Question: Mrs. Cattaui is the chief executive of ICC which acts as treasurer of the business constituency of ICANN's DNSO. Assuming ICC does not withdraw from DNSO nor does Mrs. Cattaui resign her job, is she ineligible to serve as an At-Large Director? Could a member challenge her candidacy?

Nominee Replies

Emerson Tiller, J.D., Ph.D. - posted on 2000-10-08 20:50:49 Tough question. The degree to which a conflict of interest should disqualify a candidate is not as clear as in the normal governmental context. If a candidate reveals completely his/her role in an ICANN related interest, and the at large membership elects that person nonetheless, then I think the at large results are determinative. But if the candidate does not reveal that interest, then closer scrutiny may be called for. Lyman Chapin - posted on 2000-10-08 16:00:48 If Ms. Cattaui were elected to the ICANN board, I would expect her to comply with ICANN's conflict of interest policy (http://www.icann.org/general/coi-policy.htm). Assuming that she did so - recusing herself from discussions or votes in which a conflict of interest would exist, for example, as one of the ICANN directors from the DNSO has already done with respect to reviewing the current crop of TLD applications - I would not consider her to be ineligible to serve as an at-large director. Lawrence Lessig - posted on 2000-10-07 06:28:56 I do not believe she is ineligible. But as Emerson Tiller has well argued, one issue in this campaign is who at-large board members should represent? To the extend the business and tech communities have slotted representatives through the supporting organization structure, at-large members should, in my view, not be from those organizations.