Joop,
I see too many subjects treated under the same title, so, if you don't mind,
I isolate this topic.
You wrote:
> At 23:24 3/01/99 +0100, Roberto wrote:
> >Onno wrote:
> >
> >><snip>
> >>
> >I like this approach.
> >I think it is worth considering for a compromise solution, once we could
> >come to a good definition of what are the special interest classes.
> >
>
> Roberto , Onno and all,
>
> I still think this approach ( and any approach with membership classes) is
> fraught with further problems.
> If I myself were to be a member in which class would I belong?
> I provide occasional registrar services. (class 1) What are the financial
> criteria?
> , have founded a special interest organisation (class 2) Which
> organisations will be allowed?
> , have 2 companies that are domain name holders (class 3)
> , am an individual (class 3)
>
> What rights/obligations does each class get?
>
> Is the best compromise solution not to hack this whole Gordian knot ,do
> away with classes alltogether and have a broad individual membership?
> At least, if ICANN fails to achieve a broad membership, the DNSO will have
> the high ground of a popular mandate.
> As Karl has argued, elected individuals will still stand for a certain
> vision/position and their constituencies will develop naturally, based on
> respect for their vision and leadership qualities.
>
I agree completely that it is not an easy task to accomodate fair membership
classes in particular for the DNSO, that gathers so many different
interests.
Nevertheless, I am afraid that provide a voice only to individuals, as Karl
proposes, has the risk of seeming the most democratic solution, but in fact
may turn out to be the contrary.
I didn't argue with Karl's original posting, because due to my vacation I
read it when it was already few days old, but let me say now that I don't
see the parallel between an organization like ICANN and a government.
Karl wrote:
In other words, one person, one vote. One organization, zero vote.
It seems to work reasonably well in most democratic countries --
Here in
the US, neither General Motors nor AT&T gets a vote for Congress or
the
President. (Yet they don't seem to have trouble getting their
issues
heard.)
The problem is that Congress or the President don't have to take decisions
that impact "mainly" GM or ATT.
Maybe, in a future to come, every citizen of the world will be equally
impacted by the Internet and will have equal possibility to participate:
this is not the case right now.
I already posted a message some time ago trying to make the point that
Internet users worldwide don't have the same accessibility to the Net, and
therefore don't have the same chances to make their voice heard.
Also, the vast majority of the users will not bother discussing the single
issues, and not bother to become Members. But isn't this the reason why
users association exists?
Last but not least, most of the problems and implications (technical and
economical) of the choices ICANN will have to make are widely unknown to end
users, but have heavy impact on some organizations (and ultimately to the
whole Net). Let me try to word it out better: the individual, as an end
user, will only be interested in having better and cheaper service, but
would not even be interested in discussing what to do to get this result.
This does not mean at all that individuals that feel interested or concerned
should not be allowed to become ICANN (or DNSO) Members, it just means that
we cannot afford to have this one as the only constituency.
It will be like saying that policy decisions on Telephony have to be taken
by a specific organization that has individuals only as members, maybe on
the basis of one telephone, one vote.
Joop wrote:
> Or is this political naivete? Are some of the to-be-hardwired
> constituencies irresistible forces that *must* be accommodated *now* ?
>
If we exclude the hypothesis of individuals only as members, I believe that
we don't have any other choice than to make sure that every reasonable
constituency has fair representation in ICANN (or DNSO). That includes the
right of citizenship of Trademark and commercial interests, but does not
include the right of being overrepresented (because that will mean that some
other constituency will be underrepresented).
As a bottom line, I am in favour of broader classes (like the ones Onno is
proposing) with flexible rules that may allow us to adjust the weight of the
different constituencies as things evolve. In other words, not the strategy
of having everything perfectly in place since the beginning, but the
strategy of being able to modify the situation and adapt it to the evolving
needs.
Regards
Roberto
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