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[ga] Making ALAC impossible for ordinary users to join

  • To: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: [ga] Making ALAC impossible for ordinary users to join
  • From: "Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 19:00:24 -0000
  • References: <20050108153015.29853.qmail@web52909.mail.yahoo.com>
  • Sender: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ICANN is facing challenges to its role at the helm of governance of the DNS.

The great shame is that ICANN could have validated its own position if it had had a little more vision and leadership.

It is exactly at this time - when governments and agencies around the world are starting to say: "Hang on a minute, why should Internet Governance be accountable to the United States Department of Commerce, when the rest of the world shares its use and development?" - that ICANN might have defended its position and claimed a moral authority, had it only developed the At Large as a credible movement representing the ordinary internet users around the world.

If there had been a development of an At Large based on membership on an individual basis... if there had been the promotion of democratic representation of ordinary users, on a one member one vote basis... if, instead of Denise Michel's fantasy At Large, ICANN had embraced the exciting idea of a huge worldwide community of individual users... then ICANN would now be able to turn on its critics and say "Here is an idealistic and engaged movement of all the peoples on the Earth... here is our authority for overseeing the DNS... here is our credibility... how much better than governments, agencies or politicians!"

Instead of which, we have the extraordinary spectacle of Denise Michel's so-called "At Large" for individual users, creating an At Large which is for organisations only, NOT individual users - a membership to be further curtailed and restricted by requiring as a condition of membership that the ICANN meetings have to be attended.

http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00843.html
Vittorio: "I have tried to formalize the additional questions we might want to pose to
shortlisted applicants for ALAC membership" (this begs the question - why do you need to be "shortlisted" or "selected" to belong to the At Large?)... "Are you aware that being an ALAC member involves the following commitments: - Physical participation in three ICANN meetings per year (5 days each)" This requirement in itself locks out the vast majority of internet users! Why should *physical* participation be mandatory for membership? Vittorio then continues his theme in a leter thread:

http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00854.html
"I take it for granted that, if I am a member of a certain group, I am expected to attend all physical and virtual meetings of the group unless I have specific reasons not to do so. Is there anyone in the Committee who thinks that showing up on conf calls and reading the mailing list should only be an optional commitment for ALAC members?" This setting of such impossible criteria (for most people) serves to institutionalise a User organisation that locks out the vast majority (hundreds of millions) of ordinary users and bars them from membership. Admittedly, they are barred anyway, because ALAC refuses to accept individual users in their individual users organisation, which in itself is arbitrary and exactly the WRONG way to promote the At Large.

Izumi Aizo (a decent fellow) agrees with Vittorio: "I support what Vittorio says here - asking for good amount of commitments
from new applicants". FIFTEEN (15) days physical attendance at ICANN meetings a year, to qualify for ALAC membership??? Can this be serious!!! This is more like a conspiracy to stop the At Large developing freely (though I prefer to think it is just a mistaken plan).

http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00858.html
Roberto Gaetano then writes: "I agree with Vittorio on the fact that participation in meetings should be taken for granted. If individuals cannot contribute to this, no point in joining: we go to ICANN and say that it is difficult to "recruit" volounteers, and that we need to consider the idea of having more staff." Ah! I see... so instead of having more members, you turn to ICANN and say can you please run the At Large with ICANN employees because we can't attract new members?

http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00860.html
Herr Roessler then chips in and says "I couldn't have put this better."

Vittorio confirms these new conditions for ALAC membership here: http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00868.html



Let us be clear: ALAC was set up - under the auspices of Denise Michel - as an attempt to save face after ICANN's expulsion of the elected At Large representatives from ICANN's Board. These were the most transparently elected Board members, representing the largest constituency of the Internet (hundreds of millions of users), and they were summarily kicked out in a coup d'etat. Then ALAC was set up so ICANN could say "We still have an At Large... here it is!". Only... ALAC is NOT the At Large. ALAC is unelected. ALAC allows no individual members (though it purports to be FOR individual members). ALAC is simply a product of "spin", set up to create the semblance of user involvement, while seeking to lock users out of its own membership, and keep users out of the ICANN Boardroom.

The proposals being posted by Vittorio are, in my opinion, a further wrong turning. By making new membership to ALAC even more difficult now than it was originally... by making 15 days physical attendance at ICANN meetings around the world a mandatory requirement for membership of ALAC... these unelected "spokespeople" for the At Large are in effect perpetuating the "locking out" of so many people who might otherwise contribute to any remaining 'authority' ICANN tries to claim for retaining the role it plays.

The At Large... the concept of a community of Internet Users from all around the world... a world which so badly needs community and sharing and communication and open participation... this At Large is potentially a mighty force for good... the means by which the ordinary people of the world might retain some control or influence over the future direction of the DNS and Internet.

By requiring ludicrous conditions for membership, ALAC is showing just how far out of touch it is. Its forums are almost dead. Ordinary users rarely visit them because they are locked out of substantive participation. It can't find enough people to carry out all its functions. It considers asking paid ICANN employees to step in instead.

The real At Large still waits to emerge.

Isn't it time a formal "opposition" to ALAC was set in motion. Isn't it time the whole ALAC facade was totally repudiated?

Yrs,

Richard Henderson


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