Re: [wg-review] 3. [Constituencies] Discussion
At the last
teleconference meeting of the Names Council, the motion was introduced to require
any new constituency to immediately share equally in the financial obligations
of the DNSO. The motion itself did
not meet with any opposition. I
have concerns about this top-down form of financial gerrymandering. I can envision a number of potential constituency
groups, such as consumer protection organizations, child protection groups, independent
domain name holders, etc., who will be inordinately challenged to raise the
funds required solely to be heard in this forum, especially as future budgets will
assuredly increase dramatically to meet coming demands. While future groups
such as a labor union constituency or a small business constituency may be able
to underwrite such expenses, I have tremendous misgivings about the ability of
other future constituencies to raise such funding, thereby becoming disenfranchised. The funding mechanism as envisioned by
the Names Council, in my humble opinion, seems to violate the ICANN by-laws that
state, “Each Constituency shall self-organize, and shall determine its own
criteria for participation.” If
constituencies are to be part of the future model, over the opposition of those
who like myself would prefer to see the abolition of the constituency structure,
then let us at least act in the spirit of inclusiveness, and allow for those
groups with limited resources to better participate. Another budgetary model should be proposed. |