Berlin 27 May, 1999
Today we were handed the resolutions that the ICANN Board had taken, after 3 days of
hearings and in-camera deliberations.
1.Recognition of 6 commercial contituencies of the DNSO.
2.The determination that no appropriate proposal was received for the sole
non-commercial constituency.
3. Rejection, by complete silence, of the application for recognition of the
Individual DN owners as a constituency.
The bottom-up effort to organize the constituency in accordance with the guidelines of
ICANN and within the deadlines announced, and the plea for recognition made both in
writing and in Berlin at great expense, was not even acknowledged.
WHY?
If I, as a Board member, had been entrusted with the responsibility for the
establishment of a representative structure for the stakeholders in the DNS, I would
have erred on the side of caution if it came to excluding any self-constituted
grouping asking for participation in the DNSO.
I would put them to the test with regards to representativity, democratic and open
structure and such criteria, but I would rather encourage and include a genuine
bottom-up effort, than disenfranchise a grouping that cannot find a place in any of
the "recognized" constituencies.
Disenfranchisement plants the seeds for instability, frustration and anger.
Yet the process of the travelling ICANN meetings in expensive places around the world
( staying in Berlin for 4 days cost at least DM800, and I am not talking about flying
there from New Zealand) makes it practically impossible for a true grass roots effort
to succeed.
The hotel where the Board and those on expense accounts stay, costs over 350 DM per
night, yet no internet connectivity at all was available to the conference
participants, who had to find a cybercafe far away to report to their constituents who
could not physically be there.
Thoughtless or deliberate?
When I made the presentation for the idno constituency, no printout could be made of
the constituency's charter and the request to display the charter on the overhead
screen was not met.
A technical hiccup, or deliberate?
I now have a question to the Board.
Will you continue to display the contact information, principles, membership
elegibility, names of founder-members and links to charter of the IDNO on the ICANN
website to further aid our bottom-up organizing effort?
Can the constituency then be considered at the next board meeting?
Or would you now, after refusing to consider that individual DN owners should have
representatives on the Names Council, recommend that I give up, go home,and don't come
back.
Why can non-commercial interests not be represented by non-commercial organizations?
Is 16 commercial representatives on the NC not enough?
Did NSI's offer to give a seat to their non-commercial customers prompt the warning
that they should not nominate now more that one?
Among more positive features,our constituency is also defined by 2 negatives:
1. no organiztions as members. No problems with weighing votes.
2. No classification of activity. No problems with determining what is commercial or
non-comercial.
Personally caring for the DN is sole criterion.
--Joop--
