Re: [ga] icannatlarge.com

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Joanna and all assembly members,

  Indeed Joanna has the history stated very accurately here.  Well done
Joanna!

  I would only add some commentary or opinion here.  That being that
it has been clear for several years that Esther Dyson has been decidedly
against any At-Large for ICANN where the members can elect the majority
of the BoD members.  It is clear in my mind anyway, and I am sure a
huge number of other well documented in the ALSC archives as well
as a number of other places, that ICANN betrayed and frankly have
thwarted the Mandate of the MoU and the White paper in regards
to @large representation and a policy determining body as part of the
rightful and proper structure of ICANN.  As such the remaining
tid bits of trust for ICANN were eliminated...

Joanna Lane wrote:

> > This "ICANN Community" responded by engaging in wholesale trademark
> > infringement and deception.  The website icannatlarge.com uses U.S.
> > Registered Trademarks 2,400,781 and 2,517,318 prominently in the
> > domain name and on the website, along with the ICANN logo, with no
> indication that the
> > website is not, in fact, authorized or licensed by ICANN.
>
> Hello John,
>
> I don't think you quite fully appreciate the events that lead our
> organization to this point. Let's review the history. Danny has explained
> that the site was commissioned, approved and paid for by Esther Dyson and
> Pindar Wong, the former Chair and Vice-Chair of the ICANN Board, that
> authorized Joop Teernstra's company (imachination) to do the work on the
> website for Icannatlarge.com.  In addition, Esther and Pindar registered as
> founding members of ICANNAtLarge, as did ICANN At Large Director, Karl
> Auerbach, Marilyn Cade and former ICANN CEO and President, Michael Roberts,
> amongst other leading ICANN players.
>
> This organization grew from the work of the At Large Study Committee, and in
> particular, an Esther Dyson and Pindar Wong membership drive instigated in
> response to the Board's call for the At Large Community to self-organize
> into a proposed ALSO, with Denise Michelle providing ICANN Staff support to
> the ALSC at that time. The At Large community received assistance in this
> effort from a number of independent sources, including Thomas Roessler, who,
> as you know, is Chair of this GA, and provided the fledgling ICANNAtLarge
> organization with mailing lists. The ICANN ALSC mailing list, which had
> provided the resources needed for the members to self-organize up to that
> point, closed its lists, but not before pointing all its members to the
> Iannatlarge initiative. So what occurred in fact was that ICANN Staff
> actually pointed the wider community towards this organization. All of this
> is documented in the ICANN ALSC archives and all was done with ICANN prior
> knowledge and consent.
>
> Not only that. The name, ICANNAtLarge, was actually picked by Pindar Wong,
> who together with Esther was still very much engaged with the ALSC and
> funded by ICANN at the time they launched ICANNAtLarge. Pindar paid Joop for
> the initial website to be built and Esther pledged a further US$10,000 to
> the new organization in which she was proactively involved. Her donation was
> listed under "funding" on the ICANNATLarge website, together with other
> pledges intended to be distributed by a new Board once they had been elected
> directly by the membership.
>
> Esther then decided the best way forward for Icannatlarge would be to
> appoint a liaison between our members and Icann staff. She offered the role
> to Alexander Svennsson and there were objections that the appointment was
> made without a proper election being held, which is how Denise Michelle, who
> was recently out of work with the ALSC, slid neatly into the job quietly and
> just assumed the role. Esther decided to use the $10,000 promised to
> ICANNAtLarge to pay Denise's salary on a temporary basis. Members were told
> that in return for the $10,000 to be paid to Denise, she would assist
> ICANNATLarge with its self-organizing effort.
>
> Of course, Denise Michelle was in a fact acting under contract to ICANN, as
> a member of ICANN staff, not ICANNAtLarge. She was hired by Stuart Lynn to
> manufacture a consensus for his Reform Plan in the At large community,
> meanwhile trashing any form of individual participation or semblance of
> democratic process along the way. Whether Denise ever received the $10,000 I
> do not know, but she then evaporated for a little while, and when she
> reappeared, she was attached to a completely new At Large organization, a
> new and rather dysfunctional website, a confusingly similar domain name, a
> new definition for what At Large meant and an ICANN At Large bank into which
> she invites all pledges to be sent - nothing short of an At Large coup
> d'estat, of which nothing had ever been discussed in advance amongst the
> community. To add injury to insult, the ICANN fundraising tour redirected
> precious independent sources into a competing entity from which direct
> participation by individual At Large members, our members, was to be denied.
>
> Understandably, some members felt this betrayal of the At large by ICANN
> Staff warranted complete withdrawal of our organization from the Reformed
> ICANN, including dropping ICANN from the name of the organization itself. A
> heated debate followed and we will have the results on a vote of the full
> membership to choose the organization name by the middle of next week.
>
> Whatever it's name, here is an organization that is in it for the long haul,
> is committed to actually engaging the user in cooperative processes, and is
> working to have an impact on internet governance over the long term future.
> The decision making, and therefore I guess also the responsibility, is
> passed directly to individual members, not a Nominating Committee, so that
> anybody who intends to start throwing stones at us, will need more than a
> handful to make any impact....:-)
>
> Probably the most important vision for our organization is to implement the
> very things that ICANN is discarding. As ICANN is phasing out direct user
> participation and abandoning any form of At Large elections or voting
> mechanism, ICANNAtLarge will be phasing it in. This will put us in a
> favorable position to show the world that there is another group around
> ICANN that better serves the public interest than the window dressing being
> paraded in the spotlight by ICANN Staff as meaningful At Large
> participation.
>
> With all the above aspects in mind, I hope you now view this effort in a
> more favorable light than at the time you penned your comments. Should you
> have any further comments to make, I'd be pleased to hear them.
>
> Regards,
> Joanna Lane
> Chair, Icannatlarge
>
> There is nothing
> > I could find on the website which would tip off the unsuspecting visitor
> > that the site is not an official ICANN site.
> >
> > Either ICANN has decided to abandon its trademarks through
> > non-enforcement, or the people responsible for that site should be held
> liable.
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 127k members/stakeholders strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
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