recourse to correct errors or fraud. Larger issue is what do the votes represent? It's a bad idea to represent everyone's vote in the world on the Net. I'm not aware of any international model that works this way. I don't see any accountability as to what the votes represent. Crispin has mentioned special interest, which demands that its customers submit votes and this, could impact how ICANN manages the DNS. The DNSGA has proposed an approved proposal organization structure in which a board would approve or qualify membership organizations that have a vote. These membership organizations would meet certain criteria.

Pindar Wong: A point mentioned earlier about "opting-in." How does one fund all of this? To a degree various online mechanisms scale, but how is this to be paid for?

Rony: ICANN entered into agreement that every registrar pays registries $6 for each registration and registrars charge what they want. Registries pay a % to ICANN and registrants pay that fee indirectly. I don't think we should have to pay again to participate - they are incorporated in our registration fee.

Pindar Wong: Yes, for everyone who has a domain names. But what about email address holders? And what about the issue of it being an indirect poll tax?

Simons: ICANN already getting money why can't they allocate the amount needed for an adequate election. It should be part of the ICANN budget and its not. Its not in ICANN 's latest election.

Pindar: Do you think AL should just be domain name holders?

Rony: No, but you asked about domain name holders opting in. I have a business domain name and my business will not vote. So perhaps you should go to NIC handles. They would be effected by ICANN.

Pindar: Would that work with ccTLD's?

Rony: I can't address that.

Eveyln Pine: [Tech-Up Project] I am involved with the non-profit community. Its concerning to me that 150,000 people registered and its dismissed that its not evidence of people's interest in I. There needs to be a way for small organizations that have .org domains can participate. If they don't have a seat at the table they get screwed. That's why we should have a diverse AL membership with direct elections of Directors and having people engage in all levels - these are issues that the ALSC must address. Saying direct elections are not important are disenfranchising and people in my community want to be involved.

Jonathan Weinberg: With limited time I want to talk concretely and briefly about 3 models the ALSC distributed. Option A would work well, and Options B and C won't work well. The current DNSO works pretty badly and that shouldn't be too surprising. If you take very different entities with very different interests and very different resource levels it shouldn't be surprising that it doesn't work well. The current DNSO doesn't represent the community, its processes aren't bottom up or transparent and its been unable to generate policy except at an abstract level. Adding an individual constituency to the DNSO or similar organization is highly unlikely to make it work any better. The DNSO like approach works well for groups, which can easily organize, and for entities that have paid staff. None of this is true with individual constituency. They would be disadvantaged in a DNSO like organization. We do have a more successful way to organize individual participation - structure and environment provided by elections. They worked reasonably well. Individuals can do self-organization within structure provided by election structure and they're the only ones that scale. Turning to three models in option template. A is well designed - gives separate organization for users and gives each member one vote and preserves current balance of Directors (9-9) but does so in a way that gives businesses to have influence. For a lot of the same reasons Option B won't work well. ICANN abolishes AL and creates an individual constituency within the DNSO and restructures Board. Giving individuals representation within the constituency system has the problems previously mentioned and doesn't address existing problems that DNSO currently has. If we create a new Customer SO we will have same problems we're seeing with DNSO today. Option C - I may not fully understand this one. It gives power to select Board to a group of SOs but I'm confused because individuals can get an SO (and I don't know why) and it contemplates an SO by network operators and others who don't implement ICANN policy. Perhaps anyone who complies with ICANN policies gets an SO? What you end up with is a Board that looks like a Names Council, which is a step in the wrong direction. Then the Individual SO has to be self-funding under this model, and I don't think this is workable. This model says nominating Board members goes to the AL, but we learned is that the power to nominate is essentially meaningless since the threshold is low and the power resides in who selects the Directors. A goal that's mentioned a lot in these discussions is stability. We don't want domain name resolution to break. But there's another dimension to that debate. In any market place with incumbent players and you have people who will benefit from new services that change will bring. Any ICANN structure that doles out representation on functional basis will skew in favor of status quo maintenance because if favors current participants. One of the great advantages of the AL is that it can counter act that tendency.

