////////////////////////////////////////////////// ORIGINAL PROPOSAL TO ESTHER From: Curtis E. Sahakian To: edyson@edventure.com; icann@icann.org; comments@icann.org Subject: Re: You are Turning Away Outside Members Who Attempt To Register Date: Sunday, July 30, 2000 11:51 PM Esther, There are four items I feel the need to bring up. 1. My Apologies. You have a thankless job and you seem a bit weary of all the criticism. I have no doubt that you mean well and are trying to solve a puzzle that seems to have no optimal solution. It is not my intent to burden you with more negative emotion on the subject. You do have you hands on the steering wheel of ICANN. As a result you have indirect control over one of the most potent forces of human intellectual and economic evolution since the invention of movable type. For that reason I feel compelled to reach out to you and convince you to make a change in direction. 2. You Can Leave A Legacy. There are hundreds of billions of dollars being made off the internet. In short order it will become trillions of dollars. There are billions of people on this planet and hundreds of millions who use the internet. Why not challenge ICANN to reach out to all these people and make them members. Why not create the largest democratic organization in the world in the world. Create the foundation of a new world wide virtual political entity... a democratic political entity... a democratic political entity that crosses old tribal lines and old political lines. Other than the air and the seas it is rapidly becoming the most important shared resource on earth. Why should it not be controlled by democratically elected representatives of all its users. You are in a position to catalyze an event of great moment by merely reversing course. Instead of minimizing involvement by individual users, why not reach out to include them. 3. How To Do It. Start a world wide voter registration campaign. Try to register every individual (as opposed to corporation) using the internet. Give them the right to elect 2/3 of the seats on the board. The memberships must be free (no poll taxes). No corporate votes, only human beings. And there should be strict term limits to keep candidates from cycling back too many times. Do it all electronically. Go ahead take the risk. What is the worst that can really happen. The launching of the American democratic experiment in 1776 was considered by many to be a foolish risk as well. 4. Where To Get The Resources The remaining seats should be split among corporations and other political entities. The corporation seats probably stay as they are. You should have a seat for a United Nations representative, a representative of a large country, of a medium sized country and of a small country. The country seats should be rotated so no one country begins to think it owns the process. Whatever the selection process for the individuals who fill these seats, they must bring along with them a sponsor willing to pay a very hefty membership fee. No membership fee, no representative. If the big companies are unwilling to pay then smaller up and coming companies should be willing to pay. Everyone believes that your board is the stooge of corporate interests. They will not think they are losing anything if you put the seats up for auction in order to support what will be the largest democratic organization in the world. They already believe the seats are bought and paid for. They will view it as no great loss. It is hard not to be taken aback that you could have a representative of MCI WorldCom on your board yet not have the resources to be able to move you registration system to a server that can handle more that 145,000 registrations. They need to ante up or get out. 5. Please Reconsider Your Current Direction. If you let matters continue on their current course and then leave in November, you will have presided over a mess that occurred on your watch. You will leave nothing that you should feel proud of. The founders of America risked hanging for treason and impoverishment of their families when they challenged King George and launched a democracy in the new world. Now it is your chance to make the history books... with much less risk. All you have to do is reverse course and back the full enfranchisement of other human beings. Others are likely to come up with numerous excuses why you can't or shouldn't do what I am proposing you consider. I can solve any excuse or problem that anyone brings up Your famous father certainly left a legacy to the world. You now have the opportunity to contribute far more. I am hoping that you will take it. It's not easy for human beings to make an abrupt change in direction. That is what I'm asking you to do. Would you please mull it over and at least consider it. What the heck, why not leave your tour of duty with ICANN having done something great and lasting. Thank you for your kind consideration Curtis Sahakian 847/676-2774 Cpart@Corporate-Partnering.com ////////////////////////////////////////////////// ESTHER'S RESPONSE Forgive me for not responding to everything that was below (snipped for length)... I'd be happy to respond to any specific questions. Herewith