[Membership] Comments

[James Seng <jseng@pobox.org.sg>]

I refer to:

--- CUT HERE ---
4.  Online registration procedures should be favored, however reasonable
efforts should be made to authenticate the identity of applicants.  The
suggested procedure for registration is as follows: an online form is
filled out by the applicant who may thereafter be required to supply
physical proof of existence. 

ICANN will respond by postal mail sending the applicant a membership
identification code to use for voting and other transactions.  An applicant
shall provide the following data in the application: 

o name 
o physical mail address 
o e-mail contact (preferably an individual account) 
o an organization shall also provide the name of its voting representative, 
  that representative's e-mail address, and evidence of legal identity 
--- CUT HERE --- 

I believe there are two camps of thoughts with the respect of membership.
1. you trust people are honest and eliminate those who are found to be fake
2. you try your best to authenticate them as best as you can

As it stands, I am a supporter for (2) as the integrity of the at-large
membership is quite important (9 directors?) and consider at-large members
have 1-1 voting rights. Thus, I believe the requirements for authentication
should be more strict. 

For instance, it is pretty easy for me to duplicate a dozens of email
accounts on various machines, registered a dozen of P.O box as my physical
address and hey, i got a dozen of votes under my control.

Hence, I believe that the evidence of legal identity should be extended to
individual membership and not just organization. Afterall, if ICANN is
going thru the process of doing postal authentication, it might as well
request that the some forms of legal identity (an verified photocopied will
do) be send as proof of existence. 

Of course, such identity can be faked too but that is definately more
easily verifiable than a simple postal address. 

-James Seng