Deborah Kaplan: I've been wondering why I'm here. It's a relevant question. In looking through the bios I noticed that mine is the longest, but then I thought that my bio reflects years of experience with organizations struggling with many of the same issues. My own position as Exec. Director of a non-profit with a domain and a person with a lot of experience with organizational structures. To what extent would someone like me (on the outside)? One of the things my organization does is train companies in complying with disabilities access laws. One observation is "who are the users" and "what's at stake" are related. As someone who has developed a strategic business plan for a non-profit I've dealt with issues people don't like to face. Here are some that came to mind: What level of representation is desired for AL members? (Sounds like there's no consensus for these questions. I would suggest specific answers be agreed upon.) Are there particular perspectives that have been defined but aren't represented? What hope to be gained from AL membership? What degree of familiarity is expected or desired? Suggest these questions be answered with some degree of consensus first. Then structure will follow. I can't follow ICANN 's current structure, information. I didn't find ICANN 's material to be accessible. I can think of why you would want someone like me involved. We have a nice domain name and we'd be upset if someone took it from us. Recognition is a main commodity. Our organization is struggling with where our money comes from so we may want additional domain names to help generate revenue. So we'd be interested in how ICANN 's effects our ability to do this. Why would I be interested in being on the Board? How would I be compensated? Would my participation make a difference? What level of work would be required to get up to speed on the issues? Who pays for AL members' time and resources? (Not that I'm interested) Many non-profits don't have the resources that companies do. What about staffing resources? I get the sense that ICANN 's budget can't address many of these issues, but they need to be raised. Does ICANN have a relationship with users? I'm an example of an ignorant outsider. Who is responsible for outreach or information translation to the rest of the world? ICANN needs to decide that this is a core responsibility and part of its mission or you're asking for alienation. It reminds me of organizations that I've been involved with who have decided to be more accessible for people with disabilities, and then they want that representative to be responsible for implementing. Unless whole organization takes responsibility than those whom you do invite to be involved might feel alienated.

Daniel Ben Horin: I'm clear about why I was invited to be here. The phrase the "great unwashed' was used. Based on Computmetors experience working with a variety of diverse organizations. I'd like to approach this from the "Internet community." This community has four components - 1) technical elite, heirs to disinterested pursuit of science and Net technology, 2) economic interest, 3) Netizens, people who are active users and whose livelihoods may be involved in the Net, and 4) Net users, people my organization works with - the entire universe of people who use the Net in terms of number but who are invisible in ICANN's process. If you consider this definition of the Internet community it seems clear the technological elite must be represented. The economic interests will be represented. The difference between the third and fourth groups is important. The differences revolve around differences in society. Netizens have a passion that leads them to involvement and in many ways are the bearers of Net values and have an important seat at the table. Net users - vote or shut up is a simplistic approach to how they should be fostered to participate in this process. A useful analogy would be zoning. A zoning hearing about laws for commercial vehicles using streets - non-profits wouldn't attend a hearing on this issue. But if a non-profit needs to get a truck with food for the homeless down a restricted street then they would definitely be involved - they have a stake. There's an important distinction between people having a "way in" and people voting. Access v. voting. I have four general conclusions. Even with 9 elected AL Directors, the current system of 9 against the world is flawed and over-weighted by corporate constituency. Given the present system, and consideration of reform, then every effort should be made to have transparency and direct representation. There shouldn't be a capture concern with a direct representation model. Even with direct voting the unwashed won't be there. People who are working in non-tech fields won't participate, but they might need a way in down the road (access point). There needs to be mechanisms for ICANN to be able to listen to diverse voices of the "outsiders" so they can offer opinion that will be heard. These steps are just a start and the whole paradigm should be reconsidered. Other issues, such as compensation for Board members, also should be addressed for those who don't have the independent means to participate.

