[ga] Letter from Mike Roberts re: gTLD Constituency Group

["Andrew McLaughlin" <mclaughlin@pobox.com>]

July 9, 1999

Mr. Jim Rutt
Chief Executive Officer
Network Solutions, Inc.
505 Huntmar Park Drive
Herndon, Virginia 20170

Dear Jim,

Thanks for stepping into the current controversy concerning representation
on the DNSO Names Council from the gTLD constituency.  You can appreciate,
given my prior correspondence with Don Telage, that ICANN is attempting to
reach and maintain a position of fairness to all the parties concerned in
this matter.

As NSI's representatives at the Berlin ICANN meetings have surely informed
you, there appeared to be a near-unanimous sentiment expressed at the public
ICANN meeting on May 26 that no one company should be able to place more
than one representative on the Names Council.  The peculiar situation of the
gTLD Constituency Group -- at the moment, NSI is the only member -- means
that, absent compliance with the Board's request, a single company would
select one-seventh of the members of the Names Council.  It seemed clear in
Berlin that the community consensus, with which I and the Board agree, was
that no one company should have that level of influence in a body that is
designed to be broadly representative of the various worldwide communities
of interest that constitute the DNSO.

Your letter of last week, which nominates an employee plus two of your
lawyers to the Names Council, is not consistent with the views of the
community. Since this is the second letter from Network Solutions which does
not accept the consensus view, the ICANN Board must now do what it is
supposed to do: follow the community consensus. In this case that means to
proceed with its stated intention to amend the pertinent portions of the
Bylaws in the absence of your voluntary agreement to limit your
representation to one member.

In the next few days, we will post the following proposed amendment to the
ICANN Bylaws for public comment in accordance with our normal procedures:

   RESOLVED, that Section 2(a) of Article VI-B of the Bylaws of the
   Corporation is hereby replaced in its entirety with the following:

   "The NC shall consist of representatives, selected in accordance
   with Section 3(c) of this Article, from each Constituency
   recognized by the Board pursuant to the criteria set forth
   in Section 3 of this Article.  Any dispute about whether any
   such representative is a proper member of the NC shall be
   resolved by, or at the direction of, the Board."

   FURTHER RESOLVED, that Section 3(c) of Article VI-B of the Bylaws
   of the Corporation is hereby replaced in its entirety with the
   following:

   "Each Constituency shall select up to three individuals to represent
   that Constituency on the NC, no two of which may be, except with the
   consent of the Board, residents of the same Geographic Region, as
   defined in Article V, Section 6.  Notwithstanding the foregoing,
   no Constituency may have more representatives on the NC  than there
   are members of the Constituency.  Nominations within each Constituency
   may be made by any member of the Constituency, but no such member may
   make more than one nomination in any single Constituency."

   FURTHER RESOLVED, that Section 2(f) of Article VI-B of the Bylaws of
   the Corporation is hereby replaced in its entirety with the following:

   "Unless shorterned by the Board in its recognition of a Constituency,
   the term of office for each member of the NC shall be two years,
   subject to earlier removal by the Constituency that selected such
   member or by a three-fourths majority vote of all members of the
   Board."

The other members of the ICANN Board and I do not believe that amending our
Bylaws to eliminate avenues for the pursuit of special interest objectives
is a useful exercise.  All of us have more important things to do.  As a new
player, and one committed to making the system work for everyone by your
recent public statement, it would be a valuable contribution to making the
DNSO successful if you accepted the consensus view and voluntarily agreed to
name only one member to the Names Council.

Sincerely,

- Mike

Michael M. Roberts
Interim President and Chief Executive Officer


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