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ICANN Cluless and out of control? to:[IFWP] ICANN NEWS UPDATE, 7-19-99: ICANN'S RESPONSE TO THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE'S LETTER OF JULY 8]



Joe and all,

  I can't help but provide you to at least take notice of the actual
community input to ICANN in their own archives.  They as Tony
Rutkowski and many others have noticed and pointed out to
you and the ICANN (Initial?) Interim board do NOT bear out
your PR/propoganda statement that you have spammed/shared
with us this day 7/19/99, my birthday, as the letter that Esther
Dyson has falsely sent to the NTIA and Becky Burr.  I wonder if you
Joe, or Esther, are expected to be taken seriously after this rather
blatant misstatement.  I can only surmise that you and the ICANN
(Initial?) Interim board are hoping that the House Commerce
Commission will not review the public comments that are available
on the ICANN web site at, http://www.icann.org/feedback.html and
that that same House and Senate Commerce Commission is
ignorant enough not to have a look at Tony Rutkowski's evaluation
of those "Community Comments".

Excerpt From Tony Rutkowski's evaluation of
http://www.icann.org/feedback.html are as follows:

FACT


As it turns out, ICANN actually has an official
"Community Feedback" site that contains an archive of
all the "reflections of community consensus."  It's the
only site, and it's at http://www.icann.org/feedback.html


If you go to this site and analyze all the available
feedback, you obtain the following ICANN community feedback
statistics:


1. Over the past 8 months, a total of 547 email note
comments have been filed as follows:


Nov-98  20
Dec-98  10
Jan-99  25
Feb-99  30
Mar-99  47
Apr-99  105
May-99  94
Jun-99  128
Jul-99  88 (to date)


2. Two-thirds of the community feedback messages were 3-5 kB -
about 10-30 lines of message text.  Only 7 were over 20 kB.


3. One person is responsible for 20 % of the comments.
Only 17 people have filed more than two comments.
as follows:


Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>                         110
Michael Sondow <msondow@iciiu.org>                          70
jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>                      24
Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>                            9
John B. Reynolds <john@reynolds.chicago.il.us>               8
rb1000@ix.netcom.com (Ron Bennett)                           7
erony@marin.k12.ca.us (Ellen Rony)                           6
Eric Weisberg <weisberg@texoma.net>                          6
John D. Goodspeed <John@Annapolis.Net>                       5
Baumgärtner Alexander <alexander.baumgaertner@khe.siemens.de>4
Russ Smith <russ@russ-smith.com>                             4
Jim R. <InfoCker@worldnet.att.net>                           4
Ed Gerck <egerck@mcg.org.br>                                 3
Darren Nelson <darrenn@reel.com>                             3
markh@superb.com                                             3
Joseph Friedman <josephf@touro.edu>                          3
Richard J. Sexton <richard@sexton.com>                       3



4. 463 of the email notes (85%) were on unique disparate
subjects.  Among the notes in which there were more than
three on the same subject, they were largely the notes of
the single dominant commentor:


Re: more netsol fun (fwd)       11
Re: Contact handles disappearing mysteriously from the whois database!
(fwd)    8
Re: more Internic nightmare (fwd)       7
Network Solutions       6
RE: [IFWP] Re: The Sims-Auerbach Correspondence 5
Re: [IFWP] Slanders and impostures      4
Re: NSI problems anyone? (fwd)  4
domain names    4
RE: [IFWP] The Sims-Auerbach Correspondence (was: The CPT- ICANN
Correspondence 3
Re: Network Solutions loses domain data (fwd)   3
ICC Message to the Board of Directors of ICANN  3
Re: More whois fun. (fwd)       3
Re: Clue? (fwd) 3
Re: whois changes (fwd) 3
domain name registration        3
Re: NetSol on crack? (fwd)      3



5. Analysis.  ICANN's own "community feedback" files of record
reveal clearly there is no "community consensus."  Indeed, it is
preponderantly a chaotic randomness of topics and people combined
with one outspoken critic, and almost none of the material is
more than a few paragraphs long.

=============  end of Excerpt =====================

Regretfully,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman INEGroup (Over 95k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-447-1894
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208


---- Begin included message ----
 July 19, 1999


      J. Beckwith Burr
      Associate Administrator
      Office of International Affairs
      U.S. Department of Commerce
      Room 4701
      1401 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
      Washington, D.C.  20230

      Dear Becky:

           We received your letter of July 8, 1999, and very much
      appreciate the kind words for ICANN's progress to date.  As you are
      fully aware, it is a significant challenge to create a global,
      consensus-development body, not to mention one that is both effective
      and consistent with the objectives of the White Paper.  We think we
      have made very significant progress, notwithstanding the obvious
      difficulties, and we are pleased that you recognize and appreciate
      the very hard work that has been required.

