Re: [ga] Roberto Gaetano on ALAC Reform

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The ICANN Board ignored the recommendations of its own commissioned Study of
the At Large before, so what reason is there to suppose it would listen now
to yet another study?

ALAC was set up to legitimise the very 'coup/reform' that saw Karl and the
other *elected* representatives of Individual Users expelled from the Board.

ALAC was part of the coup, part of the disenfranchisement of the At Large.

To this day, individual users cannot themselves be members of ALAC.

Go figure.

Yrs,

Richard Henderson
www.atlarge.org

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Auerbach" <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 1:13 AM
Subject: Re: [ga] Roberto Gaetano on ALAC Reform


>
> I don't see why we need to build a third, or fourth, mechanism for the
> community of internet users to have their deserved and necessary role.
>
> We had such a mechanism, or at least a nascent form of it, in year 2000
> when we had nearly 200,000 people sign up to vote for regional
> director's seats.
>
> ICANN's "reform" destroyed that and replaced it with the ALAC, a body
> who's power and role is perhaps best expressed simply by articulating
> its name - "A Lack" - A lack of concrete linkage between the opinions of
> individual internet users and the decisions made by ICANN.
>
> There is no wonder here in North America why ICANN's ALAC has been
> ignored: People here comprehend its intentionally crippled structure, a
> structure intentionally designed to ensure that it remains forever
> powerless and weak, and that it never represents a threat to the
> entrenched authority of the IP, registry/registrar, and business
> components of ICANN.
>
> So to my mind ICANN has but one choice: fulfill the promise made during
> ICANN's formation in which the community of internet users would have a
> means to vote, as individuals, for a majority of the seats of ICANN's
> ultimate authority, its Board of Directors.
>
> Doing yet another study would merely add pages to an already thick
> compendium of studies and ICANN's broken promises.
>
> I applaud the optimism of you and Vittorio and others who have stuck
> with the ALAC idea.  But it an optimism that I do not share, and which
> it seems the majority of internet users in North America also do not
share.
>
> --karl--