[council] Re:

["vinton g. cerf" <vinton.g.cerf@wcom.com>]

thanks Jeff; I will share this with the board.

vint

At 03:23 PM 2/24/2003 -0500, Neuman, Jeff wrote:

> Dear Vint and
> other members of the ICANN Board,
>
>  
>
> This letter is in response to a letter you have received from the
> Commercial and Business Users Constituency of ICANN
> (http://www.icann.org/correspondence/cade-to-cerf-24feb03.htm),
> stating that it was their understanding that the "equalized
> voting" provided for in the new ICANN Bylaws did not apply to the
> selection of the two directors to be chosen from the GNSO and hinting
> that had they known of the recent interpretation of the Bylaws from the
> General Counsel, they may not have supported the weighted voting. 
> In addition, they argue that ICANN should revert to its old and
> inefficient method of voting, "one constituency one vote", for
> these directors, because elections do not occur frequently. These
> arguments are without merit and fly in the face of what ICANN's Reform
> effort is all about.
>
>  
>
>  From the very beginning of the ICANN Reform effort, the gTLD Registries
> and gTLD Registrars acknowledged that true reform was needed both of the
> ICANN Policy Process as well as the process of selecting ICANN Board
> Directors.   As the ICANN Board properly realized, not all
> stakeholders are equally affected by the policies recommended and passed
> by the ICANN Board of Directors. Not only are the gTLD registrars and
> registries responsible for most of the funding that ICANN receives, but
> they, unlike any other stakeholders, are contractually bound to comply
> with any ICANN consensus policies.  New or changed policies can have
> significant financial, business and operational impacts on their
> operations.  Although the reformed ICANN facilitates bottoms-up
> decision making, the reality is that there will be times when the ICANN
> Board Directors will be called up on to make policy decisions in which
> there may be disagreement among the contracted and non-contracted
> parties.  
>
>  
>
> It would be inconsistent, to say the least, to have an equalized voting
> structure that recognizes the need, as you have, for weighted voting in
> the policy process, but not in the selection of ICANN Board Directors
> within the GNSO, who may be called upon to make such
> decisions.   For if the GNSO voted for its ICANN Board
> Directors, as the Business Constituency argues, "one constituency,
> one vote", one can easily see that such a vote would be susceptible
> to capture by those that are not under contract with ICANN.  After
> all, there are currently four non-contracting constituencies and that
> number will surely increase over the next couple of years (adding a small
> business constituency, an academics constituency, an individuals
> constituency, etc. as was hinted at during the reform process) as
> compared with two contracting parties.
>
>  
>
> The gTLD Registries would like to ensure that the ICANN Board Directors
> selected from the GNSO are truly representative of the GNSO community,
> which not only consists of user constituencies, but also contracting
> parties.  There are many issues which uniquely affect the
> contracting parties, and it is not unreasonable to expect that such
> views, and persons representing those views, reflect such a diverse
> composition.  The gTLD Registry Constituency believes that this
> process will only work if the safeguards proposed by the ERC and adopted
> by the ICANN Board in Shanghai are maintained.  The proposal by the
> Commercial and Business Users Constituency will polarize the very
> constituents who are attempting to work cooperatively in the reformed
> ICANN.
>
>  
>
> We believe that the General Counsel's interpretation of the Bylaws with
> respect to weighted voting is the only way to interpret how the GNSO is
> to select its two ICANN Board of Directors.  Without such a
> structure, we believe that it would be impossible to achieve "the
> broadest possible support of the GNSO."
>
>  
>
> Sincerely,
>
>  
>
> Jeffrey J. Neuman
>
> Chair, gTLD Registries Constituency
>  
> ** The following Registries have expressed
> their support with the above statement:  VeriSign, Inc., Afilias,
> Ltd., NeuLevel, Inc. and RegistryPro, Inc.  In the interests of
> getting this statement to the ICANN Board before your discussion of the
> Bylaw corrections, we are submitting this statement despite the fact that
> the other registries were unable to provide their express support to this
> statement by the time of submission.  However, we believe that the
> above statement is consistent with previous formal statements of the gTLD
> Constituency as a whole and that it therefore, represents the views of
> the constituency.

Vint Cerf
SVP Architecture & Technology
WorldCom
22001 Loudoun County Parkway, F2-4115
Ashburn, VA 20147
703 886 1690 (v806 1690)
703 886 0047 fax