           In this first six months, as we outlined in detail in our Status
      Report, we have seen the beginnings of a working
      consensus-development process.  We are optimistic that once the ICANN
      structure is completed and fully operational, it will be able to meet
      the ambitious objectives set forth for it in the White Paper and the
      Memorandum of Understanding.

           In response to the four points that you identified as areas
      where there was still room for improvement, we certainly accept the
      fact that this process should improve as it matures; by definition, a
      consensus-building process starts with discussion of different views,
      and over time ideally produces convergence of those views into a
      consensus.  While the Board has not yet had the opportunity to
      discuss all these issues in full detail, we have had a brief
      discussion, and I believe I can fairly represent the general reaction
      of the Board.  The Board will no doubt be giving further attention to
      some of these issues in the future, but let me offer this initial
      response:

           1.  ICANN's top priority must be to complete the work necessary
      to put in place an elected Board of Directors on a timely basis.

           We agree completely with this point, and we have been working
      diligently to accomplish this objective as soon as possible.  This is
      our highest priority, but given the bottom-up process for organizing
      the Supporting Organizations and the complexities of the At Large
      membership issue, it has not been possible to move as quickly as you
      or we would have liked.  Nevertheless, we have already publicly
      stated that we expect the Supporting Organizations to elect their
      Board members in time for them to be seated and active at ICANN's
      Annual Meeting in Los Angeles in November.  The election process for
      selecting the At Large Directors is much more complicated, but now
      that the Board has received the report of the Membership Advisory
      Committee, the Board expects to begin to implement that process at
      our meeting in Santiago.  Our goal, which I know you share, is to
      replace each and every one of the current Board members as soon as
      possible, consistent with creating a process that minimizes the risk
      of capture or election fraud and that will lead to a truly
      representative Board.

           2.  ICANN should eliminate the $1 per-year, per-domain
      registration user fee.

           We have decided to defer the collection of the $1 registrar fee,
      for the reasons set forth below.  We have also decided to form a task
      force of the DNS infrastructure entities -- the registries and
      registrars with whom ICANN has or is likely to have contractual
      relationships -- to recommend to ICANN and the Internet community a
      fair and workable allocation of the funding necessary for ICANN cost
      recovery.

           This was a difficult decision to come to, since your suggestion
      on this point raised a number of very significant issues.  ICANN must
      recover its costs, and while there are probably a variety of
      cost-recovery formats that would work, this approach -- where the
      competitive registrars participate in the cost-recovery process based
      on the volume of their registrations -- seemed to the Internet
      community a fair and workable way to spread the costs among the
      registrars according to the benefits they are receiving from the
      newly introduced competitive environment.  It was adopted following a
      thorough process of notice and comment, and was broadly supported by
      a consensus of the community.  We note that the Coalition of Domain
      Name Registrars, a group consisting of most of the registrars that
      would actually be responsible for paying those fees, has written to
      Congress indicating that they have no objections to paying their fair
      share of ICANN's costs in this way.  Thus, we continue to believe
      that this is a fair and appropriate way to spread the cost-recovery
      burden.

           We note that, in your responses to the questions asked of you by
      the Commerce Committee, you agreed that this was a rational and
      appropriate approach that was the result of full notice and comment,
      was consistent with the White Paper, and was fully authorized by the
      Memorandum of Understanding.  Nevertheless, you suggest that, because
      it has become controversial, we should suspend this approach until
      there are elected Board members.  Of course, many issues dealt with
      by this Board are controversial, including most of the duties
      described in the White Paper and the MOU.  If they were not
      controversial, there would be little need for a consensus-development
      organization like ICANN.

           The construction of ICANN cannot be completed without funding.
      Clearly we need a stable financing mechanism for ICANN's necessary
      functions -- including the costs that will be required to create and
      implement an At Large election system that will produce a broadly
      representative elected Board.  The United States Government has asked
      us to do an important job, but it has not provided the means by which
      to carry it out, leaving the job of providing funds to the Internet
      community itself.  To date, ICANN has relied on voluntary donations,
      and a number of people and organizations have been very generous.
      But this is neither an equitable way to allocate the recovery of
      costs nor a process that can work for more than a relatively short
      period, given the range of tasks requested of ICANN.  Thus, if ICANN
      is to continue, it is simply not possible to abandon the
      cost-recovery mechanism that has been produced by the
      consensus-development process and replace it with nothing.

           Given this serious conflict between your request and the reality
      that ICANN must have funding in order to do the work that you and the
      rest of the Internet community want it to do, we have struggled to
      determine an appropriate response to your request.  We have decided
      to defer the collection of the registrar fee, and to create a task
      force consisting of those entities that make up the DNS
      infrastructure -- the name registries, the address registries, and
      the registrars -- to review the options for fair and workable
      cost-recovery mechanisms, and to provide its recommendations for how
      to deal with this problem by October 1, 1999, with an interim report
      (if possible) prior to the Santiago meeting in late August.  We will
      then post those recommendations for public comment, so that the Board
      (which will then consist of a full complement of 19) will be able to
      consider those recommendations at its November Annual Meeting.

