Re: [wg-review] Names Council & Constituencies

[Michael Sondow <msondow@iciiu.org>]

Sotiropoulos wrote:

> I recommend that those interested in the above read the rest of this > Review at:  http://www.law.wayne.edu/weinberg/dnso_review.htm

Jonathan Weinberg's analysis and comments regarding the DNSO and its
structures is excellent, and ought to be read by everyone in this
working group, as Sotiris suggests.

I would only take exception with one of Mr. Weinberg's comments. He
says "The list of constituencies included in the Names Council
reflects 
the political strength of the various actors at the time the
institution 
was established." This is actually not so. The ICANN interim Board
was directly responsible for tilting the balance of power towards
the DNSO formation proposal which eventually won out, and the
constituencies defined by that winning proposal, together with their
representation in the Names Council, were a result of that skewing
by the Board. There were, in matter of fact, just as many
spokespeople for independent domain name holders and users present
at DNSO formation meetings as there were for business and trademark
interests, but they were not supported by the Board, which made the
ultimate decisions about constitutencies and therefore the NC. When
the Board of Directors allows only one constitutency for assorted
domain name holders and end-users, and six for business interests
(infrastructureal and otherwise), there can be no natural
sorting-out of the political strength of the actors, as Mr. Weinberg
says. Furthermore, to portray the formation process of the DNSO as a
natural political one is a distortion of the actual process that
occurred, which was not natural. The over-represented interests,
both in constitutencies and in the NC, were abetted at every stage
by the Board.

M.S.