Re: [ga] icannatlarge.com (not at-large.org) STATUS: NOMINATIONSAND SECONDS

[James Love <james.love@cptech.org>]

A somewhat different perspective is that Esther and Denise created a site 
with a confusingly similar name, to run what one board member calls a 
"company union" to confuse and undermine participation in a democratic and 
uncontrollable at-large organizing effort.  The Esther/Denise effort has at 
the top of its web page the statement:

"Overview ~ What is the At-Large? Individual Users' Voice in ICANN"

THe "At-Large Organizing Committee" apparently does not elect its own 
leaders (correct me if I am wrong about this), and does not allow 
individuals to join, as individuals.

It is ironic that an organization such as ICANN that was created to protect 
trademark owners from passing off activities on domain names, is resorting 
to this type of name confusion in the at-large area.   But it is working, 
and they they done a good job of marginalizing the democratic at-large 
organizing effort that they wanted to cripple.

Jamie


Vittorio Bertola wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Jul 2002 18:55:32 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
> 
> 
>>But, what's icannatlarge.com all about, though? Is it recognized by
>>anyone, especially given that there seems to be more than one competing
>>"at large"?
> 
> 
> icannatlarge.com is an independent bottom-up effort that currently has
> 886 members from 77 countries. Practically, we aim to build an org
> that should supply for the lack of an At Large Membership and act,
> inside and/or outside ICANN (and of course, whether it should be
> inside, outside or both is at the centre of the debate), to grant to
> the public some real weight in the technical administration of the
> Internet.
> 
> We have accepted to participate in ICANN's ALOC, where we have some
> representatives, but of course we are an independent thing. I don't
> really think that there is any "competing" effort to build a global At
> Large Membership, as the other ALOC participants are organizations
> which already existed and are not specifically targeted on ICANN
> (though, as I said, some in our org would really like to extend its
> action beyond ICANN), and are focused on specific geographical areas
> (eg ISOC Chapters). And we still have to understand whether the
> ALOC/ALAC thing will provide some worthwhile channel of interaction
> with ICANN, even if very limited in actual power.
> 
> 
>>Given limited time, I'm a pragmatist and wouldn't want to waste energy
>>on matters that are purely academic (unlike WLS, WHOIS, competition and
>>other stuff, for instance, where input does seem to be having an
>>impact).
> 
> 
> Of course the ultimate purpose of all this is to build something that
> would be able to provide significant input into the policy making
> process. 



-- 
------
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:love@cptech.org
voice: 1.202.387.8030; mobile 1.202.361.3040


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