some comments rather than a coherent response. But the major misunderstanding is about ICANN's mission. ICANN is not nor should it be a world government. it is a corporation - call it an agency if you will - that sets and implements policy for the technical infrastructure of the Net...including the Domain Name system which has some commercial and political implications. its mission is to reflect the consensus of the Internet community - infrastructure providers, users of all kinds (commercial, political, individual) - but not of the world at large, about how these resources should be managed to ensure the Net's health/growth. Because these are in some sense public assets, it's appropriate for ICANN to be be publicly accountable, but it is not a democracy in any traditional sense of the word, in part because it is not an -ocracy. It does not have power over people; it is not a government. It has no statutory authority. ICANN certainly does have an impact on commerce, and it recognizes that and attempts to balance the interests of trademark holders with those of non-trademark holders (cf. the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which is generally more favorable to non-trademark interests than, for example, US law). It limits its policies and their purview so that it cannot be used to control speech, as opposed to commercial disparagement. Yes, that is a fine line, and ICANN will be reviewing the implementation of the UDRP over time to make sure that that line is being drawn appropriately. People who want to start a world government, whether democratic or not, should look elsewhere... Re the current elections: THe idea was not toget everyone to vote first time around. It was to get a good, representative sample of individual members in order to elect five new At-Large board members to represent individuals' perspective (I hesitate to say "interests"). We believe we have done that, imperfectly. And personally, as I said in the press release, I am disappointed that near the end so many people seem to have joined more in a spirit of rivalry - let's beat country X - than out of genuine interest in ICANN's functions. The heavy volume of last-minute sign-ups meant that many people who tried to sign up couldn't - and probably contributed to the jam as people tried again and again. But we did listen to the consensus, which had been - for some time - "don't delay the elections any longer!" Our goal now is for the new at-large members to come up with additional independent candidates to supplement the set of nominees generated by ICANN's nominating committee. (And I'd like to point out that at least one ICANN candidate, Larry Lessig, could hardly be considered an ICANN lapdog..) The slightly longer-term goal is a lively election process with discussion, evaluation and criticism of ICANN and how it should carry out its mission, and then the election of five board members reflecting voters' opinions. After that, we plan to assess the entire process and see what worked and what didn't (including out-of-whack projections of the level of interest). Overall, ICANN is not doing as effective job as any of us would like because we are short of staff. That means that many of our flaws reflect a lack of enough staff rather than any deficiencies in individuals. I hope that addresses some of the points. Please write back with questions, etc. Esther ////////////////////////////////////////////////// COLUMNIST BOB LEWIS - FIRST RESPONSE TO ESTHER From: Bob Lewis To: edyson@edventure.com Cc: Sahakian, Curtis Subject: ICANN Date: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 11:27 PM In any event, my friend Curtis Sahakian has asked me to weight in on the ICANN Board of Directors controversy, assuming, for reasons that escape me, that a guy who writes a column about IT management for Infoworld will have some impact on the issue. But what the heck - I can form an opinion as well as the next guy, and on as little hard knowledge. So here goes: >From the length exchange of e-mails (I chose not to copy it here) I think I understand a few basics. Like, the original planning assumption was for 10,000 total votes, the total number of at-large directors is far less than half the make-up of the board, and voting will be cut-off before everyone who has tried to vote will be allowed to do so due to technical limitations. Comments: 1. ICANN planned for less than 0.001% of all Internet users to participate. When you figure that in the US we're embarrassed because only 40% or so of all eligible voters use the polls, I'm thinking the original plan was, shall we say, just a wee bit unrealistic? 2. Five at-large directors are either (a) just fine, or (b) no better than none, depending on the homogeneity of the rest of the board. If it includes several other clearly identified groups then five votes have as much power as any other faction. If not, their votes and participation are worse than meaningless, because the cynicism created by the structure of ICANN's board will be actively destructive. 