Derek Conant: Option C looks similar to DNSGA's model but I don't think any of the 3 options would work here. I think it would be easier to qualify organizations to represent AL constituencies. Another issue is who would fund this? I would go to organizations that have money. Why aren't we thinking of process that allows organizations that can pay for this to be involved and manage the AL process and educate people and get them involved? We need to get organizations that have money involved.

Weinberg: Clarify an item - Derek is head and as far as I know the only member of the DNSGA and it shouldn't be confused with the DNS GA (General Assembly). It seems that organizations that have money currently dominate the DNSO so it wouldn't make sense to make this recommendation for AL.

Herb Kantor: [member CPSR] A couple years ago CPSR's Chair wanted to get the organization involved in ICANN, so we created Civil Society. I was skeptical at the time. Another member had an organization called Virtually Wired (vw.com) and the Volkswagen corp. sent a cease and desist order. The point is that with the tendency to consider trademarks as gifts from God and many companies understand the importance of controlling domain names and this shouldn't be considered trivial.

Wong: Funding a Director was mentioned - what was the reason?

Kaplan: My understanding that if they're volunteers they're personally wealthy, or if their involved in a company that has an economic interest they're supported in that respect. Individuals who don't have this type of support are disadvantaged.

Ben Horin: Same reason we pay legislators.

Wong: Weinberg commented on options that were posted. What is your preferred approach? I think Option A would work pretty well. Most importantly it talks about using elections to nominate 9 Directors from User SO but doesn't say how - geographic-based voting, party based, etc. Need to think about this fairly hard. If we're going to have direct elections its useful to have mechanism for geographic constraints so a surge in registrants in one country won't result in several Directors from that country. If we're interested in promoting a vibrant party system for proportional representation. An advantage is that it out sources away from ICANN the outreach job. It's not easy to set up party system with geographical constraint. If we had plan along the lines with those issues worked out we'd be doing pretty well.

Gillmore: Want to endorse Kaplan's remark about the density of online materials. I'm reasonably good at this stuff and I don't get it either - a lot of it. It's fairly dense.

Richie Dagerall?: I was looking for a car last Summer and went to www.vw.com and would've been exacerbated if I hadn't reach the car company. There are two users out there - producers of websites and users who want to get where they want to go. Regarding comment on involvement of "elite group" and was wondering how that group should get more involved. People who have their hands on technical knowledgeable are technical staff. We don't elect the most knowledgeable person about international affairs for President we elect...... well you know ... he hires people. I should do the same - hire people with expertise. I'm less knowledgeable now than I was before I started organizing my organization. A cadre of people, the technical elite - Jon Postel and his heirs - are in this group by virtue of what they've done. Hard to make this official. Someone who works in a telecom company overseas does that person represent the company, himself, ... There are values that are unique to this field but I don't know how this would be legislated.

Auerbach: ICANN covers IP address as well as Domain Names. IP address space will be more determinative long term. ICANN hasn't made many if any technical decisions yet. Why should there be an allocation of a power seat for special seat when the people who pay the bills and are effected by the policy why do they have to "ride in the back of the democracy bus."

Ben Horin: Whether ICANN is a policy or technology organization I agree and the point is made in Weinberg's Geeks and Greeks paper. I was suggesting maintaining seat at the table for that perspective.

Auerbach: The issue is how are we allocating power?

Costello: [ALSC] Should you look for a mechanism that will accommodate the "great unwashed" but recognize that no current system will engage all of these people. If you have hundreds of millions of people whom could vote but won't. At what point do you say that we'll design a system that allows people to opt in but targets it to a much smaller group, perhaps "netizens." At what point do we make the choice of a structure that doesn't reach everyone but reaches enough people?

Weinberg: I think you're right. ICANN 's voting membership is never going to be in the millions. Nor do I think ICANN should take as its chief role - outreach. That's not ICANN's mission. Nonetheless it looks as if ICANN is going to be reaching out and we will see hundreds of thousands of voters. Question becomes how do we look at that. One way is hundreds of thousands is a miniscule part of the population how can we give them part of the Board! Or hundreds of thousands are a lot of people, probably a good % of the "technical elite" and are more than the PSO and DNSO represents. On that basis I think its OK to give them half the Board.

