SCN: ICANN

[Steve]

x-no-archive: yes

=========================

(Jeri Clausing, NY Times)---An election that would select half of the 
international board that administers the Internet faced a serious 
challenge on Thursday when a united front of groups representing 
businesses, public interests and ordinary users called for an 
overhaul and possible delay of the voting plan.  

Despite the apparent consensus of the more than 300 people who 
attended a public forum here at the meeting of the Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the calls for 
change were met with criticism, and in some cases, hostility, by 
some of ICANN's interim board members.  

The tension spilled into the aisles at the lunch break, where public-
interest groups; the board's interim chairwoman, Esther Dyson; and 
the board's lawyer, Joe Sims, had a heated exchange about exactly 
who the board should represent and whether it has properly clarified 
its role in administering the Internet's addressing, or domain name, 
system.  

The showdown has been brewing since two public-interest groups, 
the Center for Democracy and Technology and Common Cause, last 
week issued a study of ICANN's plan for a letting computer users 
around the world elect nine new board members by Sept. 30.  

That report, financed by the Markle Foundation at the urging of 
Dyson, said ICANN's plan to let any Internet user over 16 with a 
permanent e-mail and postal address elect a special electoral 
council -- which would then select the nine board members -- was 
plagued by conflicting goals, a lack of accountability and the 
absence of safeguards against capture by special-interest groups.  

It urged the group to put aside its deadline pressure for completing 
the election in September and instead focus on improving the 
process to ensure the election is legitimate. The report urged ICANN 
to replace the electoral council system with direct elections, to more 
clearly define the organization's role and to better educate the 
public about its mission.  

Although everyone who lined up to speak on Thursday urged the 
group to put process over deadline, their proposed solutions varied. 
Some voiced support for the report's suggestions; others proposed 
staggering the election or reducing the number of so-called at-large 
board members. Still others wanted to eliminate the general 
membership altogether.  

The criticism comes more than six months after ICANN's interim 
board adopted its election plan, spurring obvious resentment and 
frustration among the interim, appointed board members, who have 
worked as volunteers for the last year and a half to carry out the 
goal of having a fully elected board in place by the end of 
September.  

Nine other board members were elected last fall by three so-called 
supporting organizations, which represent specific groups like 
Internet service providers, domain name registration companies and 
the intellectual property interests concerned about protecting their 
brands in cyberspace.  

Hans Kraaijenbrink, one of the interim members, angrily told the 
crowd Thursday that the report from Common Cause comes "one 
minute before midnight," adding: "We are back to Square 1. I don't 
want to be back to Square 1."  

He and other board members said they were concerned that too 
broad a group was angling for a voice in the process. ICANN's 
charge, Kraaijenbrink and a colleague, Gregory Crew, said, is to 
oversee the narrow, technical functions of the Internet.  

Dyson and Vinton Cerf, an Internet founder and one of the recently 
elected board members, said they were concerned that direct 
elections could result in the selection of people not sufficiently 
knowledgeable about the technical operations of the Internet.  

"I am concerned about capture by people who don't know what they 
are doing," Dyson said. "People who are stupid, individually."  

Public-interest groups, however, are concerned that the current and 
proposed structures of ICANN dilute the voice of Internet users who 
will ultimately be affected by ICANN policy. While some of the board 
members insist ICANN's mission is strictly technical, their policies 
already overlap with broader issues, such as who can and cannot 
register certain words in Internet addresses.  

One of the first decisions the interim ICANN board made was to 
prohibit so-called cybersquatting, or the bad-faith registration of 
domain names containing trademarks with the intent to resell at a 
high price. And the group currently is considering whether to also 
offer special protections to "famous marks," which have never 
before been given international protection.  

ICANN has already began its effort to build the at-large voting body, 
launching a Web site last month where Internet users older than 16 
can complete a form, which will be subject to final rules set here this 
week.  

ICANN's president, Mike Roberts, said that 6,000 people have 
already filled out the online application form. He said that the bulk of 
the applicants were male and that 70 percent were from North 
America, with another 20 percent from Europe. ICANN officials say 
that have already begun an outreach effort to include more women 
and to make the make the pool of applicants more geographically 
diverse.  

Charles Costello, director of the Carter Center, which specializes in 
establishing democratic elections in developing countries, said 
ICANN's plan for an electoral council was problematic. "Electoral 
colleges are top-down filters used to dilute the voting rights" of 
individuals, he said.  

He said that by refusing to improve the election process, ICANN 
risks "having very bad elections which are ultimately seen as 
illegitimate."  

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company  






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