ICANN Endorsements; Cyber-Federalist 28
ICANN's endorsement period for potential At-Large candidates is almost over. Three candidates have clear leads, but there's still time if you haven't endorsed anyone. Lots more below.
(You have read the background, haven't you?)
The total number of At-Large members who have "activated" their PINs in North America is just over 10,000, so since one of the requirements for nomination is 2% of the members must endorse you, the floor for a successful nomination is just over 200 endorsements. Here are the current stats:
- Karl Auerbach - 473
- Barbara Simons - 351
- Emerson Tiller - 324
- Eric Lee - 96
- Subhash Gupta - 61
- Nick Nicholas - 54
- Robin Bandy - 50
You can see the rather large gap between 3rd and 4th place. Since there are only three spots open on the ballot, Auerbach, Simons and Tiller are looking good to be nominated.
Included below is the Cyber-Federalist, a newsletter covering internet governance issues.
Date sent: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 01:20:42 +0200
To: cyber-federalist@cpsr.org
From: Hans Klein
Subject: CYBER-FEDERALIST NO.5: The ICANN Member Nomination Process
Please forward
********************************************************
CYBER-FEDERALIST No. 5 September 6, 2000
THE ICANN MEMBER NOMINATION PROCESS
Civil Society Democracy Project (CivSoc)
of
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)
(CivSoc of CPSR)
http://www.civsoc.org
http://www.internetdemocracyproject.org/
http://www.cyber-federalist.org (archive)
********************************************************
The Member Nominations phase of the ICANN elections ends this Friday (September 8). With just a few days left, we can begin to see some likely nominations and some electoral trends.
The most useful website for following the elections is the ICANNnot site, which summarizes each region's election. That site is located at:
http://www.ICANNnot.org
(Many thanks to Mr. Andrew Bloch for creating that site!)
In what follows, I summarize the present state of each regional election and speculate about the future.
EUROPE
======
Europe has had the highest turnout of any region, with over 32% of all activated members voting (21% of all members in the region.) Europe also has the fewest open positions for member nominations -- only 2 of 7, with the other 5 positions already filled by ICANN's nominees.
The two candidates most likely to win a nomination are Andy Mueller-Maguhn and Jeanette Hofmann, both from Germany and both with strong credentials for representing civil society concerns on the ICANN Board. The clear leader is Mueller-Maguhn, with more than twice the endorsements of any other candidate. Mueller-Maguhn is the Speaker of the Chaos Computer Club (www.CCC.de), an organization that promotes issues like privacy and freedom of information. (My German colleagues have uniformly emphasized that the term "chaos" refers to its philosophy of freedom and non-hierarchical organization.)
Jeanette Hofmann is a university-based social scientist who has done extensive studies of the IETF. She is a founding member of the European chapter of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (www.CPSR.org) and a signatory to the Civil Society Statement (www.civilsocietyinternetforum.org).
Two other leading European candidates are Lutz Donnerhacke and Dmitri Bourkov. Donnerhacke is a co-founder of FITUG (www.FITUG.de), which is a member of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (www.GILC.org). With about 800 endorsements, he is only about 250 votes behind the Jeanette Hoffman at the time of this writing. Bourkov, the only non-German candidate with large numbers of endorsements, has a background in the technical areas of network development in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Election data for Europe is available at:
http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi?s=e&r=EU&l=e
An archived discussion forum for Europe is available at:
http://www.fitug.de/icann-europe/index.html
ASIA/AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC
======================
The region with the greatest contrast to Europe is Asia. There, only about 12% of activated members have voted (less than 5% of all Asia regional members.) Asia has three candidate positions still open, but so far only one member has passed the 2% threshold for nomination.
The leading candidate is Hong Jie Li from China, who has over 1000 votes. He has a business background and expresses concerns about business development. Three other candidates each have between 400 and 500 votes. Kuo-Wei Wu, from Taiwan, has a background in the technical and research community and is active in APNIC. Jon Ho Kim, from Korea, is an expert in intellectual property law.
The fourth candidate is Yukika Matsumoto from Japan. She is the only leading Asian candidate to strongly advocate civil society issues. She has worked with NGO's, most notably JCA-NET, which is the Japanese member of the Association for Progressive Communications (www.APC.org). At the time of this writing she has the third-highest number of votes, but has still not passed the 2% threshold needed to win a nomination.
Election data for Asia is available at:
http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi?s=e&r=AP&l=e
NORTH AMERICA
=============
The North American region has three clear leading candidates for its three open positions. All three have strongly supported values of civil society.