Kaplan: Considering non-profits who speak for hundreds of thousands of people, e.g. NOW. Their membership may be small when compared to the world's population, but they have legitimacy by virtue of their work. We don't have an expectation if you look at non-profits that they have to represent anything approaching all of the constituency before they have legitimacy and integrity.

Ben Horin: This strikes me as a group of computer scientists talking about politics and trying to impose some elegance to an issue that utterly rejects it. When reviewing the problems we're seeing - capture. What if they get out the vote in some developing country and seize 5 seats on the Board - what could they do? Take these issues incrementally. But if an organization cares about the public voice you have to remedy that problem. Elections are messy - ICANN spent $10 a vote in the last election and the US Government spent thousands on overseas' votes.

Simons: As a computer scientist I found your analysis interesting. As a former Pres. of ACM, a not-for-profit organization, it would be out of the question for this organization to help fund ICANN At-Large. I wanted to follow on Kaplan's comments that you seem to be recommending that Directors be compensated especially for people who aren't getting paid as part of their job. Are you recommending this and do you have further comments on how the ALSC can level the playing field between economic interests and those who represent the other voices...the daily users.

Kaplan: I was remembering non-profit law for California and Board members can't be compensated. There could be ways of still providing support. When you have an imbalance of support/resources that should be recognized. To have people's input be meaningful and well informed. If there is an intent to get beyond the "in crowd" there has to be some form of support. There needs to be some way of ensuring meaningful participation. Or, the number of people who can effectively participate will be narrow. If there is an intent to broaden it, it's not the same if you have someone from a corporation with lots of support staff and a non-profit or other person.

Crispin: Learning curve is horrendous. It took me several years before I came to a full understanding of the issues. CcTLDs are working out their own dispute resolution policies, which they're voluntarily adopting and are modeled on the WIPO model. Businesses have to deal with powerful entities that deal with domains. The ccTLDs are voluntarily adopting dispute resolution policies - ICANN is not driving it. If you also consider that the gTLD - formation of new TLDs - process will be in place and ICANN has very few policy decisions to make about that process. So we see the two most contentious policies disappearing in the next few years. What will motivate people to be involved in I? I also want to comment on the notion that it doesn't make a difference if we make mistakes or allow people to capture an election. I disagree. The Japanese industry, for example, that they took organized action to win a seat on the Board. China responded by "encouraging" a massive amount of votes to do the same for their country. I don't know why they wanted seats on the Board, but they did take it seriously and were willing to expend a great amount of time to do it. If we see geo-political competition happening then we will see enormous electorate selecting Board members for activities, which will be almost unimportant.

Weinberg: I eagerly look forward to the day that there's no interesting issues in the DNS space. I don't think that day is coming any time soon. If the new TLD process was institutionalized - don't know if ICANN will even get through the first round.

Rony: A specialized jargon is the hallmark of an advanced technology. Perhaps an indication of how far we've advanced. ICANN spent a lot of time educating people and I can assure you more and more people are aware of ICANN because of the new TLDs . ICANN is now front-page business news. I get emails from people hit with domain disputes. This is an organization that is reaching the unwashed masses. I think "whack a mole" game is a better analogy. I'm concerned the Board will take this approach and beat down all suggestions for At-Large. If the ALSC commits to presenting a report that says the people who are effected globally by ICANN's policies need to have a public voice and it needs to be in decision-making process.

Gilmore: We've run out of time. Thanks to the Committee and audience.

Bildt: On behalf of the ALSC thank you for spending 4 hours with us. It has been very educational and useful. You have provided a lot of perspectives - informed and "outside" perspectives that will inform our work. One conclusion we can draw is that it was a good idea to hold this meeting is Silicon Valley. Its been very useful. Thanks to all of you.