Roberto Gaetano a �crit:
> What would your reaction be if AOL (just to make an example) would show up
> in Berlin with an E-Mail message from each of the owners of an E-Mail
> account with them giving them the proxy?
> Before answering, keep in mind that such E-Mail is not difficult to > fake by AOL
>;>).
True enough, but this is not such a big problem for the NCDNHC
because commercial enterprises can't belong to it and therefore
can't stack the vote with proxies of their company or proxies of
their clients. However, as you say, the problem exists and is real.
Probably the only way to reduce it to a workable solution is to
charge membership fees. That will keep voting down to those willing
to pay the fee (unless "AOL" will pay their fees for them, another
danger).
OTOH, voting in person is totally unworkable. For most small
organizations, sending more than one person to an ICANN meeting is
not financially possible, whereas for the biggies like AOL, IBM,
AT&T, etc., sending five or even ten people is no hardship. We are
already seeing this phenomenon in control in the business and
trademark constituencies, where money is controlling the membership.
How many small businesses are represented in those constituencies?
And yet small business probably outweighs big business by a hundred
to one in the Internet, witness the relative importance of the
NASDAQ to the NYSE for Internet stocks.
> Your intention is good, but I don't see, unfortunately, E-Mail
> proxies as a possible solution. In fact, the MAC has debated
> this issue at length, in view of the individual Membership and
> the election of the At-Large Directors.
I think that if ICANN doesn't come up with some solution to this
fundamental problem, which under present conditions vitiates and
disqualifies all voting a priori, there's hardly any point in
proceeding with elections.
