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

Fri Jul 4 23:52:17 PDT 2014

Dear John,

I said "many", not "most".  I suppose the proportion depends on the country.
In Switzerland, the ultimate decision making authority for *all* non-profit
associations is, by law, the general assembly of the membership.  But, as
you say, the membership can be restricted.  (Foundations in Switzerland are
subjet to differt legal provisions, which inlcude government oversight.)

Best,
Richard
-----Original Message-----
From: JOHN MORE [mailto:morej1 at mac.com]
Sent: samedi, 5. juillet 2014 02:13
To: rhill at hill-a.ch
Cc: veni at veni.com; Chapter Delegates
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Internet Society Appointments to the
NTIA/IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group

Actually it is not true that most non-profits have member-elected Boards.
Many do not, or if they do, have a very small membership that is not
representative of the users of the non-profits services.

John More
Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 4, 2014, at 11:40 AM, Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch> wrote:

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
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== 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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