3. I'm certainly not in favor of using a direct referendum to settle ICANN-oriented issues. There's a reason to prefer representative democracy to pure democracy. The basic concept of having a governing board is as relevant to the Internet as to any other area of governance - I just want to make it clear that I'm certainly not challenging ICANN on this basic bit of governance design. But ... it's pretty clear that the initial planning assumptions were flawed, and I'm guessing the director at-large positions will be largely meaningless. That tells me ICANN is in the classic position of someone who's stuck in a hole, but continues to dig. While it will be painful, I suspect you'd be better served to put a bullet in the current process and start over than to let schedule be the driver for design decisions you'll regret later on. And no, I don't have any brilliant ideas for governance alternatives, other than perhaps formally defining at least three constituencies and giving each the same number of representatives, so that each group has the same influence over results. Good luck - I don't envy you your responsibilities. - Bob (ISSurvivor@cs.com) ////////////////////////////////////////////////// COLUMNIST BOB LEWIS - SECOND RESPONSE TO ESTHER From: Lewis, Robert To: Dyson, Esther-UEXT ; Curtis E. Sahakian Cc: Bob Lewis ; dvorak@aol.com; pbrewster@alexanderogilvy.com; vinton g. cerf ; Mike Roberts Subject: RE: An Exchange of Emails with Esther Dyson About ICANN Date: Thursday, August 03, 2000 10:18 AM Esther ... I sent you a few comments yesterday evening from my other e-mail address. They're more or less orthogonal to the note below, though, and I'm afraid I can't resist the temptation to respond to this one as well. There's a key premise in your arguments that's going to be more controversial than I think you're expecting: that the 'Net is nothing more than a facility for the exchange of bits. While true in a physical sense, limiting the discussion to this level of analysis is equivalent to talking about a lobotomy in terms of physical alteration of the brain without reference to any impact on personality. In all respects, the "cyberspace" and "virtual reality" metaphors are unavoidable. Both in terms of the psychological impact of e-mail and the Web on individual users, and the commercial metaphors that guide the creation of Internet business models, ICANN must realize that the 'Net has properties in common with physical domains. That means that ICANN has much in common with the governments that set policy for the physical world. If its governance model doesn't take that into account, its governance model will continue to be highly controversial. I think that on some level you recognize that, and in fact the fine line you're seeking separating free speech issues from "commercial disparagement" doesn't exist. Oprah Winfrey proved that when the Texas Beef Association (or whatever it called itself) sued her for "product libel" and lost. There is no difference between commercial disparagement and product libel; the Supremes found that product libel laws violate the First Amendment. In a way I admire ICANN's attempt to avoid grandiocity in defining its responsibilities, but I'm afraid in this instance it's more a matter of failing to recognize its natural scope. If ICANN does want to limit its role in the ways you describe, though, here's a logical starting point: Make the use of domains optional. Adding them will solve very little anyway - any company with a strong brand (or that aspires to a strong brand) will immediately register its name with every possible domain as soon as the new domain is created, even if there's no obvious logic to it. If ICANN adds .hospital to its list of approved domains, I'd bet as much as a quarter that the next day, Microsoft will register Microsoft.hospital as one of its domains, for example. So make domains optional to begin with. When there's a benefit, companies will use them to make themselves easier to find. They'll serve the same purpose file extensions do - if I want to find all software companies on the web, it would be pretty handy to type *.software into a search engine. And by making them optional, ICANN makes it clear it serves no governmental role. - Bob Lewis PS: Even though I'm sending this message from the Perot Systems e-mail system, this message in no way represents a company position on the subject; merely my thoughts in my role as an independent columnist for Infoworld. ////////////////////////////////////////////////// COLUMNIST BOB LEWIS - THIRD RESPONSE TO ESTHER From: Lewis, Robert To: 'Curtis E. Sahakian' ; Dyson, Esther-UEXT Cc: Bob Lewis ; dvorak@aol.com; pbrewster@alexanderogilvy.com; vinton g. cerf ; Mike Roberts ; jeri@nytimes.com; ronda@panix.com; Jean_Camp@harvard.edu; erony@marin.k12.ca.us; russ@consumer.net; lanfran@pop.web.net; lidia.carlos@wto.org; zittrain@cyber.law.harvard.edu; tom.bliley@mail.house.gov Subject: RE: An Exchange of Emails with Esther Dyson About ICANN Date: Monday, August 07, 2000 10:44 AM Esther ... A few reactions and I'm going to bow out of the fray, on the theory that once I've said everything I have to say twice, the horse is dead and all I'm doing is flogging it some more. 1. As I communicated to you previously, the concept of "place", applied to the Internet (and for that matter, all communications networks) is not simply poetic metaphor. The Internet has enough properties of geography that its governance must take them into account. I think, based on our earlier correspondence, that you fully endorse this position. 