Re: [wg-review] Clarifications requested from BoD, Staff, NC, TC, Chair prior to co-Chair elections

[Robin Miller <robin@minervan.com>]

Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 at 12:53:49PM +0100, Robin Miller wrote:
> > Kent Crispin wrote:
> > > The question is, of course, who are the customers? The primary customers
> > > of the domain name system are in fact *businesses*, not individual
> > > netizens -- a very large majority of domain-names in use are used for
> > > commercial purposes.
> [...]
> 
> If you do this exercise you will quickly discover that the overwhelming
> majority of domain names (not urls) are commercial.

I'm going to do a certain exercise today. Its called 'shopping'. I'm going down
into the city center of my little town.

As I walk down the street, I've noticed something interesting, yet commonplace.
Of all the businesses that have storefronts, the MAJORITY are owned by
individuals, not corporations. They are by and large small proprietorships with
a small number of employees. The large corporations can be counted on one hand
here, the majority are scores of small businesses.

So again, you are at least trying not to recognise that individuals are the
people that start businesses, and are the people that found corporations.
Whether its commercial or not is irrelevant, businesses are nearly all
commercial. The difference is - are you a David or a Goliath. 

> Sorry, that is simply incorrect.  The Business Constituency is organized
> to include *organizations representing businesses*, and collectively
> they represent a huge number of businesses, of all sizes.


No, its my understanding and my observation that the Business constituency and
the TM constituency are controlled by essentially the same interests. Interests
that have done a good job stepping on small business persons lately, at least
where I live.  There are more Davids than Goliaths, but the Goliaths have most
of the power in ICANN. An individuals constituency will help to even the score.


Robin
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