Re: [ga] RE: GA irrelevant

[Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 05/15/2010 05:40 PM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:

> If is the case that Registrants *are* a logical constituency, and I believe
> it is, it should not be very difficult to write a charter following the
> instructions on the url above. If there is no proposal, the Board cannot
> approve it. It reminds me a famous italian joke about a guy that was asking
> San Gennaro for a miracle.
I'm not familiar with that joke .. (that's a slight nudge to get you to 
tell us. ;-)
(I imagine you reading this having a cup of good coffee while enjoying 
the kind of nice spring weather we are having here on the edge of the 
Pacific.)
Getting down to business..

I don't see any reason why one would not consider those who acquire 
domain names any less a logical constituency than those who sell domain 
names (indeed, ICANN has two flavors of constituency for those who sell 
names - registries and registrars).  And indeed it would seem that those 
who acquire domain names are arguably more entitled to constituency 
status than are those who are indirectly affected by domain names, such 
as intellectual property holders or ISPs or businesses that may or may 
not even have domain names.
There *have* been very concrete proposals for domain name holders to 
obtain formalized status within ICANN's structures.  The old IDNO 
proposal was fairly concrete and fully encompassed every natural person 
who had control of a domain name.  (Even corporate ownership was 
recognized through the recognition of named people with a corporate 
structure who had authority within that corporation of a degree that one 
could say "that person is the owner".)
The problem is that ICANN generally treats such proposals as unimportant 
or flippant and thus drains their ability to obtain backing and momentum.
The board of directors of ICANN need not wait for a concrete proposal; 
rather it could write a simple resolution that recognizes that domain 
name registrants appear under-represent within ICANN, expresses a 
corporate desire to remedy that under-representation, and says that it 
desires concrete proposals, each accompanied by a roster of supporters, 
to be submitted for board consideration by such-and-such a date.
                --karl--