Re: [ga] Re: [announce] Jonathan Cohen elected for 3 years term at the ICANN Board

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 04:22:39PM -0700, William X. Walsh wrote:
> >     1) the at large election to the board is to cover the popular
> >     representation problem  
> 
> And what does that have to do with the DNSO GA?

The GA was not intended to duplicate the role of the atlarge.

> >     2) the purpose of the DNSO is to give constituencies a voice
> 
> No, the purpose of the DNSO is to be the Domain Name Supporting
> Organization.

Yes.  And the DNSO, like all the SO's was intended to provide focussed,
"expert" input relative to the subject matter involved.  The other SOs 
are also heavily dominated by the interests involved.

> The problem is that the constituencies are only a very
> small subset of those effected by such policy,

Completely and utterly false.  You really should know better than to
spread such a myth.  The vast majority of domain names are registered by
commercial entities -- 80% or more of all domain names are commercial,
according to NSI.  But wait -- maybe you are claiming that the clear 
majority of domain name holders -- ie, commercial interests -- are 
inadequately represented in the DNSO?  Could that be it?

> and as such, should not
> be the sole voice on matters relating to the decisions made in the
> DNSO, including election of the board members.

The atlarge board members are intended to address that issue.

> >     3) the purpose of the nomination procedure is simply to get a
> >     reasonable slate of candidates for the NC to chose among, not to
> >     prevent NC members from proposing candidates
> 
> The problem is that the names council is firmly in the control of a
> very small sect of special interests,

In numerical terms the primary imbalance in representation in the NC is,
in fact, the registries and registrars -- more than a third of the 
votes in the NC are reserved for that very narrow slice of humanity.  
However, they make the claim (with some justification) that they are 
the entities most directly affected by ICANN's actions, and that they 
also represent the greatest amount of expertise concerning the issues 
that affect registries and registrars.

> who can and infact have shown
> that they will ignore any and all suggestions and select a candidate
> who represents their view.

So you think that Jonathan Cohen is particularly representative of the 
registrars and the registries point of view?

> If this is what was intended, rename the DNSO to the IPSO and get it
> over with.

It is just silly to claim that the NC only represents IP interests.

> >     4) the NC is not a body with a single point of view
> 
> The names council is firmly in control by IP interests, or those who
> are beholden to the IP interests.

Nonsense.  IP interests have significant influence, no doubt about it. 
But 5 of the 7 constituencies -- the registries, registrars, ISPs, and
non-commercial -- are not by any means under the "control" of IP
interests. 

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html