Don't screw up our ICANN (was RE: [ga] RE: issues that are long closed?)

[Elisabeth Porteneuve <Elisabeth.Porteneuve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Roberto,


I do believe that ICANN and we all must face the membership issue. The very 
reason for that is accountability. For those of you who have been watching 
San Juan Workshop: Accountability and Transparency Management Operating 
Principles Consultations - that was precisely what said both Nevett and 
Turcotte. One Board member present added that in today's system a Board 
member can spent 3 years on the beaches, and none can do anything with it.

In a standard membership organization the GA of members has an inalienable 
right to elect (and fire) Board members, and provide guidance to the Board 
for running company. The Board is entitled to hire (and fire) the CEO. 

In the worldwide organization, one person one vote, the membership does not 
scale well. While I found extraordinary the very idea of ICANN's election in 
2000, I could perceive many problems it raised.
But there are other possibilities to define membership.

Since its inception ICANN have been mixing up its contractual partners with 
Internet stakeholders.

ICANN's contractual partners are:
    gTLD registries
and gTLD registrars,
Those under contract or accountability framework with ICANN executing IANA 
function are:
    ccTLD registries,
    NRO,
    IETF.

ICANN's stakeholders are holders of gTLD domain names:
    1. Commercial sector (private sector - business)
    2. Non commercial sector (includes academia, NGOs)
    3. Civil society (individual users)
    4. Governments

Since its inception ICANN has been trying to determine the composition of 
its Board. It has been an endless process, three then two SOs, Board 
Advisory Groups, Presidential Groups, By-subject groups, By-category of 
potential members groups, Co-opted experts. ICANN made all those wanderings 
or inventions, because the very fundamentals - members or stakeholders- were 
difficult to determine. Eventually, ICANN have been doing like everyone, 
preferring to have to deal with organizations instead of facing those to 
whom it is providing ultimate service - domain names holders.

ICANN Bylaws use the scheme of 5 regions as means for wide participation.

This scheme of 5 is also used for non-commercial stakeholders - At Large 
Committee. IMHO there are good and bad sides of ALAC - it is good to reach 
participants from all parts of the world, it is bad each region has to work 
alone, and to have two level of representation. That being said, I think 
that Michael Froomkin's "en passant" suggestion to organize the private 
sector participation in the same way as At Large is excellent.

I would suggest we consider ICANN's membership set up to a predetermined 
number of shares, something between 100 and 200. Each of 4 categories of 
ICANN stakeholders would have a predetermined number of member's shares. 
Then we could have a voting GA of 100-200 shares, electing the Board, and a 
clear accountability mechanism.

Last year ICANN's CEO spent months to try to imagine international 
organization with diplomatic immunity and privileges.
He was complaining that ICANN is being sued too much.

Well, IMHO the very fact that ICANN is being sued in the US is good and 
sane. I do not believe it's so costly - ICANN is tax exempt - in any other 
country ICANN would be obligated to pay company taxes, and the amount of 
those taxes is probably bigger that the legal cost to go to court in the US 
and face clever lawyers when necessary.

The old techies remember how all TCP/IP started and how they have been 
fighting with ITU establishment for telecoms standards. The very idea that 
ICANN is trying to match UN agency heavy and costly functioning is the 
utmost disappointment, and would be a terrible failure.

A couple of years ago, one of first ICANN meetings (or was it ISOC?), Vint 
Cerf had a session with kids, and he came back to report children's 
message - it was "don't screw up our Internet". I would add today - don't' 
screw up our ICANN.

Elisabeth Porteneuve

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roberto Gaetano" <roberto@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Karl Auerbach'" <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "'Joop Teernstra'" <terastra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 9:53 AM
Subject: RE: [ga] RE: issues that are long closed?


> Karl,
>
> Thanks for the appreciation, and apologies for the delay in responding, I
> have been offline few days.
>
>>
>> It is feasible.  The election of year 2000 worked.  It's
>> problems were few and would have been readily corrected in
>> another round.  The urban legands about impossibility are
>> just that - urban legends.  And indeed, the 2000 elections
>> worked despite the active attempts to undermine them by
>> people associated with ICANN and who I believe are still
>> still associated with and compensated by ICANN.
>
> There are two problems I see with the global elections in the style of the
> 2000 round: the technique of the voting, and the relationship between the
> electors and the elected.
>
> The first one is contingent, and I agree completely with you, it worked
> given the conditions, and it can be improved to work better. There are
> matters associated with cost, and the risk of capture, given the 
> relatively small percentage of the electors, but cost can be assessed 
> and evaluated, and capture can be dealt with, considering also that many 
> years have passed, and the number of individuals who have learned about 
> ICANN and would be willing to vote has become larger, making capture 
> increasingly difficult (of course, this will vary largely with local 
> conditions: in some parts of the world it will be easier, in others 
> more difficult).
>
> However, it is the second one that worries me, because I see it as a
> structural problem, inherent with the model of "one individual, one vote"
> without an intermediate level of representativity. This is an issue that I
> have raised way back in Cairo and Yokohama, when I was favouring a sort of
> "council", elected by individuals, that in turn elected the Board 
> Directors.
> The problem is that if we have electors who number in the millions, which 
> is the target, there is no way that a Director could keep the contact with 
> his electoral body, and that the electors could debate the issues and 
> influence the position of the Director on the Board.
>
> In the 2000 elections this has left the Directors free to take any position,
> regardless the opinion of the electorate, who was in any way generally not
> consulted. Of course, we had different results in different regions, but I
> have not seen the vote of the former AtLarge Directors consistently in line
> with the opinions of the individual users (at least how I would figure out
> the opinions were).
>
> For this reason I think that that model is not workable. I cannot claim that
> the ALAC model is perfect, or even better, but it attempts to address the
> key issue, which in my vision of the world, is not "voting power" but
> "contributing power". In other words, the ability to debate and express
> positions is, in my opinion, more important to the ability to express a 
> vote every three year, while nothing happens in between.
>
> Now that the RALOs are formed, we will see if this approach works. I
> understand that most of the (vocal) participants to this list are against,
> but personally I don't see many alternatives that would ensure some level of
> debate in an organizational model that would scale up to the millions of
> (active) contributors. If, OTOH, we argue that the active policy making
> should remain in the closed circle of mailing lists counting only few
> hundreds, if not few dozens, of subscribers, while the electorate can only
> vote with its feet, but does not have an active role, we go in the wrong
> direction (in my opinion).
> Simply put, I believe that the representative democracy model suits user
> better than the direct democracy model, when we are talking about large
> numbers. What can work for the mayor of a small town, where everybody know
> eachother and the "town hall" can debate and rule, does not seem to scale.
> More often than not we see large direct political elections involving the
> millions look more like beauty contests than debate on the real issues.
> Again, just my opinion and my vision of the world.
>
>
>>
>> The ALAC, despite ICANN cheer leading, ICANN funding, and
>> years of ICANN life support has not achieved even a minuscule
>> portion of the internet user buy-in that was obtained in a
>> few short months by the year 2000 election.
>
> True.
> But it has obtained some practical results.
> For instance, the issue report on domain tasting. Little thing, you might
> argue. But going in the direction in which the voice of individual users 
> can influence policy.
>
> Best regards,
> Roberto
>
>