Re: [ga] The Real World

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

On Sat, 25 May 2002 12:04:49 -0700, Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
wrote:

>> a. Having the majority of the votes is one thing, not allowing an important 
>> stateholder to have any vote is a different one. The fact is that the 
>> non-commercial individual users not only do not threat the consistent 
>> majority of the business, but are even precluded from having a constituency 
>> and a vote.
>
>You are mixing two things: the idea of representation of the interest of
>individuals, and the idea of an individuals constituency as a practical
>construct.  There is very wide support for the former, in ICANN, and in
>the constituencies. 

First of all I think the issues are the representation of individual
internet users as a whole and separate to that the existence of an
individual registrants constituency.

I also am sceptical about there being wide support in ICANN for
representation of individuals when the ICANN Board has just voted to
ignore its own ALSC and abolish meaningful individual representation.

>However, there is much less support for the latter, and for good reason
>-- the various activities in that area have been essentially incoherent,
>and dominated, not by the actual interests of individuals as they
>pertain to the domain name system, but rather by the interests of
>zealots and would-be demagogues, advocates of generalized internet
>democracy, speculators, alt-root proponents, kooks, and other vocal special
>interests that are in fact a vanishingly small proportion of the real
>individual users of the Interenet/DNS.

Just as the Orgs in the NCC are a small proportion of all orgs and the
businesses in the Bus Const is a minuscule fraction of all businesses.

As for the rather insulting characterisation of individuals pushing
for an individual registrants constituency as zealots, demagogues,
speculators, alt-rooters and kooks I would assert that even if this
was close to true what do you expect when every roadblock possible has
been placed in the road of getting a registrants constituency.  No
wonder a lot of people have fallen away.  I assert that if there was
agreement in principle to a registrants constituency you would get
participation that is at least as representative of the business
constituency.

>That is, those who oppose such a constituency oppose it because all
>*practical* experience indicates that not only would such a constituency
>fail to represent the interests it proports to represent, but it
>would be essentially be an insane playground for kooks.  

As I said this is a chicken and egg situation.  The stonewalling has
driven away almost all but the most extreme people.  However
icannatlarge.com has shown there is still a large number of people who
do wish to participate.  

>This is in
>almost all cases a good-faith concern about a very real problem.  It is 
>one thing to have kooks yelling at you; it is a totally different thing 
>to put them in the cockpit and let them fly the plane.

Being 1/8th of the DNSO is hardly in the cockpit (and especially as
the DNSO gets ignored by the Board on almost every major issue).

>But, indeed there are hundreds of thousands of individual domain name
>registrants, and millions of individual users of the DNS.  To date there
>has not been a creditable effort to form a constituency that really
>supports these interests, 

The new barriers that arrive at every opportunity do not help this.
Pretty hard to convince people that it is worthwhile to spend hundreds
of volunteer hours creating something which has a 90% chance of being
turned down regardless of the merits.

>and there are fundamental economic/social
>forces that work very strongly against the formation of such a
>constituency.  These same forces work against the formation of a small
>business constituency, or indeed any constituency intended to represent
>a large number of entities each with a very small interest --
>fundamentally, it simply isn't cost effective for a rational potential
>member of such a constituency to participate.  

This is only if you believe that for some never explained reason all
constituencies should pay the same amount to the DNSO.  In local Govt
for example business and individuals pay different rates for their
rates.

>For example, many restaraunts in my area have web sites; they spend far
>more on their water and phone bills than they do on their
>domain name, and as a general rule they simply don't concern themselves 
>with the governance of the water or phone systems, much less their 
>domain name.

However they as individuals (and in some areas as businesses) have the
opportunity to vote for the local authority which sets the charges.
No many do not want to be on the local authority but they sure as hell
want to be able to vote for the candidates whose views they most
support.  

Where is the opportunity for registrants to have any impact on whether
ICANN Board is composed of those who want a $3 mil/year ICANN or a $10
mil/year ICANN? 

>> b. The same logic should be applied for large vs. small business. If the 
>> vast majority of the (business) users of the DNS are small businesses,
>> family businesses, or even individuals that Kent claims (probably
>> rightfully so) are using the DNS for business, is the current BC really
>> representative of the business interests?
>
>Yes.  Organizations like the International Chamber of Commerce do
>represent the interests of small businesses -- local chambers of
>commerce typically have lots and lots of small businesses.  

The level of representation is so indirect that it is almost absent.
A local small business in Lower Hutt would be a member of the Lower
Hutt CoC which is a member of Wellington Regional CoC which is member
of NZ Chamber of Commerce which is a member of Int CoC.  Now the
leadership of the Int CoC decide their policies on things such as
ICANN and in reality near impossible for individual small businesses
to have any impact on those policies.  

>The
>registrar and registry constituencies have singnificant portions of the
>total class as members; the ISPC has members that are associations of
>ISPs; the IPC has members that are associations of intellectual property
>professionals.  By far the least representative of its class as a
>constituency is the NCC -- it has a very small number of specific
>non-profit organizations, and a large portion of them are concerned with
>a restricted set of "civil society" issues.  And the non-constituency 
>members of the GA are even less representative of any particular class. 

I do not accept that extremely indirect representation is equal to
allowing direct representation.

>I'm sorry, I can't figure out your point here.  The BC is open to small
>businesses; if they joined in any number they would be the majority of
>the members (and maybe big business would be complaining that they don't
>have sufficient representation).  But, for the reasons I outlined above,
>they don't bother to join.  If we had a separate small business
>constituency they still wouldn't join.  

The BC has shown outright hostility to certain small businesses which
do not toe the party line so this could well be a reason not many
small businesses join.  

>If we had an individuals
>constituency I predict that it would have mainly familiar faces
>as members.

Do you really think your untested predictions are sound grounds to not
even try?  With this approach science would still be in the dark ages
and feudal lords would still rule their lands.  If there had been a
*genuine* effort to have meaningful individual participation and then
it had failed that would be another thing.  But it is obvious that the
founder(s) of ICANN have never wanted such participation, that they
only made temporary concessions to please the US Government and since
signing the MOU have done everything possible to make such
representation and participation impossible.

DPF
--
david@farrar.com
ICQ 29964527
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