[ga] RE: [Released] [Contains offensive language] Transparency

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Vint,
 
I do recall a similar prior situation -- the Public Comment Forum on VeriSign's Deployment of DNS Wildcard Service had taken note of a letter writing campaign (petition).  The Forum's Chronological Index page cited at the very top the source of the petition (http://whois.sc/verisign-dns) and indicated the page to which the petitioning comments were posted:  http://forum.icann.org/wildcard-comments/petition/
 
As ICANN Staff has previously utilized this procedure, I was taken by surprise when this most recent letter writing campaign somehow fell through the cracks.  You may wish to ask the Staff how it happened that the earlier petition regarding the Wildcard Service was noticed  while this other campaign somehow escaped their attention.  It may turn out to be a simple matter to ensure that such lapses don't occur in the future.
 
With regard to the issue of spam management, I'm given to understand that the ALAC's John Levine is considered to be somewhat of an expert in the field.  As the role of the At-Large Advisory Committee is to consider and provide advice insofar as it relates to the interests of individual Internet users, John and others on the Committee should doubtless be eager to assist ICANN in achieving a more efficient processing and disclosure of whatever public input is received.   
 
Why not put the ball in their court and see what they can come up with?
 
Best wishes,
Danny Younger
 
 
 
"Vinton G. Cerf" <vinton.g.cerf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Danny,
 
I understand your point. There is a huge amount of spam that comes into the email at ICANN and I am not sure whether it is mechanically possible to distinguish "letter writing campaigns" from spam. I don't say this to dismiss your point at all, just thinking out loud about how to go about implementing it. Perhaps this is a judgment call and if campaigns like this are mounted, we should consider posting a sample?
 
The ICANN Ombudsman also received a large number of emails (not as many as the Department of Commerce, however). He considers these contacts to be private since the business of ombudsmanship requires a considerable degree of sensitivity. 
 
Of course, every mailing list is now a potential spam target, so keeping a list like that actually useful is a challenge. 
 
What's your thought about practical implementation? 
 
By the way, all of the email sent to me that contained the string ".<triple X>" was filtered out by my company's spam filter and I had to retrieve these manually from the spam files!!
 
vint
 
 

Vinton Cerf, SVP Technology Strategy, MCI
22001 Loudoun County Parkway, F2-4115
Ashburn, VA 20147
+1 703 886 1690, +1 703 886 0047 fax
vinton.g.cerf@xxxxxxx 
 


---------------------------------
From: Danny Younger [mailto:dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 9:46 AM
To: vinton.g.cerf@xxxxxxx
Cc: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Released] [Contains offensive language] Transparency



Dear Vint,
 
It is now known that on 17 June a group known as the Family Research Council posted an ALERT on the topic of the Establishment of the .XXX Domain.  This organization requested that interested parties send the following message to publicaffairs(at)ntia.doc.gov and to icann(at)icann.org:
 
"I oppose the establishment of the .XXX domain.  I do not want to give pornographers more opportunities to distribute smut on the Internet.  By establishing this new .XXX domain, you would be giving false hope to parents who want to protect their families from pornography.  You would also be lending legitimacy to the hardcore pornography industry.  Please stop this effort now."
 
It should have come as no surprise to the Board that opposition to the .xxx domain approval was emerging as the Board is privy to the email sent to the icann(at)icann.org address.  On the other hand, we, the rest of the community, were kept in the dark about such correspondence until the posting of Michael Gallagher's request which cited over 6000 letters and e-mails on the issue.
 
I respectfully submit that greater transparency is required.  
 
There was a time when ICANN had an Open Public Forum into which anyone could submit a comment at any time on any topic, and whereby we could all assess the intensity of any emerging concerns -- but that Forum has been eliminated.
 
I ask you to consider having all such letters sent by the public to ICANN posted somewhere on the ICANN website so that the remainder of the ICANN community can react to such input.  Allowing us to know who is reacting to DNS issues will afford us the opportunity to attempt to integrate some of these organizations into the ICANN process.  In the long run, that could be quite beneficial.
 
Best regards,
Danny Younger
dannyyounger(at)yahoo.com
 


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