[Chapter-delegates] Internet Society Appointments to the NTIA/IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group

Fri Jul 4 07:40:34 PDT 2014

Dear Veni,

It seems that we agree that, since ICANN's action affect everyone, everyone
should in theory be able to affect ICANN's decisions.

But, as Vint and others have pointed out, that might not be practical.

So we need to find mechanisms that come as close as possible to allowing
"everyone" to affect ICANN's decisions.

At Large is one such mechanism, but, as Evan pointed out, it hasn't worked
that well in practice.

The idea of having the Board elected by the registrants is not perfect, but
it isn't bizare or strange or revolutionary.  In all public private
companies (that is, those that are incorporated) the shareholders elect
their boards.  Shareholders can be individuals, or trust funds, or pension
funds, or other corporations, or not profit organizations, etc.  So I don't
see why the heterogenous composition of the registrants would be an issue in
principle.

Simliarly, in many (if not most) non profit organizations, the members elect
the Board.  So an alternative would be to turn ICANN into a membership
organization.

Best,
Richard
  -----Original Message-----
  From: venimarkovski at gmail.com [mailto:venimarkovski at gmail.com]On Behalf Of
Veni Markovski
  Sent: vendredi, 4. juillet 2014 16:35
  To: rhill at hill-a.ch
  Cc: Vint Cerf; Chapter Delegates
  Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Internet Society Appointments to the
NTIA/IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group

  Richard,
  I guess you know that domain name registrants are not always people, but
companies, sometimes governments? Also, in some cases there are many
domains, registered by the same person. But these are just technical issues.
  I'm sure you've thought about them.
  The more important issue, which your suggestion does not take into
consideration, is that ICANN is not keeping the Internet DNS stable, secure
and resilient only for the registrants, but... for everyone.
  As for the elections - I'm sure your ideas will be welcome in the global
discussion of how ICANN can be better. The beauty of the multistakeholder
model is that everyone can propose changes, and try to make them happen. We,
at ISOC-Bulgaria proposed such changes in the way the government was dealing
with the Internet back in 1999, and since then we have been very successful
in improving and fine tuning the model. It worked there. We see that it is
happening now in Brazil, others will follow.

  I hope that other chapters will share their experience, too.

  On Friday, July 4, 2014, Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch> wrote:

    Dear Vint,

    I agree that it might not be feasible to organize a global election of
the ICANN Board ty the citizens of the world, or by the users of the
Internet.

    That's why I suggest instead that the ICANN Board be elected by
registrants (holders) of domain names.  That is quite feasible using
existing technologies and databases. I realize that some registrants use
anonimity services, but it would be up to them to declare themselves as
registrants if they wish to participate in the election, if not they would
simply be absentees.

    Best,
    Richard
      -----Original Message-----
      From: Vint Cerf [mailto:vint at google.com]
      Sent: vendredi, 4. juillet 2014 13:12
      To: rhill at hill-a.ch
      Cc: Evan Leibovitch; Chapter Delegates
      Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Internet Society Appointments to
theNTIA/IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group

      Richard,

      the idea that there should be a global election for board members of
ICANN by citizens of the world and users of the Internet was then and I
think still is unworkable. Qualifying the electorate and running a
verifiable election (ie, free of fraud) via the Internet is still out of the
question. In places like Estonia where strong authentication is available it
appears possible to achieve such an objective but this isn't feasible today
on a global scale. I think the At-Large mechanism is about the best one can
do along these lines for now.

      vint

      On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 1:46 AM, Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch> wrote:

        Dear Evan,

        I fully agree with you that it would be better if ICANN were
ultimately accountable to all the world's Internet users (or maybe even to
all the world's people, since I believe we all want all people to use the
Internet).

        As you say below, the initial structure of ICANN did allow for
significant influence by users, but this was later modified to reduce that
influence.

        If we can come up with a practical scheme allowing all users to
excercise control over ICANN's accountability, I would be all for it.

        If not, then at least let's implement accountability by registrants,
which is not perfect (for the reasons you say) but surely better than the
current setup which has the drawbacks that you outline below.

        Best,
        Richard
          -----Original Message-----
          From: evanleibovitch at gmail.com [mailto:evanleibovitch at gmail.com]On
Behalf Of Evan Leibovitch
          Sent: jeudi, 3. juillet 2014 22:39
          To: Richard Hill
          Cc: Eric Burger; Chapter Delegates
          Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Internet Society Appointments to
theNTIA/IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group

          On 3 July 2014 12:09, Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch> wrote:

            In democracies, the ultimate authority (parliament) is elected
by all those affected, it is not chosen by a NomCom.

          That's because the ICANN "Nominating Committee" is misnamed.

          What ICANN has is a selection committee. A true *NOMINATING*
Committee would create a ballot of eligible candidates from which an
electorate would choose representatives. It's that last little step --
having an electorate -- that ICANN has consciously dispensed with. It's why
ICANN has worked so hard to evade the traditional structure of nonprofits
(such as our Chapter's) whose Boards are accountable to a membership.

          Once upon a time there were direct elections to ICANN, which were
gamed. The response to gaming was to eliminate elections, rather than
address the gaming issue. Perhaps that over-reaction needs to be revisited,
especially now that e-voting tech has advanced so much lately.

            My suggestion is that the ultimate oversigh for ICANN's economic
regulatory function should be the end-users, that is the registrants of
domain names (people/organizations that hold domain name registrations).

          End users != registrants.

          This error occurs frequently within ICANN, and is a constant
source of required vigilance.

          End users are the people sitting at screens or on their mobiles,
who access the Internet without any need for a domain name or intention to
possess one. I reject the assertion by many in the domain industry that
everyone needs to own a domain, that each person on earth is just a
potential registrant who hasn't yet been adequately marketed to.

          Among the current family of registrants -- owning a substantial
chunk of the total domain name pool -- are name speculators and squatters.
ICANN's tolerance of their presence creates artificial scarcity, raises the
cost of Internet entry to startup businesses, and causes legitimate site and
brand owners to needlessly register defensive names. (They also dramatically
inflate the total number of extant domains, which is now arguably a source
of ICANN's own financial dependence. But that's a different thread.)

          In this family are also those who create domain names with intent
to defraud. This is why the Red Cross request for domain name protection
came in for special attention at the ICANN Board recently (supported by the
GAC and ALAC), why the lack of enforced WHOIS accuracy has become a source
of controversy, and why the ALAC continues to challenge the utility of gTLD
"Public Interest Committments" over the protests of the domain industry.

          So, Richard, I must take issue with your definition. While the
interests of registrants often have much in common with those of end users,
they are most certainly not 100% in sync and occasionally in direct
opposition.

          Registrants have their own constituencies within the
"Non-Contracted House" half of ICANN's GNSO, from which they protect their
interests. That's not At-Large, which, like ISOC, exists to assert the
perspective of end-users -- the billions outside ICANN's direct revenue
stream who are nonetheless impacted by its actions.

          - Evan

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  --
  Best,
  Veni
  http://veni.com
  https://facebook.com/venimarkovski
  https://twitter.com/veni
  ***
  The opinions expressed above
  are those of the author, not of
  any organizations, associated
  with or related to him in
  any given way.
  ***

  == Sent from my phone, so any spelling mistakes are caused by the
touchscreen keyboard. Also, that's the reason for using short words and
phrases.

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