[council] Re: Individuals' Constituency -- The way forward

[DannyYounger@cs.com]

Tony Harris writes:  Whereas I have no objection to the idea of individual 
name holders being adequately represented in the ICANN structure (I happen to 
be one myself), my question is: If an IDNH
constituency is implemented, who will the proposed At Large SO be 
representing ?

Dear Tony,

The At-Large Study Committee's preliminary draft recommendation proposed a 
definition for "At-Large member" as "individual domain name holder".  This 
recommendation/definition has met with a barrage of appropriate criticism as 
it effectively serves to disenfranchise major segments of the worldwide user 
community that do not hold domain names.  

Preliminary recommendations are often no more than trial balloons, and we 
should not be tempted to accept such proposals without a thorough review.  
The ALSC report itself was no more than 22 pages in length with minimal 
analysis offered and even less justification for several key recommendations, 
while the NAIS documents, by way of a contrasting example, exceeded more than 
250 pages and  thoroughly supported the conclusions reached therein.

The proposal to establish the At-Large as an SO instead of as a membership 
body under Article II of the Bylaws is but one of many questionable 
recommendations, as is the recommendation to abrogate the founding compact 
that ICANN made with the US government and the Internet community (and to 
thereby elect less than the requisite number of At-Large Directors promised). 
  

What we need to be asking ourselves is... while there is a need for better 
representation of individuals now at this very moment within the DNSO, can we 
justify an ongoing effort to deny them their participatory rights while we 
debate theoretical constructs for an At-Large which may not even come into 
existence within the next calendar year?

Yes, there is a possibility of overlap in the future.  So what?  Is that 
potentially any worse than the overlap that we currently have between the 
Business Constituency and the Intellectual Property Constituency (to use but 
one example out of many)?  In the future, there might not even be a DNSO (as 
the provider/ developer/user construct would seem to dictate).  That should 
not dissuade us from doing what is clearly warranted now.

All the Board has asked for is a "reasonable proposal".  It is reasonable to 
state that the NC believes that Individuals should be accorded a constituency 
within the DNSO -- note that I did not state individual domain name holders 
(as only a small proportion of individual users hold domain names).

This is an action that we can take now that will end a long-festering 
problem.  

Best regards,
Danny

PS.  I have just completed a written analysis of all public comments posted 
to the ALSC forum  -- the document is about 90 pages long, but fairly quick 
reading.  Should anyone be interested in a copy, please feel free to forward 
me a note.