           Unfortunately, this approach does not deal with ICANN's
      immediate financial problem.  If the United States Government is
      serious about the progress that ICANN has made and its desire to see
      this process mature, short-term funding must be made available
      quickly.  We urge you to do everything possible to help solve this
      problem.

           3.  ICANN should immediately open its Board Meetings to the
      public.

           We understand the circumstances that prompted this suggestion,
      and we have again struggled to determine the appropriate response.
      ICANN is supposed to be a global, consensus-driven entity.  We do not
      see a global consensus demanding that ICANN hold all its meetings in
      public, although there clearly is controversy.  Thus, the
      determination to adopt this suggestion cannot be based on ICANN's
      identification of an Internet community consensus.  Nevertheless, we
      will hold the Santiago Board meeting as a public meeting, for the
      reasons set forth below.

           The Board believes very strongly that it has carried out its
      responsibilities transparently, recognizing community consensus when
      it exists and encouraging its development when it does not, and all
      in full view of the global public.  The agendas of its meetings are
      posted in advance of each meeting; at each quarterly meeting, the
      agenda is open for full public discussion in advance; any resolutions
      adopted by the Board or decisions taken are announced and released
      immediately following those decisions; and the full minutes of every
      Board meeting are posted for public review.  The Board takes care to
      engage in public discussions of its efforts; it both encourages and
      considers public input, and fully discloses its own decision-making
      criteria.

           The only Board activity not now fully public is the interaction
      between it and its staff, and the discussion among the Board members
      of those staff recommendations, at the exact time that it happens --
      since the full minutes of that interchange, of course, are posted
      publicly shortly after the meeting.  Several members of the Board
      feel strongly that the ability to have private discussions with staff
      and other Board members is a very important contribution to the fact
      that, with only one exception, every decision by this Board has been
      unanimous.  This Board personifies effective consensus
      decision-making, and many of its members feel that losing the ability
      to discuss matters in decisional meetings in private will adversely
      affect the candor of those discussions, and potentially the ability
      to come to working consensus quickly, especially on some of the very
      complicated issues that remain for this Board to deal with.

           Nevertheless, it is clear that this issue has taken on great
      political significance.  It has become a distraction that interferes
      with dealing with the significant challenges that ICANN has been
      given responsibility for, and it threatens to delay the completion of
      the consensus development process is ICANN's basic objective.
      Therefore, we will hold the Santiago meeting as a public meeting, and
      deal with all pending issues publicly (except for personnel or legal
      matters, if any, that might require an executive session).  Following
      Santiago, nine elected Board members will join the current
      complement, and we will defer to that full Board any decisions on
      future meeting procedures, since the experience in Santiago will then
      be available to inform their decisions.  As you know, ICANN's bylaws
      provide that the Annual Meeting (in Los Angeles in November) is a
      public meeting.

           4.    There is concern in the Internet community about
      over-regulation.

           On this point, we certainly understand the concern, but it seems
      misplaced, given the clear limitations in ICANN's articles and bylaws
      on the scope of its permissible activities.  It seems misplaced in
      another respect as well:  ICANN is nothing more than the reflection
      of community consensus.  It is, of course, theoretically possible
      that such a consensus could develop around some proposed ICANN
      position that others would regard as overly regulatory, but the
      presumption in such a circumstance should be, we would imagine, that
      the community consensus was by definition not "overly" regulatory.

           Thus, to the extent some see this as a problem, it is easy to
      deal with and we are happy to do so.  It seems perfectly acceptable
      to include in the various contracts with registrars and registries
      language that says that no ICANN policy is being agreed to in those
      contracts that is not fully consistent with, and reasonably related
      to, the goals of ICANN as set forth in the White Paper, which are
      replicated in ICANN's bylaws.  We do not see that it actually changes
      in any material way the legal rights of any parties to these
      contracts -- which, after all, are themselves the subjects of both
      the consensus development process and individual negotiations -- but
      neither do we believe that it will interfere with any appropriate
      objectives of the consensus development process.  Therefore, we have
      no problem making these representations, since they fully reflect
      both the original concepts that gave birth to ICANN and this Board's
      understanding of ICANN's proper role.

           I hope this is responsive to both the letter and the spirit of
      your suggestions.  We certainly do appreciate the complexities of
      this task -- even more so now than we did when we began this journey.
      We do think we have made great progress despite significant (and to
      some extent unexpected) obstacles, and we are glad to see that you
      agree.  We hope that we can, with your support and assistance, make
      even faster progress in the future.  This Board looks forward eagerly
      to the day when it can tell you that it has completed its work
      successfully.

                                         Sincerely,



                                         Esther Dyson




---- End included message ----