Re: "stakeholders" was: Re: [ga] Re: ICANN before the US Senate...

["L. Gallegos" <jandl@xxxxxxxxx>]

Karl,

I don't understand why we are arguing.  We agree that everyone is at least indirectly 
affected by the internet and, as such, has an interest in ICANN's decision making.

The argument is use or misuse of the term "stakeholder."  My contention is that 
everyone affected by the internet is a stakeholder, and you are arguing there should 
be no term used at all, if I read you correctly, because the US Constitution does not 
use that term.

First, if everyone has an interest in ICANN's decision making due to the fact that 
everyone is affected by the internet, what has the US Constitution to do with it other 
than ICANN happens to be a US corporation?  It is a world issue, right?

There has to be some defiintion to describe those affected.  Call them persons if you 
like or "those affected by the internet" if you like, but I don't think the semantics 
makes much difference.  The point, IMO, is that ICANN has abused the term 
stakeholders and that is what needs to be addressed.  If you define the term 
stakeholders to be all those affected by the internet either directly or indirectly, it 
would be used correctly.

Leah


On 10 Aug 2003 at 2:20, Karl Auerbach wrote:

> On Sat, 9 Aug 2003, L. Gallegos wrote:
> 
> > If we were to describe those whom we now call stakeholders as "users."  
> 
> I don't accept that those who not "use" the internet are not among those
> affected by the internet and thus not among the community of those who
> ought to have a voice in the creation of policies regarding the net.
> 
> It does not matter whether one has an e-mail address or a web site or even
> knows how to use the net.  The net indirectly affects those who do not
> themselves use the net.  And the cumulation of those indirect effects is
> large - it ought not be disregarded.
> 
> Simply because one is not a "user" isn't reason to exclude a person from
> the community of people who ought to have a say in the policies that guide
> how the net is run.
> 
> So, it comes do to this: The atomic unit of internet interest is the
> individual human being.  Not a "user", not a "stakeholder"; simply a
> living, breathing person.
> 
> The United States Constitution begins with the phrase "We the People..."
> not "We the Stakeholders..."
> 
> And the United States Declaration of Independence begins "When in the
> course of human events..." not "When in the course of stakeholder
> events..."
> 
> The great minds of the 18th century understood that the most basic
> building block of modern, stable, and just structures of government are
> individual people.
> 
> When I look at ICANN in the historical context, I fear that it is a
> retrograde step - backwards from the principles of 1776 and 1789, away from
> democracy and towards oligarchy.
> 
>   --karl--
> 
> 
> 
> 
>