Re: [ga] More thoughts on the ID-by-check-cashing idea

[Ellen Rony <erony@marin.k12.ca.us>]

I wrote many months ago that I thought the Membership Advisory Committee
erred in defining ICANN membership so broadly that verification for voting
purposes would be all but impossible.

It could have begun with some verifiable members: those who are registrants
of domain names, who are involved with providing infrastructure for the
Internet.  The problem with this suggestion is that this left out the huge
percentage of Internet users who have email accounts but not domain names.
But ICANN's charter, as its name suggests, is for technical coordination of
names and numbers, so one must have a domain name/IP number assignment to
truly be a stakeholder in this regime, and such stakeholders *can* be
verified.

Then, as an alternative, I also suggested a nominal fee, under $10, for two
reasons.  One is that those who have an investment, no matter how small,
are inclined to participate with greater responsibility and commitment than
those of whom nothing is asked.  Payment of fees involves a financial
transaction record, which is a minor form of verification.  One pays, one
receives a number as a record of payment, and further communications occur
through that number.

 My personal experience with trying to convert across-border payments from
Europe and Australia has been abyssmal.  Both the payor and payee are hit
with conversion and transaction fees.  I cannot believe that there is no
financial institution on the Internet prepared to accept small payments
worldwide in the local currency, without imposing a horrendous fee..   One
of the contracts ICANN should perhaps consider is employing such a
financial institution at a percentage of receipts to collect member fees
worldwide.  In other words, the cost of conversion is paid by ICANN,
indirectly through member fees.

But another complaint to that approach is that $10 asked of an American
citizen is not the same as $10 asked of someone from, say, Yemen.  So my
solution would be to tier the price based on Internet usage. Residents of
the countries in the top 50% of users pay the full $10 (or $5 or whatever)
membership fee on the thinking that if their economy and technical
infrastructure is strong enough to support such a large percentage of
Internet users, its residents can support the full, but nominal, fee.
Those countries struggling to get online would pay a reduced fee tiered not
so much to their standard of living as to their standard of Internet
capability.

There are problems with all these recommendations, of course, but I am a
solutions-oriented person, so I think it is useful to brainstorm ideas.
Determing that all the world is potentially affected by ICANN, and
therefore all the world should be allowed membership has gotten us no
further than saying only those who hold IP address allocations and domain
name registrations need apply.

But nothing, of course, has stopped ICANN from making policies that affect
every gtld domain name registrant and registrar, absence of membership
notwithstanding.



>A few of you have raised legitimate concerns surrounding the use of
>check-cashing, drawing from or depositing to an account in a single,
>possibly foreign, denomination, etc.
>
>First, I'd like to point out that my suggestion of US$1.00 was meant
>as an example, and I had intended to convey the idea that each person
>would write out a check in a small denomination of their local currency.

............................................................................
Ellen Rony                         ____             The Domain Name Handbook
Co-author		       ^..^     )6     http://www.domainhandbook.com
+1 (415) 435-5010    	       (oo) -^--                     ISBN 0879305150
Tiburon, CA                        W   W               erony@marin.k12.ca.us
	   DOT COM is the Pig Latin of the Information Age
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