[Comment-Dnso] IDNO Not Representative, Says Board. But Which Constituency Is?

[Michael Sondow <msondow@iciiu.org>]

> COMPUTERGRAM INTERNATIONAL: AUGUST 26 1999
>
> + ICANN Postpones Decision on Individuals' Representation
> 
> By Nick Patience
> 
> The interim board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned
> Names and Numbers (ICANN) has decided for a second time to put
> off making a decision on whether to have a constituency
> representing individuals to go alongside the ones representing
> companies, trademarks interests, ISPs and so on.

<snip>

> The reasons for the procrastination is either that the board
> does not see either the need for such a constituency, given
> that the board will eventually comprise members elected by an
> "at large" membership, or because it thinks the organization
> trying to form the individuals' constituency is not
> representative of the internet community.

Is the ccTLD constituency of the DNSO representative of the 250-odd
ccTLDs? Is the Commercial and Business constituency representative
of the hundreds of thousands of businesses and commercial
enterprises using the Internet? Is the ISP constituency
representative of the world's ISPs, numbering now in the thousands?
Is the Non-Commercial constituency - comprised almost exclusively by
two American associations, ISOC and ATM - representative of the
non-commercial organizations of even one state in the U.S., much
less of the U.S.A. or of the world? Is the Registrar constituency -
dominated entirely by CORE, an organization of perhaps one tenth of
one percent of the worlds domain name registrars - representative of
them?

But the self-appointed ICANN board can use any pretext, any pretext
whatsoever, to keep Internet end-users out of the NewCo, because
there is no public, governmental, or judicial review of its
activities. Until there is such review and oversight, ICANN will
remain what it has been since its inception: a coalition of
special-interest groups creating policies for regulating the
Internet in their benefit regardless of consequences for the users,
supposed to be the beneficiaries of its activity.

In the sense that the Internet is a service to society, ICANN has
betrayed society, that is, the citizens who compose it. In the sense
that the U.S. Government and the other governments supporting ICANN
in this process are empowered to serve the interests of citizens,
they have betrayed their trust.

The persons, organizations, and agencies responsible for this vile
and illegal thing that is ICANN deserve no less than to be
destituted from their functions and processed for violation of the
laws enacted everywhere to preserve representativity of government,
freedom of competition in enterprise for the benefit of citizens,
and the rights of individuals, as opposed to businesses, guaranteed
by the constitutions of all countries where freedom and liberty have
been fought for and won.

Only the punishment of those responsible for the outrage that is
ICANN will return the Internet to the course of free and progressive
evolution that it was engaged upon before this subversive and
unpopular process began.


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Michael Sondow           I.C.I.I.U.     http://www.iciiu.org
Tel. (718)846-7482                        Fax: (603)754-8927
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