[Fwd: [Membership] comment to be read at the MAC meeting]

[Antoun Nabhan <anabhan@law.harvard.edu>]

>Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 17:20:15 -0500
>Subject: [Fwd: [Membership] comment to be read at the MAC meeting]
>Sender: cabell@mama-tech.com
>From: cabell@mama-tech.com
>To: anabhan@law.harvard.edu
>
>My message to membership@icann.org will bounce.  Would you mind
>forwarding it for me?
>dc
>Subject: Re: [Membership] comment to be read at the MAC meeting
>Sender: cabell@mama-tech.com
>From: cabell@mama-tech.com
>To: anabhan@law.harvard.edu
>Content-Type: multipart/Mixed; boundary="openmail-part-0d72233d-00000002"
>
>I just wrote him a reply explaining that we spent the last two days on this issue.  As far as I'm concerned, it is already on the
>record by virtue of his message to the list and today's presentation on the issue.
>dc
>
>-------message to membership@icann.org-----
>
>Paul Stauffer wrote:
>
>> A point I would like the MAC to address during the open meeting on March 2:
>>
>> I would posit that the interests of any organization are really nothing
>> more than the sum of the interests of the individual people involved in the
>> organization: members, shareholders, employees, business clients, and so
>> on.  If this is true, what argument can be made to support the notion that
>> organizations should have direct representation and/or voting rights within
>> the ICANN at-large membership?  Should it not simply fall to the
>> individuals with interests in the organization to represent those views?
>>
>> I would appreciate hearing the views of the committee members on this
>> matter, whether they agree with my initial postulate or not.  Comments from
>> the mailing list are also invited.
>>
>> Regards,
>> - Paul
>>
>Your opinion is strongly supported by many of the MAC members and we spent most
>of the last two days debating this single issue.  At this time, we are still
>not in agreement about it.
>
>Some of us, including me, reject your assumption that a corporation is merely
>the sum of its staff.  An employee of L.L.Bean (or an ISP) does not necessarily
>share the opinions of management, particularly concerning domain names.  I do
>not think we should expect the employee to vote the "company line" instead of
>his/her personal interests, or expect that L.L.Bean's interests will be
>adequately represented by staff who may only be temporary.  They are separate
>and distinct entities with separate and distinct interests and this is why the
>law treats them separately.
>
>Another reason I support corporate membership is because I think ICANN needs
>it.  I am not at all assured that there will be enough individuals to
>financially and politically support ICANN through the very difficult and
>possibly combative hurdles it faces, particularly if companies are not admitted
>into the DNSO.  I do not support giving corporations more than one vote (and we
>debated whether the person voting for the corporation could also vote as an
>individual and in the DNSO).
>
>Individual membership works well if there are lots of people participating.  It
>doesn't work as well with only a handful of activists.
>
>I don't see this issue as a right vs. wrong value judgment, just my personal
>best guess at what will stabilize the organization.  The entire committee
>agreed, however, that we certainly didn't want any particular interest
>(corporations included) to have undue influence on ICANN.
>
>Diane Cabell
>MAC
>
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Antoun Nabhan            * "To understand privacy, one must first 
anabhan@law.harvard.edu  * understand shame"      - Janna Malamud-Smith
Berkman Center for       * Visit "Privacy in Cyberspace":
 Internet & Society      *    http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool