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

["Peter de Blanc" <pdeblanc@usvi.net>]

i agree with the idea of a SMALL business constituency, with some
definition, like "less than 100 employees".

One of the stats appearing on this list was that a large percentage of
domain names were held by businesses with (i think) less than 5 employees.

peter de Blanc

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-wg-review@dnso.org [mailto:owner-wg-review@dnso.org]On
Behalf Of Kent Crispin
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 7:12 AM
To: wg-review@dnso.org
Subject: Re: [wg-review] Clarifications requested from BoD, Staff, NC,
TC,Chair prior to co-Chair elections


On Fri, Jan 12, 2001 at 03:57:52AM -0500, Sotiropoulos wrote:
> 1/12/01 9:04:27 PM, DPF <david@farrar.com> wrote:
>
> >The reason this would be useful is at present I would have no idea
> >whether the small business constituency proposed by some is a good
> >idea or not.  If it turns out that the business constituency (as an
> >example) consists of Microsoft, IBM and WorldCom then I would be
> >inclined to think we may have a problem.  If it turns out (other
> >extreme) that it has 15,000 members who get an equal vote and is not
> >dominated by large businesses then I would be less inclined to
> >recommend adding on a small business constituency.
>
> David,
>
> I think this link (already posted by Judith) should help you see what
> the reality of the situation is: http://www.bc.dnso.icann.org/
>
> Click on the "Membership" link in the left frame.  I don't think many
> of these companies are representing small business owners, do you?
>
> I think we "may have a problem" here David.

The problem is that small businesses haven't joined.  The problem is
*not* that there isn't a place for them in the dnso.

> I'm actually surprised at your statement...  you didn't see this list
> in Judith's earlier post?

In that list you will find that the International Chamber of Commerce.
The ICC represents an enormous number of small businesses -- one figure
I saw was 35000000 businesses worldwide.  Membership of the ICC is open
to small businesses, including sole proprietorships, and, of course,
small businesses make up the bulk of the members.

However, this brings up an important point concerning the basic
structural nature of ICANN/DNSO.  Clearly, the absolutely overwhelming
majority of the 35 million members of the ICC simply don't have time or
interest to devote to participating in ICANN.  To *almost everyone*,
domain names are in fact a microscopic specialized policy concern, and
they would much rather leave it to some organization to represent them.

Domain names aren't like the environment -- if we get a runaway
greenhouse effect we all die, and that is something that we all probably
ought to think about.  Whether or not you can register microsoft.xxx and
extort some money from microsoft is not the same level of importance.

It's not sensible, therefore, that ICANN/DNSO *directly* support a
membership of 35 million small businesses, or hundreds of millions of
Internet users, for that matter.  The overhead simply doesn't justify
it.

--
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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