[ga] MOTION: Request for a GA resolution on an IDN holders' constituency (IC)

[Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>]

Since the Chair has now opened the floor for motions I would like to start off
with this one:

Motion for the Recognition of an Individuals' Constituency (IC)

Considering the majority vote  expressed by the physically assembled GA in
Santiago and Yokohama,

considering the support expressed by the Association of Computing Machinery
(ACM) since Berlin 1999 and by the non commercial constituency of the DNSO for
an Individuals' constituency, since Santiago 2000,

considering the Voting of the members of the DNSO-review working group  on
this
subject,

considering the petition made by the first Steering Committee of  the IDNO
which reads as follows
August 11, 1999
To the members of the Board of Directors of the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 
4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330 
Marina del Rey, CA 90292 
USA.
L.S.,
This letter constitutes a reiteration of our public petition of 23 April, 1999
under Article VI-B, Section 3(d) of the ICANN bylaws for recognition of the
Individual Domain Name Owner’s constituency (the IDNO) as a Constituency of
ICANN’s Domain Name Supporting Organization (the DNSO.)

The IDNO was formed in April 1999. It is a self-organized, primarily member
funded, highly international constituency, springing from no pre-existing
organizations or structures. Yet its membership is already larger than of any
of the existing DNSO Constituencies. And we expect that the IDNO's membership
will grow rapidly once the IDNO is a recognized constituency.

IDNO members are active participants in ICANN, having attended several of
ICANN’s meetings.

Our members come from many parts of the world.

IDNO members are active participants in the DNSO’s General Assembly and in the
DNSO’s various working groups.

The IDNO maintains a site on the World Wide Web at http://www.idno.org/
containing a members’ list, charter, archive of on-line discussions, voting
system, and other materials and resources.

The IDNO has a public, archived e-mail discussion list.

The IDNO is the only constituency with a fully operational electronic voting
system that has been repeatedly and successfully used to guide the IDNO as it
evolves.

The purpose the IDNO is to give a voice to those individuals who “own” domain
names.
The IDNO’s focus is on individuals, not on corporations or organizations. The
IDNO does not care whether a member is a businessperson, a teacher, an artist,
or a person using the Internet to express his or her opinions.

Because essentially all of the existing DNSO constituencies are open only to
corporations and organizations, these individuals have no way but the IDNO to
fully participate within the DNSO.

We must mention that membership in the DNSO General Assembly, although
nominally open to individuals, is no substitute for having a Constituency to
defend Individuals' domain name interests. It is only through the IDNO as a
recognized Constituency that individual domain name owners can participate
with
a full and peer voice on the DNSO’s names council.

Why should the Individuals be represented in the DNSO?
·       Registrations of domain names by individuals represent a large
number of
all domain name registrations. A study conducted by Network Solutions
estimates
that within the United States alone, 10% of the domain names registered in the
.com, .net, and .org domains are registered to individuals. Further, there is
evidence to indicate that the percentage may be increasing. This leads to an
estimated 300,000 individual domain names owners in .com, .net, and .org
within
the United States alone. The number worldwide, especially when in all top
level
domains are considered, could be substantially higher. 
·       Every one of these hundreds of thousands of people have a significant
and well defined interest in the operation and development of the domain name
system and the Internet. Yet none of these hundreds of thousands of people are
eligible to be admitted to any of the other constituencies. 
·       Domains owned by individuals are often used for both commercial and
non-commercial purposes. Individuals can not be adequately represented in
either "business" or "non-commercial" constituencies. It is our feeling
that as
the net grows it will become quite common for personal hobbies to evolve into
significant business entities. 
·       The IDNO is the only constituency that would provide a voice for these
people. 
·       Interests and concerns of Individual Domain name Owners typically
do not
coincide with the Interests and concerns of the other constituencies
represented in the DNSO. Indeed, in many cases their interests are in
conflict.
Thus it is necessary for there to be a constituency with a clear focus on the
needs of individual domain name owners. 
·       Without a clear and fully empowered place for individual domain name
owners, the DNSO will be a weak and limited body, speaking for only part of
the
Internet community. 
The IDNO has adopted an inclusive approach to its membership. Unlike other
Constituencies which require that a candidate for membership be a corporation
or an organization, or be engaged in a particular type of business, the IDNO
simply looks at whether a candidate “owns” a domain name.
The IDNO measures ownership not by legal formalisms, but rather by a pragmatic
evaluation whether the candidate has sufficient elements of control over a
domain name that it amounts to what reasonable people would consider to be
ownership. Our membership rules permit membership even when the domain name
owner owns the name through a intermediary, such as a corporation or trust,
that is fully under the control of the candidate.
The IDNO has evolved beyond a gathering of people. The IDNO has both an
elected
Steering Committee and a Membership Committee. The IDNO is an early, and
perhaps the first successful experiment in broadly based democratic
participation within ICANN.
The IDNO brings to ICANN the concerns of the individual domain name owner,
concerns that have so far lacked an advocate.

(appendices omitted: for the complete petition and its signatories, see
www.idno.org/petition.htm)

considering that the ICANN  Board has until now refrained from responding in
public to this petition and from publishing it on its website for public
comment,

considering the Bylaws art. VI, section 3 (d) that reads:

(d) Any group of individuals or entities may petition the Board for
recognition
as a new or separate Constituency. Any such petition will be posted for public
comment pursuant to Article III, Section 3. The Board may create new
Constituencies in response to such a petition, or on its own motion, if it
determines that such action would serve the purposes of the Corporation. 

I move that the GA will express its support for the immediate acknowledgement 
of an Individuals' Constituency by the Board in accordance with its Bylaws.


I move that this support will take the form of a GA Resolution recommending
that
the Board will  place either the creation of such an IC or the "approval in
principle" on its Agenda for a decision in Stockholm.


Respectfully yours,



--Joop Teernstra LL.M.--  
the Cyberspace Association and 
the constituency for Individual Domain Name Owners
Elected representative.
http://www.idno.org  

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