Question: Given the relatively small number of ICANN At Large Members from North America, it would be simple for a few large companies to dominate future elections of At Large directors. How do you propose to address this issue and otherwise ensure that the integrity of the election process is maintained?

Nominee Replies

Donald Langenberg - posted on 2000-09-24 13:09:19 I can't answer your question specifically, but would simply comment that the task here is surely to promote and, to the extent possible, ensure balanced participation by all stakeholders and to avoid disproportionate influence from any interest group, whether it is a few large companies, Linux fanatics, or whatever. Harris Miller - posted on 2000-09-23 18:33:51 The key to maintaining the integrity of the process -- and even improving it -- is to expand the active involvement of the user community and to ensure the process stays transparent. New and creative means of reaching out is a means of minimizing the potential advantage some large organizations (not just companies) have in communicating with an audience. Emerson Tiller, J.D., Ph.D. - posted on 2000-09-19 22:38:59 Good question. Look at who won positions on this ballot through the member nomination phase: a Cisco employee (Karl) and a former IBM employee (Barbara). Can you think of two larger companies? And then there is me (Emerson) who comes from the University of Texas. With about 50,000 students, can you think of a university organization much larger? So, each of the three member-nominated candidates come from large companies or universities. Did we benefit from those associations? How many Cisco employees registered and voted on Karl's behalf, IBM employees on Barbara's behalf, UT students or faculty on my behalf? I don't know, but there is room for suspicion. What happened to the little guy? And most of the candidates selected by the NonCom have substantial organizational affiliations as well and may have co-workers and associates ready to pull the lever for their buddies on October 1. What to do? As Larry points out, expanding the size of membership is the best way to water down these organizational effects. But where the other candidates have talked the talk, I have walked the walk on this one. I set up icannVote.com to alert the public and assist in registration. It's not the perfect site, but some people found it informative and useful. I set up this site even before Center for Democracy and Technology, American Libraries Association, and Common Cause announced their on-line registration campaigns (and I'm not knocking their campaigns -- they were great to do it and I'm sure they had a bigger impact than my efforts). But I was out front on this early on, and will continue to be. Lawrence Lessig - posted on 2000-09-19 18:39:25 Great issue. The at-large membership should be expanded, but it will require that ICANN earn the respect of more internet users.