2. ICANN, along with the IETF and W3C, constitutes most of the Internet's "government", because the combination of IP address and domain name is the Internet equivalent of land title. 3. I personally believe the need for mandatory domain suffixes is obsolete. Adding more fails to relieve naming conflicts (Microsoft, for example, will most certainly claim ownership of Microsoft.Everything) but does confuse use of the Internet even more. A better solution is to use domain suffixes for categorization but to make them optional ... or perhaps even charge a fee for their use. Microsoft, to continue the example, could claim "Microsoft" as its domain for a base fee, but would pay a premium for the use of "Microsoft.software". In some cases (the sex industry comes to mind), use of the domain suffix might be mandatory (Hermaphrodites.porn); akin to zoning in the physical world. 4. Just because we're dealing in Internet time doesn't mean schedule must pre-empt quality. If you conclude the complaints of critics are valid, and ICANN's current governance model is so flawed as to impair its ability to properly govern the Internet, starting over is preferable to continuing in the wrong direction. 5. I see no parallel between any ICANN activity and shooting a guy five times and then kicking him. Sorry, Curt, but this serves a purpose about as useful as Rush Limbaugh's annoying "feminazis". Personally, I find the recent domination of the Internet by commercial interests to be irritating - especially so given how little the private sector contributed to its creation; and how frequently leaders of the private sector disparage the government and academia, which created the Internet while the private sector sat on the sidelines. (I've called this the BIG/GAS theory in my columns, for "Business is Great/Government and Academics are Stupid".) ICANN should not be dominated by any single economic sector, but if its leadership isn't chosen as I'd choose them, they still aren't Nazis, thugs, or criminals any more than the open source movement is made up of Commies. Let's stop with the inflammatory parallels and just make our points using facts and logic. Propaganda is for the masses, not for this audience. Disclaimer: Even though I'm sending this from my Perot Systems e-mail system, I'm writing it as the author of Infoworld's IS Survival Guide (which means, by the way, that I'm not speaking for Infoworld, either). - Bob Lewis ////////////////////////////////////////////////// MORE RESPONSES From: Russ Smith To: Jean Camp ; vinton g. cerf ; ronda@panix.com; comments@icann.org; cpart@interaccess.com; edyson@edventure.com; gregcrew@iaa.com.au; icann@icann.org; ietf@ietf.org Subject: RE: Complaint to Dept of Commerce on abuse of users by ICANN Date: Thursday, August 03, 2000 11:44 AM >In short the problem with ICANN has been >overwhelmingly ne of participation. I don't believe that is the problem. The problem is blocking people who want to participate. A prime example is the dispute policy (UDRP). There is an extensive record of people who attempted to participate and identified several problems with the policy. These inputs were ignored. Now many of these identified problems have come to light and ICANN has no mechanism to correct these deficiencies except for vague answers. In addition to this ICANN has refused to release basic information such as how their committees are chosen and how decisions are made. All they do is put out news releases claiming a community consensus. A few months ago ICANN put out one these announcements and an attorney made an extensive effort to identify to find out who was actually consulted when this so-called "community consensus" was reached (the attorney has participated in the ICANN heavily over several years). I do not believe he found anyone who was consulted. ICANN does not seek transparency or openness, they block it. Those phony news releases they put out only make things worse. I don't see why anyone would want to waste their time trying to participate in something like this. Russ Smith From: Jean Camp To: vinton g. cerf ; ronda@panix.com; comments@icann.org; cpart@interaccess.com; edyson@edventure.com; gregcrew@iaa.com.au; icann@icann.org; ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: Complaint to Dept of Commerce on abuse of users by ICANN Date: Thursday, August 03, 2000 11:30 AM As friends, or at least a collegial colleague, of people on both sides of what began as a cooperative process and has become a series of sometimes personal battles I believe I offer an useful perspective on ICANN. In organizations which are participatory people are far happier with the outcome than in organizations which are not participatory regardless of the facts of the outcome. Winners and losers are happier and more define themselves in the first category. In short the problem with ICANN has been overwhelmingly ne of participation. There has been anger at ICANN that