[ga] Time to open ICANN's At Large constituency up to individual membership

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Reviewing where ICANN has got to, and the continuing pressures on its mission, and its right to fulfil that mission, I have been looking back over these recent years and the opportunities that were lost. Of course, at times my comments and criticisms may have seemed personalised and negative: but my interest has always been the fair distribution of the DNS and a governance that is accountable to more than just the DoC of one country. To this end I have been interested in issues such as openness and transparency, responsiveness, adherence to agreed policies, attention to detail, the interests and representation of individual net users, along with scrutiny of registry and registrar practice because of the potential that has existed for abuse of process and symbiotic co-operation at the expense of the integrity of the process.

What have I learned over the past four or five years? I've learned to be sceptical and I have sometimes been genuinely shocked by the way power and influence gets played out. I've learned a lot about the way in which groups can be marginalised by clever and intelligent processes. I think I've also learned to listen a bit more, because I've encountered very positive individuals along the way.

It is interesting to watch the >interface< taking place between the historic oversight of DNS functions by DoC via ICANN, and the growing calls for more oversight and authority to be dispersed among a wider range of governments and/or agencies. In short, people are asking a central question: "Why should a worldwide resource be overseen by a quango accountable only to one country?"  Of course, ICANN has always depended on the arguably even more central question: "Does the system work - and if so, why worry?" (Along with all kinds of dire warnings about what might happen if governance or policy fell into the hands of UN, ITU etc.)

Although I've been critical of ICANN, I actually believe there is value (in the interests of the Internet's principles of freedom and lack of too much regulation) in keeping management of the DNS in the hands of ICANN or a similar body. I have an open mind about this but I think that if ICANN was more open and intelligent then it could win its case for continued operation on the grounds that many people actually *don't* want governments interfering too much in *their* internet.

However, I think that ICANN has missed such an opportunity by its failure to engage and involve the At Large. It's obvious to any fool that ALAC has failed to engage any real kind of community. And yet a community is there if ICANN only took the risk of opening its doors to individual internet users again. If the ICANN Board could only enter a dialogue with a dozen key members of the At Large movement, it would be possible to negotiate the following outcome:

An At Large operating at and within ICANN, involving hundreds and probably thousands of posts a month on ICANN-based fora, working hard on policy formulation, supporting ICANN in the face of threats to its role, presenting to the world a *worldwide* community representing and open to all users.

This outcome would enable ICANN to say to WSIS, UN, ITU etc: "Look! We are truly a worldwide platform for DNS management, with thousands of participants, and the involvement of ordinary users from every country in the world. We operate with the active involvement of ordinary people from all round the world, and are not tied down by governments and politicians!"

But at present, ICANN has only the sham of ALAC, which blocks individual membership, and results in a "locked out" community. The ALAC forum is a joke. It has been almost dead since its inception. Contrast the informal efforts of various At Large groups with mailing list posts that sometimes ran to thousands a month.

ICANN could create much-needed legitimacy for itself if it (a) opened At Large membership at ICANN to individual members (b) allowed the constituency at ICANN to vote for its own representation (c) combined this new individual membership and self-determining constituency with open mailing lists and fora (d) restored the elected At Large Directors to the ICANN Board.

The irony is that many members of the At Large are more sympathetic to ICANN than to some inter-governmental oversight of the DNS. And it is also ironical that, lacking any mandate other than the DoC of the USA, ICANN has marginalised and locked out the one constituency which could provide it with a kind of global legitimacy. More than ever, ICANN could benefit from a lively, growing, participating At Large movement.

This could easily be achieved.

ALAC in its present form was a defensive measure, initiated to legitimise the Lynn "reforms" which expelled the At Large directors. This defensive arms-length At Large is presiding over dead fora and it is recognised by most people as simply a group of selected individuals without mandate for any of their statements. They are seen as part of an ICANN attempt to sideline individual participation. Therefore the hundreds of active participants in the At Large concept have largely opted out.

Of course, ICANN would probably end up having to play the numbers game. They would probably have to consider very carefully just how many At Large Directors to invite onto the ICANN Board. But to many individual internet users, the principle of representation and involvement would be the trigger to renewed participation. And this participation (along with representation) would be the beginning of a renewed legitimacy for ICANN.

The expulsion of the elected At Large directors from the ICANN Boardroom was, in my view, a catastrophic mistake for ICANN. From that time onwards the case for an alternative - some kind of world governance of DNS resources / Internet - was logically inevitable. ICANN needs to restore its credibility, its public mandate, and its legitimacy.

It's time to open ICANN's At Large constituency up to individual membership, and base its organisation on the self-determining decisions and representation of those individuals.

Only then will ICANN's At Large become a reality.

Only then will ICANN's legitimacy start to be acknowledged.

Yrs,
Richard