[ga] Re: [IFWP] Re: CYBER-FEDERALIST No.2: ICANN Yokohama Meeting

[Michael Sondow <msondow@iciiu.org>]

Joe Baptista wrote:
> 
> Hans Klein wrote:

> > 1. Government Officials Question Privatization

> > To date, however, only the industry association part has been implemented,
> > leaving industry interests unopposed by consumer interests.  With only one
> > interest represented, ICANN risks becoming a supply industry association.

No, it doesn't risk "becoming a supply industry association". It is
and has been so from the start. The above is obfuscating
double-talk.

> > (To use language only slightly more direct than that of the officials,
> > ICANN risks becoming a cartel 

No, it doesn't risk "becoming a cartel". It is a cartel, and always
has been.

And, since ICANN is and has been from the start an industry
association and a cartel, all the policies it has made are null,
void, and illegal, according to the antitrust laws of its country of
incorporation.

> > 2. User Representation Not Killed, Only Weakened

> > Alan Davidson of the Center for
> > Democracy and Technology, who sounded the initial alarm about this proposal
> > just a few days before the Yokohama meeting, was among those who spoke
> > cogently at the public comment period.

So what? Over a hundred people on the IFWP list have been angrily
protesting ICANN's manipulations to disenfranchise the users for two
years. 

Where was Alan Davidson when the ICANN Board was appointed? Where
was he when the DNSO was rigged to exclude almost everyone except
infrastructure operators and the trademark lobby? Where was he when
ISOC took over the Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency,
with the conniving of the Board? Answer: biding his time until he
and his friends at CPSR could pretend to be the spokesmen of the
disenfranchised for their own political advantage.

> > While five directors will be elected this fall, the
> > remaining four seats will remain closed for another two years

What's the difference? With a Nominating Committee chosen by the
existing Board, even if all 9 were elected now, they would be
carefully selected so as not to rock the ICANN boat, just as was
done with the nine from the SOs.

> > Thus, user representation will be constrained at
> > 5 of 19 seats, rather than 9 of 19 as envisioned in the bylaws.

There will be no user representation. CDT, CPSR, and all the rest
(including Markle, the ALA, etc.), who have recently appeared in
hopes of exploiting the situation, and who will probably be chosen
by the ICANN Board as the "At-large" directors, do not represent the
users. They are the government-subsidized loyal opposition, that's
all. The only people who represent the users are the users
themselves.

> > The near-unanimity of Board members in their support for measures to weaken
> > At Large representation was striking.

Striking to whom? Alan Davidson and Hans Klein? Were they shocked
and amazed? Where have they been for the past two years, then?
Smoking dope on their farms in Maryland? 

> > Of nineteen directors only one, Vint
> > Cerf, questioned the reduction.

What did Vint want? To reduce it to one a year?

> > All other directors were either silent or
> > spoke in favor of the proposal to reduce elected representatives.

Including the Board members from the DNSO? How do Alan Davidson and
Hans Klein explain that, since half the DNSO, according to Becky
Burr's congressional testimony, belongs to the users? <sarcastic
black humor>


============================================================
Michael Sondow           I.C.I.I.U.     http://www.iciiu.org
Tel. (718)846-7482                        Fax: (603)754-8927
============================================================
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