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[council] NCDNHC Response to Threatened Cutoff of NC Voting Rights
On Feb 1, 2002, representatives of the Noncommercial
Domain Name Holders Constituency received an email
asking us to show cause why our voting rights in the
Names Council should not be suspended.
This is the formal response of the NCDNHC Adcom.
Here are your "causes:"
1. The NCDNHC is making a good faith effort to collect
funds.
A membership dues program was initiated in the Fall.
We have collected about $6,000. Additional funds are
still coming in, as are additional memberships.
Collection was delayed somewhat by ICANN's method of
invoicing, which involved emailing 3Mb pdf files
directly to members. We greatly appreciate the
administrative support of ICANN staff, but many of our
members could not receive the ICANN invoice, due to
the size of the file. We are still dealing with the
consequences of that.
At any rate, when this program was instituted we made
it clear to the Names Council that we would NOT be
able to meet the deadlines imposed by the Names
Council sanctions program, but that over the longer
term we can be expected to develop stable and
substantial sources of financial support. At that time
we received assurances from several members that we
should go ahead with our efforts to raise money.
2. Suspension of our voting rights would be
counterproductive.
Eliminating our voting rights will also eliminate any
future contributions from NCDNHC. The only effect of
such an action will be to INCREASE the financial
support burden of other constituencies.
NCDNHC member organizations cannot be expected to
continue to provide financial support for the DNSO if
they are barred from voting. The constituency has
shown that it can generate funds, even in our current
relativelydisorganized state. With some forbearance
that amount will steadily grow. We see no reason why
DNSO would want to cut itself off from the funds that
we do generate.
3. Suspension of voting rights would undermine the
legitimacy and effectiveness of the DNSO.
The DNSO was constructed to be a policy making body
that provides representation to the various interest
groups with a stake in domain name issues. It cannot
fulfill that function unless all groups are
represented. The DNSO has already received widespread
criticism for imbalances in its representational
structure. To eliminate the voting rights of the
entire noncommercial sector because of a temporary
monetary shortfall that does not impair the DNSO's or
ICANN's ability to function would be perceived by the
rest of the world as small-minded. It would
undermine the only raison d'etre of the DNSO, which is
a mechanism for generating bottom-up consensus among
affected stakeholders.
4. Unrealistic expectations.
While we accept and are trying to meet our financial
obligations to DNSO, the NCDNHC is not composed of
organizations that generate multi-million dollar
revenue streams by means of domain names, nor is it
composed of large-scale telecommunication or content
producer businesses for whom lobbying is a routine cost
of business. It is therefore not realistic to apply
the same financial support standards to us as to the
other constituencies.
To conclude, there are strong and sufficient
reasons for the sanctions NOT to be applied in this
case. We hope that the Names Council as a whole will
vote that way at its upcoming meetings.
Milton Mueller
YJ Park
Dany Vandromme
Thierry Amoussougbo
NCDNHC Adcom
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