RE: [Membership] MAC reports and models-New URLs

["Antony Van Couvering" <avc@interport.net>]

Although this discussion is *old* (over a week), it does give me a chance to
introduce a question to those considering ICANN membership issues.

As a member of the team that put together the Paris draft, we "kicked the
can" on DNSO membership issues by saying that membership in the DNSO was a
subset of ICANN membership.  The mechanism we thought of was that when
someone applied to become an ICANN member, they would "tick a box" to become
a member of the DNSO as well.  We thought that it was outside of our
expertise and knowledge to determine what a member would be, and that it
would be presumptuous to come up with a definition, especially with the MAC
working out these difficult issues.  We basically wanted a very open
membership, and we wanted to allow all ICANN members to become members of
the DNSO, and we couldn't envisage a situation where someone would be
allowed to become a member of the DNSO and *not* a member of ICANN.  So we
kicked the can.

In the context of making all domain registrants automatically members of
ICANN with the paying of a small levy, this has some operational
implications.  How would this be managed?  How would someone indicate on
their domain registration form that they wanted to become a member of the
DNSO?

Also, what about ccTLD registrants?  Surely they have as much right to be a
member of ICANN, but the changing of registration procedures in 240
different systems is not trivial, and could be quite a burden (first in
taking the registration, then in passing the information on to ICANN) on
some of the poorer, non-automated registries (yes, Virginia, the majority of
registries are manually operated).

I quite like the idea, but these factors need to be considered.

Antony

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-membership@ISI.EDU [mailto:owner-membership@ISI.EDU]On
> Behalf Of Greg Crew
> Sent: Thursday, February 04, 1999 11:17 PM
> To: Kent Crispin; Membership
> Subject: Re: [Membership] MAC reports and models-New URLs
>
>
> At 05:10 PM 2/4/99 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:
> >On Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 03:40:59PM +1100, Greg Crew wrote:
> >> The application of a small "levy" per DN registration has
> certainly been
> >> considered as a funding mechanism for ICANN. It has some obvious
> advantages.
> >> I am not sure if payment of a levy, embedded in the registration fee
> >> charged by the registrar, can be considered as a membership fee also. I
> >> suspect membership might be something that needs to be applied
> for, in full
> >> knowledge of the implications. I doubt if such a complication would be
> >> welcome to registrars.
> >> However, DN holders, having paid the levy, and applying for membership,
> >> could be considered to have paid the membership fee.
> >> Greg.
> >
> >A small fee does act as a filter for completely frivolous
> >memberships, but there are additional measures that could be taken.
> >
> >For example, has there been any discussion of the notion of an
> >"membership agreement"? Requiring a signed application for
> >membership, faxed or postal mailed, has a couple of benefits: it
> >gives a weak additional form of authentication, it would make it
> >somewhat difficult for a single individual to submit a hundred
> >applications; it would (as mentioned) give a weak screen for
> >frivolous members, and finally and most importantly, it could spell
> >out clearly what the rights and obligations of membership were, in a
> >legally binding way.  In particular, it could specify rules of
> >conduct for discussion, rules that could be enforced.
>
> We are trying to stay away from paper communications (post or fax), for
> cost and time reasons. ICANN should conduct its communications on-line as
> far as possible. I envisage posting conditions on a web site, and
> requiring
> applicants for membership to state in the e-mail application that
> they have
> read and accept them.
> Greg.
>
> >
> >--
> >Kent Crispin, PAB Chair				"Do good,
> and you'll be
> >kent@songbird.com				lonesome." -- Mark Twain
> >
> >
>
>