[ga] Appeal to the ALAC

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Vittorio,

Please forward this correspondence to the At-Large
Advisory Committee.


Dear At-Large Advisory Committee members,  

Vittorio's recent post to CircleID (cited below)
reflects the frustration of the At-Large.  We are a
community convinced that the ICANN Board has not been
listening to our input.

As end-users of the DNS, policy decisions enacted by
the Board impact us directly and as such we, ICANN's
largest stakeholder group, warrant seats at the table
where such decisions are being made -- this is the
only manner by which we can ensure that our views will
be taken into account.

In order to secure representation on the Board we
members of the At-Large have no choice but to
establish a Supporting Organization to elect our own
Board representatives.

It is long past time to pursue this course of action. 
Every other substantial group within ICANN has such
representation.  Unless you believe that it is
sufficient for our community to continue being treated
as a pariah, then I ask you to take action (as did the
ccTLD community) by laying the groundwork to establish
our own Supporting Organization.  

Consider your own frustration.  Ask yourselves, has an
advisory body construct well-served the needs of the
At-Large, or would we better be served by a different
institutional framework?  The ccTLDs recognized that
their needs weren't being suitably met by ICANN and
reorganized accordingly.  We as an impacted community
must do the same.

I ask you to begin by establishing a mailing list
wherein these and other at-large considerations may be
thoroughly discussed/debated by the entirety of our
community.

I ask you to enter into a discussion with your peers
in the At-Large.  

Best regards,
Danny Younger


-------------------------------------------------
By Vittorio Bertola | Jan 18, 2006, 02:41 am PST | 

(First of all, the nasty one) Did you ever read the
submissions by the At-Large Advisory Committee on this
matter? Could we please find a way to discuss the
matter with you and the Board, other than using the
press? 

Do you really think that it is ICANN?s role to decide
which new TLDs are useful? Shouldn?t ICANN just verify
whether applications meet some basic technical and
substantial requirements, have an ongoing
accreditation process, and let the DNS evolve? 

Don?t you think that high application fees (or, even
worse, auctions), long and complex accreditation
processes, and significant lobbying needs, unduly
favour commercial uses of the DNS over non-commercial
ones, and established ICT companies from the developed
world over everyone else? 

As an example, a group of volunteers (see
http://www.eu.org/) has been successfully operating
and giving away for free domain names for 10 years
now; but they would never be able to meet all the
financial and operational burdens that ICANN creates
to get a gTLD. Isn?t this the proof that these burdens
are unnecessary? Why can?t there be a way to establish
non-profit gTLDs compatible with the classical
volunteer-based and bottom-up approach of all Internet
activities? 

Thanks, 


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