[wg-review] FYA

[Bret Busby <bret@clearsol.iinet.net.au>]

FYA - For Your Amusement

My response, sent to the man and his newsletter, follows.

If anyone has any problems with what I have written, I would be glad to
know.

Oh, and the citation of the proverb, in Latin, is, I believe,
appropriate, in the circumstances, as it is different to communication
of proceedings in an international working group - it is merely the
citation of a proverb in context.

Bret Busby

...................

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Net News  15 February, 2001
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:32:15 +1100 (EST)
From: netnewsadm@news.com.au (Alan Farrelly)
Reply-To: netnewsadm@news.com.au (Alan Farrelly)
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;

THE NET NEWS
>From Alan Farrelly
February 15, 2001

NET REACHES 60% 
Internet penetration in the US has reached 60%, with 168   million 
people logging on  from homes or work in January.  Nielsen/NetRatings 
said 14%  of all Web access is from work. The most visited site in 
January was AOL Time Warner, with 68 million visitors. See 
http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=NTRT&script=411&layout=-6&item_id=152412

ICANN  UNDER FIRE
The US Senate is taking a closer look at the Internet Corporation for 
Assigned Names and Numbers, after one of ICANN'S board members said 
the group was too secretive. Karl Auerbach, one of ICANN's elected 
members, said the non-elected directors met in secret and their 
financial recordss weren't reflected in the group's annual statement. 
 Senator Burns, chairman of the Commerce and Science communications 
subcommittee, said ICANN should meet government standards for openness.
 Net News points out that Auerbach doesn’t necessarily speak for the 
168 million Net users - he was elected with just 3,449 votes.


<snip>

From: Alan Farrelly, News Interactive. Australia
e-mail: farrelly@newscorp.com.au
...................................
My response:

Perhaps, it may be worth examining the contents at the following
archive, and, perhaps, joining the working group, even just as an
observer, to find a bit more about Karl Auerbach.

From what I understand, his views, as with those of Senator Burns, as
you have mentioned, are shared by a broad majority, across many
different people, and countries.

Also, your numbers are erroneous. The Internet is not just the USA, in
spite of what you may think.

The 168 million USA users of the Internet, make up only part of the
total number of users of the Internet.

Also, You should be aware that the elections were not truly made public,
and, they were voluntary. You should perhaps be concerned, instead, with
the proportion of people that were kept blissfully unaware of the
elections, rather than the shortage of votes. If people do not know that
an election is occurring, they are not likely to vote.

Mthinks your inclusion of the number of votes, in the overall
circumstances, proves Karl Auerbach's point. How many of the hundreds of
millions of Internet users, were aware of the elections? That is the
question. And, why, was every Internet user not made aware of the
elections? Similarly, that is another question for you to ponder.

"Damnant quod non-intelligunt" - "They condemn what they do not
understand" - Cicero

From the signature of a message of the DNSO working group mailing list,
"This message was passed to you via the wg-review@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe wg-review" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
"

-- 

Bret Busby

Armadale, West Australia

......................................
"So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the
answer means."
 - Deep Thought, Chapter 28 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
 - Douglas Adams, 1988 
......................................


...................................
--
This message was passed to you via the wg-review@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe wg-review" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html