Here are some comments on your membership commentary
> >I. History
> >The initial impetus for the White Paper -- and ultimately, ICANN -- came in=
> > July 1997.
This section gives the rather misleading impression that the Clinton administration
decided to do something on its own initiative and actually had a policy. In fact, it
was forced into action by external pressure, primarily because the faction-fight
between the gTLD-MoU advocates and the NSI/proprietary registry supporters had reached
a point where it could no longer be ignored. This may seem marginal to the purpose of
your document, but it is not. In fact, virtually everything about ICANN is shaped by
the politicization of IANA's functions that emerged from the ongoing battle between
these two factions, which predates the White Paper process by two years.
> >II. How Well do the Model Proposals Fit the White Paper?
> >
> >B. Stability: =20
> >The WP stresses the value of continued Internet reliability. A=
> > standards-making body like the ICANN Board will, presumably, set better=
> > policies and adopt better standards when parties who understand the=
> > underlying technology are diligent participants.
Uhhh...if a "standard" is defined by someone who does not understand the technology and
its operational consequences, it will not become a standard. It will just be words on
paper. Coordination requires the mutual consent of the coordinated parties. The point
is to maintain the level of decentralization and bottom-up coordination that ensures
that it is essentially voluntary adoption, and not central decree, that gets standards
adopted.
> > A successful plan will
> > provide a significant incentive for infrastructure providers (telcos, ISPs,
> > networking equipment makers, etc.) to get involved in the ICANN process.
> > Plans that allow providers to vote will provide this incentive in greater
> > measure than those that only allow providers nonvoting participation; plans
> > that allow nonvoting participation are more likely to draw infrastructure
> > providers than plans that exclude them altogether. Thus the "Organization"
> > plan is more likely to draw large organizations into the dialogue than the
> > "Individual" plan.
> >
> >Supporting Organizations do provide explicitly for input from networking=
> > professionals and technical experts.
In case you haven't noticed, the DNSO has virtually nothing to do with technology and
is entirely about political representation--i.e., finding a distribution of power that
will allow groups who want to influence *policy* to do so.
Also, I believe you are fundamentally mistaken if you believe that it is the membership
structure iself that will give infrastructure providers (and other networking
professionals, e.g., equipment manufacturers and ISPs) an incentive to become involved.
This betrays a certain lack of historical and institutional knowledge about
telecom/info industry standards bodies. The incentive to become involved is based on
what the organization does or can do; i.e., what real power it has to become an arena
for effective cooperation/ coordination/standard setting. For example, you imply below
that an individual membership structure may not provide enough "voice" to
organizations. This is easily refuted: are there corporate memberships in IETF? Has
this organization served as an effective forum for cooperation and standard setting or
not? IETF has no formal membership structure to speak of, at least not one that
specifically recognizes organizations. Yet it works because corporations know that it
is a legitimate, effective, arena in which standards can be developed. There are,
conversely, many small standards forums that emphasize corporate memberships that have
never developed the critical mass required to serve as an effective forum for
international cooperation.
> > So, are the SOs enough? As it
> > stands, the equal numbers of At-Large and SO-appointed Directors could
> > produce compromise or deadlock.
This assumes a level of homogeneity among the SO representatives on the one hand, and
the At-large representatives on the other, that almost certainly will not exist. Given
the culture of the Internet, individual members are as likely (more likely) to elect a
Vint Cerf as an Esther Dyson as At-large board members. And the SOs are as likely to
elect non-technical businesspeople or politicians, especially the DNSO.
> >Any structure that prevents this deadlock, however, will allow either=
> > At-Large Directors or SO-appointed directors more control over ICANN=
> > policy.
This is a non-issue, for the reasons stated above.
> >Voice: Most corporations and associations will not qualify for membership=
> > in an SO.
Huh? Have you read the DNSO proposals? Have you looked at the members of the address
registries?
> > One outstanding problem is that ISPs are not, as a class, represented by any=
> > of the proposed SO structures.
I agree that buy-in by ISPs is fundamental to the success of what ICANN is supposed to
do. But I cannot tell from this whether you understand that ISPs have significant power
over ICANN, regardless of membership structure, via their decisions to point to its
root servers. ICANN will maintain their cooperation not by giving them special powers
via membership structure (something they never had in the old IANA), but by serving as
an effective center for coordinating resource assignments. In other words, if ICANN
does its job right, and stops trying to be a regulator and political governor, it will
win the support and cooperation of ISPs.
