[iwar] ICANN Board Member Blasts Governance Study

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-08-30 01:55:42


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Subject: [iwar] ICANN Board Member Blasts Governance Study
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ICANN Board Member Blasts Governance Study

By David McGuire,
Newsbytes.com
Wednesday, August 29, 2001; 5:41 PM

Arguing that a proposal pending before the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) would effectively prevent ordinary
Internet users from having a meaningful say in Web governance, one ICANN
board member today vowed to oppose the plan. 

"I'm going to vote against it," Karl Auerbach, an ICANN director (and
longtime ICANN critic) said today of the ICANN At-Large Study
Committee's final report, a draft version of which was released on
Tuesday. 

"I think ICANN is dead as a public interest entity" if the report is
approved Auerbach said.  "It's already a laughingstock."

The study committee was created by ICANN - the body that manages the
worldwide Internet addressing system - to determine how and whether
ordinary Internet users should be allowed to participate in the ICANN
governance process. 

In its draft report, the committee recommends that the Internet user
community be given its own "supporting organization" within ICANN.  The
report further recommends that the user community be allowed to
determine the makeup of one-third of the ICANN board of directors, which
has the final say on all ICANN decisions. 

By ensuring that members of the public cannot form an effective voting
bloc within the ICANN board, the report is endorsing the creation of a
purely "decorative" at-large membership, Auerbach contended.  "I was
expecting something much better out of this committee," he added. 

But Denise Michel, the executive director of the At-Large Study
Committee, today argued that the report is "balanced and fair." She
added that the committee is looking forward to incorporating public
input into the final version of its report, due out later this year. 

"The Committee is very much looking forward to discussing the report
with Karl," Michel said.  Michel and other committee members will
present the findings of the report when the ICANN board convenes next
month in Montevideo, Uruguay. 

Under ICANN's existing bylaws, the board is supposed to comprise nine
internally selected members representing Internet "stakeholders" and
nine at-large members representing the online public. 

While the nine internal members have been in place for some time, only
five at-large members - of which Auerbach is one - have been elected to
represent the Internet public.  Whether ICANN will fill the remaining
board seats will depend largely on whether the board decides to accept
the recommendations contained in the at-large study. 

Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) Associate Director Alan
Davidson, who has been monitoring the progress of the study committee,
was less critical than Auerbach of the at-large report, but shared many
of Auerbach's concerns about the report's recommendations. 

Davidson called the study "a very useful contribution to the debate,"
but said that - as is - the report fails to provide a structure that
allows for adequate public participation in ICANN governance. 

"This is not yet a recipe for real legitimacy for ICANN," Davidson said. 

CDT is one of a handful of groups involved in the NAIS (NGO & Academic
ICANN Study) Project - which commenced its own study to mirror that of
the ICANN at-large committee.  That group will release its findings on
Friday, Davidson said. 

Like Auerbach, Davidson said he was concerned that the at-large report
recommended that users control only one-third of the board.  Because the
board can approve changes to ICANN bylaws with a two-thirds majority,
public interest leaders have argued that Internet users should control -
at the least - slightly more than one-third of the board seats, Davidson
said. 

Davidson and Auerbach also raised concerns about the report's definition
of Internet "users." When ICANN held its first-ever at-large election
last year, anyone above the age of 16 with a valid e-mail address could
vote in the board elections. 

Under the proposals drafted by the study committee, the at-large
membership in the future would be restricted to Internet address
holders.  Internet users who do not own domain names would be barred
from running or voting in the board elections. 

"There are a lot of questions about whether domain-name holders as a
class are really representative" of the user community Davidson said. 

Davidson added that the cost of maintaining a valid domain name could
effectively prevent people living in poorer regions of the world from
participating in the governance process. 

The at-large report also proposes the creation of an at-large membership
fee, which Auerbach said would amount to a "poll tax."


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