[Membership] Re: Individual Memberships

[Daniel Kaplan <dkaplan@terra-nova.fr>]

A 21:32 12/02/99 +0100, Daniel Kaplan a écrit :
>>Actually, its the same as Kents so I wonder why you are shying away from it.
>>If the CEO is voting on behalf of the organization but therefore *cant* vote
>>again as himself its as though the organization had no vote.

Hmmm... You may have a point there, so this is why I took some time in
responding.

>>Why would a
>>CEO want to give up his personal vote for a corporations vote? Why not have
>>the individual vote as he wishes and rather keep the organization out? The
>>companies are going to be there anyway simply from the membership of their
>>officers so their interests are represented. The formal presence of the
>>company is only for their benefit of association with ICANN which might have
>>some promotional priviledges.

However, I believe these explanations weaken your point. I shall start with
these:
- I still believe most individuals in the world will not be interested in
being members of ICANN (once again, this does not mean they should be
barred from joining; only that most of them just won't). I'd be happy to be
proven wrong, but I don't think I will. CEOs may want to join, but in most
cases it will be in order to defend their company's position. So they won't
much care if they can't vote again as individuals.

- I don't agree with your last statement on why companies would join. This
kind of sponsorship only works for large firms or firms which have a strong
professional interest in ICANN's activities. I'm thinking of the small,
non-internet-professional firm: this one will not use ICANN sponsorship as
a promotional vehicle.

- Furthermore, I would not like ICANN to be sponsored by firms. This would
cast a heavy doubt on its objectivity, since a share of its budget would
depend on these sponsors.

So why do I think your point is important?
- I agree with you and several others on the list who said they would not
like the representative of an organization to get 2 votes, one as the
organization (assuming, which is what I support, that organizations get
only 1 vote, regardless of the number of members, employees or domain names
they have).

- So Kent's proposal to have organizations designate a representative, and
let this representative vote there barring him from voting again as an
individual, is logical. But then, it is true that in this case, it looks
like an individual vote.

Where's the difference? I don't know the correct term in English, but in
French it's called "mandat imperatif" ("imperative mandate"?). When an
organization joins, it designates one representative, but this
representative MUST vote according to his/her organization's policy. If
he/she does not, he/she can be replaced as the organization's
representative in ICANN.

Daniel



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