The most likely factor to destabilize ICANN is its apparent determination to become a
regulator and policy maker--to solve trademark disputes, dictate business models, set
codes of conduct, etc. This embroils it in political maneuvers that are diametricaly
opposed to its legitimacy and credibility as a technical coordination body.
Many of us would be perfectly willing to turn ICANN over to organizational/ corporate
membership classes, *if* we knew for a fact that its activities would be confined to
narrow technical coordination, within a framework of transferable property rights that
created an efficient market for the resources it controls. Since ICANN--and the faction
that has won effective control of it in the short term--seems determined to do much
more than that, we must demand what are essentially political remedies: representation,
procedural safeguards, etc.
> > C. Private, Bottom-Up Coordination
> >
> >Funding: The WP notes that "the new corporation's activities would need to=
> > be open to all persons who are directly affected by the entity, with no=
> > undue financial barriers to participation or unreasonable restrictions on=
> > participation based on technical or other such requirements." The first=
> > part of this requirement, "undue financial barriers," raises the question=
> > of how high the membership fee may be without being "undue." For example,=
> > the "Organization" model's >$1000 minimum membership fee for corporations=
> > might exclude many smaller e-commerce businesses, who would nonetheless=
> > have a financial stake in ICANN decisions.
The connection between financial support and membership is probably the most important
and difficult issue you have to deal with. There are no easy answers but I encourage
you to look at the way existing standards organiztions do this. ATIS bases its
membership charge upon the revenues of the corporation. Some pay $200,000 , but it also
has a <$200 (if I recall correctly) membership available for individuals. I would
rather see ICANN funded by memberships than by "taxes" on IP/domain name services. I
believe (and this is an off-the-cuff judgment) that its incentives are better aligned
with the public interest that way. But this requires a lot more thinking and analysis
-- a fusion of economics expertise as well as a better historical knowledge of how
standards organizations have worked. Transactions coss economics, anyone? Do they teach
that at Harvard?
> > ICANN could be funded solely through a percentage=
> > of domain registration fees, channeled through the SOs;
Channeled through the SOs? ??? Are you implying that the DNSO will be an operational
entity that collects fees from every domain name registrant? Doesn't square with what's
shaping up in either proposal. Thank God.
> >D. Representation
> > Article V, Section 2 gives substantial latitude to the SOs in choosing=
> > their representatives to the Board, however: "Immediately upon the=
> > recognition of a Supporting Organization by the Board pursuant to Section=
> > 3(b) of Article VI, the Board shall request that such supporting=
> > Organization nominate three persons to be directors. Upon receipt of such=
> > nominations, the Board shall elect such persons as members of the Initial=
> > Board." Section 11 states that "If an SO votes to remove their appointed=
> > Board Member, the "Board shall vote to remove such Director." At no point=
> > do the By-Laws provide for the Board to overrule or decline a nomination=
> > from a SO. Thus four At-Large Directors from a single region would=
> > preclude the nomination of a SO-representative Director from that region,=
> > but provide no means of enforcing the Section 6 prohibition. The same=
> > problem would occur if the only Director from a given region was a=
> > SO-representative Director, and his/her SO elected a Director from another=
> > region in his/her stead.
Seems like you have identified a significant problem in the Articles.
> >Election Oversight Committee: Each of the three models contemplates a large=
> > number -- perhaps hundreds of thousands -- of potential nominees.
Are you joking? You'll be extraordinarily lucky if you get hundreds of thousands of
*members*. Simply restricting nominees to "members in good standing" solves most of the
problem. Think in terms of thousands of members and, at most, hundreds of nominees.
> > One suggestion within the RCS Group for dealing with this level of complexity=
> > is to have a committee of the ICANN Board winnow the candidate pool before=
> > elections. The procedure for winnowing is, obviously, a matter that would=
> > itself have a large impact on the election outcomes; the RCS Group has not=
> > yet examined the possible procedures in any depth. This "electoral college"=
> > structure is formally a part of the "Individual" model, although it could=
> > be an option in any model.
No "winnowing" please. That kind of process invites abuse. You simply need to define
clear eligibility criteria and apply them.
--
M I L T O N M U E L L E R S Y R A C U S E U N I V E R S I T Y
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
School of Information Studies http://istweb.syr.edu/~mueller/