has further mired a struggling organization which is attempting to met an ill-defined mandate in unrealistic conditions created by flawed Federal oversight. Ironically two of these problems -- the anger and the struggling -- could be solved by increased participation. ICANN has tried to solve its problems itself without reaching out to other organizations, beyond the notable and admirable exceptions of ISOC and IETF. For example, one way in which the problem of franchise could have been solved would be to have other organizations offer cycles on their servers, simultaneoulsy splitting the load and offering opportunities to participate in a distributed manner. Neither the ACM nor MIT nor IEEE have been contacted with such a request, to my knowledge. Two of those mentioned are large membership-based organizations which have extensive experience in international elections. All three have technical legitimacy. Beowolf could have been or could ! ! be helpful, harnessing the strength of the Linux users community. While it may seem odd to advocate an offering envelope-stuffing and cycle-sinking opportunities to those who now seemed to be entrenched as opponents; I believe that in fact such an action would covert opponents to participants. There are things besides rage to be seen in the previous letter including passion and commitment. In fact, it seems that some are opponents because it is the only role which is structurally open in ICANN. As a result ther are people who would seem natural supporters of ICANN who have been forced to choose between a role in the opposition and no role at all. As such, some can participate as partners or perceive exclusion and eventually, inevitably, be forced into opposition as the only available role. At a recent Harvard workshop on markets, governance, and globalization I returned to find that the final note from the day before remained on the top of my pad, "participation itself is happiness." Going back one page I found that the sentence began, "Regardless of the final outcome.." The importance of participation in long term legitimacy cannot be overstated. The less participation the less legitimacy among losers AND winners. Regardless of the outcome those who have not participated see themselves as losers in a closed and exclusionary process. And I believe that is why ICANN seems unable to make many willing to offer support, regardless of rulings and outcomes. The closed nature of the nominations committee, the monotonic decrease in number of popular board members, and the lack of volunteer recruitment have severely damaged the legitimacy of ICANN. Not because they will lead necessarily to outcomes which would be unacceptable from any quarter, but because the reduced participation reduces the acceptability of any outcome. No outcome can alter the fact of a closed process. An engineering focus on outcomes over process is often the only correct and appropriate focus. But in the case of ICANN it has proven woefully narrow. Transparency in the engineering sense means that a process is so seamless as to be invisible to the system user. In the governance sense transparency is exactly the opposite -- transparency means users can see each and every step. ICANN has been seeking a high transparency system in the engineering sense in order to produce an efficient and useful mechanism. But transparency in the governance sense is what is needed! ! . Voting and membership are critical elements of participation. This election, IMHO, could create or destroy the legitimacy of ICANN. Please do reopen the registration, allow universities, graduate students, companies, individuals, and membership organizations to assist in handling the processing load. You (and I) were amazed by the sheer number of those who would participate. Allow participation, Legitimacy is difficult. Yet there is only one way to achieve it: embrace an open, inclusive, transparent process regardless of the inefficiencies which offend an engineering sensibility. best regards, Jean From: Michael Sondow To: list@ifwp.org Cc: Jonathan Cohen ; Esther Dyson ; Curtis E. Sahakian ; icann-board@icann.org; comments@icann.org Subject: Re: [IFWP] Re: [icann-board] Re: You are Turning Away Outside Members WhoAttemptTo Register Date: Monday, July 31, 2000 6:57 PM vinton g. cerf wrote: > we're already over the > top in terms of what we can handle in a reasonable time frame, taking > our funding (now expended) into account. More time is more cost The solution is simple. Have Mike Roberts donate part of his $216,000/year salary, have JonesDay donate part of their $500,000 fees, and have IBM, MCI, and AT&T contribute a couple of million each out of their excess profits from Internet operations. ============================================================ Michael Sondow I.C.I.I.U. http://www.iciiu.org Tel. (718)846-7482 Fax: (603)754-8927 ============================================================ From: vinton g. cerf To: ronda@panix.com; comments@icann.org; cpart@interaccess.com; edyson@edventure.com; gregcrew@iaa.com.au; icann@icann.org; ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: Complaint to Dept of Commerce on abuse of users by ICANN Date: