Hi! I am a professor at the University of Texas (Austin) and I research, write, and teach about Internet domain name policy (and ICAAN's role). I am also the chairman of icannVote.com - an independent public information and voter registration site. With over 5000 unique visitors, we helped many people learn about ICANN and how to register to be an at-large member. I have owned and managed websites (and domain names associated with those sites). I have received grants from the National Academy of Sciences (2000-2001) and the Society for Information Management (1999-2000) to study policy issues affecting the Internet, including domain name assignment issues relating to ICANN. I also edit the publication Internet Law and Business which summarizes and reports the major decisions announced by ICANN.

More general qualifications:

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (Business and Public Policy)
B.A (Mathematics) and J.D. (Law), Indiana University
Chairman, icannVote.com
Associate Professor of Business, Technology and Law, University of Texas (Austin)
Editor, Internet Law and Business (ICANN domain name cases reported)
Domain Name Owner
Visiting Faculty Member: Yale Law School; University of Pennsylvania Law School; and University of California, Berkeley
Grant, National Academy of Science, 2000-2001 (Proliferation of Internet Patents) Grant, Society for Information Management, 1999-2000 (Internet Policy Issues)

My Platform (extended version: http://64.82.55.205/tiller.html)

1. Reform at-large membership process to be more inclusive. The current membership drive excluded thousands. This was the result of (a) ICANN's lack of communication to the broader Internet community about what it does, and (b) ICANN's overloaded servers. For example, according to ICANN's registration statistics, women have been largely excluded. If ICANN's membership does not better reflect the broader Internet community, ICANN's legitimacy will be questioned. As a director, I would ensure that information about ICANN is circulated widely through outlets intended to reach every group of society. Registration should be allowed by fax, email and regular mail to ensure that all who try can get their membership accepted.

2. Reform ICANN's Domain Dispute Policy to better balance free speech and the interests of small entrepreneurs with big business' concern for cybersquatting. While the current policy has effectively stopped much of the abusive cybersquatting, the policy, has also allowed ICANN’s arbitrators to take domain names away from individuals who have not violated the trademark rights of others. For example, one arbitrator took away the domain crew.com from an individual and gave it to JCrew (who already owned jcrew.com). Another arbitrator took corinthians.com from a U.S. citizen who had posted biblical scriptures and gave it to a Brazilian soccer team named Corinthians. The policy needs to be improved to narrow the situations where a name can be taken away from a legitimate owner. There should be an inexpensive appeals process at ICANN to protect against inconsistent and wrongly decided decisions by ICANN designated arbitrators.

3. Vastly increase the availability of TLD's (such as ".child," or ".rel" for religion) to allow individuals and groups to easily search and self-identify on the Internet.

4. Allow at-large membership to determine majority, if not all, board seats.

5. Prevent government censorship of speech on the Internet.

6. To ensure that no one country with a large population dominates a board seat in a voting region, ICANN needs to expand the number of at-large board seats per region, or restrict the number of terms a given country can hold the seat. Otherwise, Canadians will be unlikely to ever hold a seat on ICANN.