Jon Zittrain wrote:
>This is one reason why the constituencies seem so unwieldy to me, and the
>arbitrariness of their definition is clear: commercial trademark interests
>get votes both through the tm and commercial constituencies; include
>individuals within non-commercial and they get one set, include them as
>part of an IDNO and they get two. Funny, though: I was there in Singapore
>when it seemed clear that consensus had been built around the
>constituency-based DNSO proposal. At the time it must have seemed like pie
>slices for everyone.
At the time, it seemed like a fair compromise.
In exchange for the constituency pie slices, we also received this:
"Individual domain name holders should be able to participate in
constituencies for which they qualify." (See,
http://www.icann.org/dnso-formation.html). At the time, I was
extraordinarily pleased.
This phrase, "Individual domain name holders should be able to
participate in constituencies for which they qualify," should have meant
that individual domain holders with commercial sites could participate in
the commercial constituency, non-commercial sites in the NCDNHC, etc. And
individuals with trademark rights in a domain name should have been able
to participate in the trademark constituency (but the ICANN Board thought
otherwise).
Since Singapore, constituency organizers (and the ICANN Board, via its
oversight role) have viewed this Board resolution as a problem to be
routed around. They've eliminated individuals from every single
constituency. Individuals just don't "qualify" (even if they have
commercial businesses, non-profit interests, or hold and use trademarks.)
And so you're right. We now have arbitrary distinctions.
The fact that a site is operated by one person rather than a company or
organization seems a very artificial distinction. Especially when applied
to domain name policy (or better, domain name "technical coordination").
It's not at all clear to me that a museum or university has a different
set of interests in domain name policy than an individual who runs a
not-for-profit informational web site. And why the ICANN Board believed
that trademark organizations were better able to represent trademark
interests than the actual owners/users of the trademarks continues to be
a mystery (the minutes are silent; so much for "transparency").
When we agreed to the compromise in Singapore, some may have wanted a pie
slice, but others of us wanted the other components of the compromise.
We're still waiting.
-- Bret