Sunday, July 30, 2000 1:00 PM Ronda, have you taken time to look into the numbers of people trying to register? do you know what the planning estimates were before registration campaigns were initiated by various organizations? The planning numbers for registration were on the order of 10,000 people. As of a few days ago something like 145,000 people had sent in raw registrations. Keep in mind also that there is a PIN number that has to be sent by mail. There is a calendar schedule that ICANN is trying to keep for the election itself, so the PINs have to get to the voters in time for that. Every possible effort was made to increase the rate at which registrations could be processed and we've gone from about 1000 a day to an artificially limited 5,000 per day (200 per hour) simply because staff time to process is limited. Registrations close July 31. We all understand that the demand for this franchise far exceeds our ability to satisfy it in this election cycle. An in-depth study of the whole process is scheduled to begin after this election, Ronda - perhaps you were unaware of that? The board detailed specific areas to be considered. Perhaps the most effective way for your idea to be considered is to arrange for your proposal to be made available to the ICANN board? Vint Cerf From: Jay Fenello To: Curtis E. Sahakian Cc: edyson@edventure.com; icann@icann.org; comments@icann.org; froomkin@law.miami.edu; InfoCker@worldnet.att.net; sdoty@jaxx.net; Subject: Re: You are Turning Away Outside Members Who Attempt ToRegister Date: Saturday, July 29, 2000 3:32 AM Hi Curtis, You are asking some good questions about some basics philosophies behind the design and structure of ICANN :-) By all appearances, the people behind ICANN don't want voting, they don't want representation, and they don't want to do anything that would jeopardize their total control over the Internet. Originally, we argued for representational structures that were quantitative. Instead, we got a process that attempts to control everything about the vote, including the number of voters, and the candidates they can vote for! But even if the registration process was working smoothly, ICANN has taken away your right to control half the board. Instead of the 9 out of 18 directors as stipulated by the White Paper, ICANN's current process only results in 5 out of *19* directors, and ICANN can terminate those 5 at their option!!! [Even if you are given a vote in the at-Large membership, ICANN has taken away your right to be a member. This legal ploy allows the current board to avoid any of those nasty rules that apply to California Membership Organizations.] In actuality, this progression is exactly what we warned about when the initial ICANN by-laws were approved without any accountability clauses, and the initial ICANN board appeared of a virgin birth. Instead of an *interim* board that stuck around only long enough to find their legitimately elected replacements (as promised), they have used the last two years to consolidate their position, all while making landmark decisions about the future of the Internet commons. Much of this history is up at the Iperdome site: www.iperdome.com Hope this helps, Jay. ////////////////////////////////////////////////// EARLIER BACKGROUND MESSAGES From: Curtis E. Sahakian To: edyson@edventure.com; icann@icann.org; comments@icann.org Subject: You are Turning Away Outside Members Who Attempt To Register Date: Friday, July 28, 2000 10:47 AM Esther, My understanding is that ICON, closes registeration for voter membership in ICANN after JULY 31. I have tried twice to register, Your server says: "We are sorry. The database is currently overloaded. Please try again when the system is less busy." ICANN is denying me the right to vote. What possible excuse can it have? This is not right. It reminds me of voter registration problems blacks used to have in the South until the U.S. goverment sent troops and federal marshals there. You should either get the ICANN staff behaving properly or accept personal responsibility for their actions and resign. As best I can tell from quotes in the press, you seem to be doing neither. Why is that? Curtis Sahakian 847/676-2774 From: Esther Dyson To: Curtis E. Sahakian Cc: icann-board@icann.org; list@ifwp.org; comments@icann.org Subject: Re: You are Turning Away Outside Members Who Attempt ToRegister Date: Friday, July 28, 2000 12:31 PM Curtis - I am ready to resign when appropriate, but in this case it is not. You ask what "excuse" we have. We have a reason: The site is overloaded; we are getting a much bigger response than we expected. The ICANN staff is doing what it can to handle the unexpected damand. We have tuned the system to work much better than it did, but it is still overwhelmed.... Please think hard before comparing this to the south, where marshals *selectively* turned away blacks. We are not turning away particular groups of people; our system is simply rejecting attempts randomly. This is more like a traffic jam with too-small roads, not any kind of selection process or discrimination. Sincerely, Esther Dyson Chairman From: Mikki Barry To: edyson@edventure.com Cc: Curtis E. Sahakian ; icann-board@icann.org; list@ifwp.org; comments@icann.org Subject: [IFWP] Re: You are Turning Away Outside Members Who Attempt To Register Date: Friday, July 28, 2000 12:30 PM Esther - Given the overload with the server and the other technical issues, wouldn't it be prudent to extend the deadline for voter registration to give another chance to those who have been unable to access it? From: Esther Dyson To: Mikki Barry Cc: Curtis E. Sahakian ; icann-board@icann.org; list@ifwp.org; comments@icann.org Subject: Re: [IFWP] Re: You are Turning Away Outside Members WhoAttempt To Register Date: Friday, July 28, 2000 1:19 PM Believe me, we have considered this, and many other options as well! The level of interest has simply taken us by surprise. The problem is that a delay would then be "unfair" to those who tried and didn't know about the extended deadline, and so forth and so on. Meanwhile, that would mean delaying the rest of the process, because we also need time for people to get their PINs, and then for them to support independent candidates for the board. So in the end we decided to keep the schedule as is..... The deadline, like most deadlines, is arbitrary anyway, and it makes more sense to keep it as is because changing it would cause other disruptions. Esther Dear Esther, Thank you for your response. You should take another look at your comment that "The problem is that a delay would then be "unfair" to those who tried and didn't know about the extended deadline, and so forth and so on." To an outsider it sounds more like an insider rationalization for disenfranchisement of outsiders... that it would be unfair to this disenfranchised class to do anything other than to disenfranchise them (other than for a lucky few). The good white folk of the 50s had many sincere excuses for the barriers they erected to disenfranchise black voters. Many of these excuses were no less logical than the above. In the end it really didn't matter. All the excuses seemed to end up supporting and justifying the same results... the erection of barriers to the fair representation of "undeserving" elements of society. Why? These people were expected to make improper use of their votes. Whether or not that is happening here, if you are the one being disenfranchised, it sure feels like it is. In fact both then and now it seems that the responsible people in control found it difficult to even discuss the issue without leaking the obvious concern that "these people" can't fully be expected to exercise their vote in a responsible way and that's why we need the safeguards which...Oops.. seem to have the result of reducing their representation. My understanding was that your staff was hoping that no more than 10,000 people would register. The internet is a big place. I would propose that you should find it unacceptable if your staff is unable to generate at least 1,000,000 registrations. It is very easy for ICANN to generate huge amounts of world wide publicity. I have seen no evidence of it using this ability to promote wide scale registrations. From what gets through to me in the press, I see an organization from which emanates policies and communications that appear designed to discourage participation. For instance instead of emphasizing that registration is FREE, ICANN appears to emphasize that it is going to charge a yet "to be determined" membership fee. It is the grass roots perception of unfairness that is generating what demand for registration there is. If NSI had carefully attended to the issue of fairness and perception of fairness, they would likely still be in control of their registration franchise. They didn't and they aren't. If ICANN doesn't start proactively addressing this issue in a satisfactory manner, the same fait may await it. I propose that your job entails 1. not only efficiently running ICANN, 2. not only running it fairly, but 3. delivering the appearance of fairness. You may well be doing the first (running ICANN efficiently). It appears to me that you are not doing the second. You are definitely not doing the third. I'd like to encourage you to try doing all three with equal vigor. Doing the first alone isn't good enough. Even doing the first two isn't good enough. For you to succeed, you must succeed equally with all three deliverables. What grade would you give yourself on the third deliverable? If you reported to someone, and your were that someone, how would you rate your performance? How would you rate the performance of the ICANN staff? Was the selection of the inadequate registration server and the failure to quickly upgrade it the result of sinister design, mopery or other causes. Does that even matter? Would you accept any excuses from an employee in your own business if they screwed up a subscription campaign like this registration process has been... and then pretended that it didn't matter? Doing all three of the above items adequately is better than doing the first one very well and the last two poorly. It may be that this job can be better handled by a politician than by an entrepreneur. Maybe ICANN is a venture that needs to be de-privatized. Curtis Sahakian 847/676-2774 Cpart@Corporate-Partnering.com