Karl Auerbach was a co-founder of the Boston Working Group, which played an important role in ICANN's creation, ensuring that there would be an At Large membership. His extensive reform platform for ICANN can be seen at: http://www.cavebear.com/ialc/platform.htm. Barbara Simons is the former President of the Association for Computing Machinery (www.ACM.org) and founded its Internet Governance Project (http://www.acm.org/serving/IG.html), which supported the work of Kathy Kleiman. Simons is also a long-time member of CPSR. Both Auerbach and Simons have endorsed the Civil Society Statement (Auerbach contributed significantly to its creation.) The third candidate who has also passed the 2% threshold is Emerson Tiller, whose platform supports free speech and open democratic governance of ICANN.
Election data for North America is available at:
http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi
LATIN AMERICA/CARIBBEAN
=======================
In this region one candidate has emerged as a clear leader, although a second person may still pass the 2% limit. With the majority of ICANN members located in Brazil, it is not surprising that both candidates are from that country.
Claudio Silva Menezes has over 800 votes out of a total of 924 at this time. He works for the Banco do Brasil in IT management. In a distant second place is Aluisio Nunes, with 60 votes. He is an independent consultant in strategic management and marketing research.
Election data for Latin America are available at:
http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi?s=e&r=LA&l=e
AFRICA
======
Although only 54 votes have been cast so far in this region, the rates of participation are roughly equivalent to North America. Here the threshold to surpass is the fixed limit of 20 voters. Two of the three candidates are still far below that, with 8 and 6 votes.
The leading candidate here is Calvin Browne of South Africa. He is a director of the corporation managing the .co.za domain name space, which is the South African equivalent of .com. He also has years of experience participating in activities of ICANN and the Internet Society.
Election data for Africa is available at:
http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi?s=e&r=AF&l=e
COMMENTARY
==========
These data allow one to speculate on what the future holds.
Clearly nationalism is a strong factor in these regional elections. In each region, the leading candidates are citizens of the countries with the most voters. The big countries are Brazil, Germany, United States, South Africa, and China and Japan.
In two regions -- Europe and North America -- voters have shown a clear preference for candidates expressing concerns for free speech, privacy, and democracy (what I here call "civil society values.") Every single successful candidate in Europe and North America has advocated civil society values.
For the final elections in North America, where Lawrence Lessig is also a candidate, fully 4 of the 7 Board candidates in October will likely be explicit supporters of such values. (This multiplicity of candidates does not risk splitting the vote and causing them all to lose, because the election rules will allow for the aggregation of votes.)
In Europe, only 2 of the 7 likely candidates in October seem to have a strong background in civil society issues. However, they are both from Germany, the country likely to exercise the greatest influence on outcomes. Thus, 2 of the 3 final German candidates will almost certainly be strong supporters of such values.
In Asia, there is still some chance that one civil society candidate may make it on the ballot -- Yukika Matsumoto. Otherwise, that region's electoral choices in October will largely be among candidates from the industry and technology communities.
In Africa and Latin America, the candidates with the clearest civil society orientation will be those nominated by ICANN. Both of ICANN's African nominees endorsed the Civil Society Statement (see: http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/friends-of-civsoc.html ). One of ICANN's Latin American nominees, Raul Echeberria, also endorsed the Statement and was the recipient of an endorsement from the Association for Progressive Communications (www.APC.org).
Between now and Friday's election deadline, a few questions remain. The biggest question is whether Asia voters will nominate Yukika Matsumoto, the only advocate of privacy, speech, and the public interest who has a chance to get on the ballot. In Europe, Jeanette Hoffman could still lose her position to Lutz Donnerhacke, although support for Hoffman seems to be increasing as the deadline approaches.
The election rules do allow members to switch endorsements. Yukika Matsumoto could still benefit from a last-minute wave of switched endorsements, particularly of other candidates with no prospect of success declare their support for her. That may allow her to pass the 2% threshold.
In October the big question will be whether voter behavior in this phase will be repeated in the October election. Today's voter behavior has been characterized by considerable support for candidates supporting civil society values. If the October elections look like the Member Nomination phase, then new Directors may be elected who will supplement ICANN's current concern with property rights with a concern for speech, privacy, and consumer rights.
The Civil Society Statement is available at:
http://www.CivilSocietyInternetForum.org/
###
Candidates and readers are welcome to comment on this analysis. Comments on the previous Cyber-Federalist, No.4, have been offered by: Vint Cerf, Christoph Weber-Fahr, Carl Malamud, Hans Klein, and David Reed. See: http://www.cyber-federalist.org
=========================================================
CYBER-FEDERALIST is a regularly-published series of analyses and commentaries on Internet governance and ICANN elections. It is produced as part of the Internet Democracy Project. See:
http://www.civsoc.org
http://www.internetdemocracyproject.org/
http://www.cyber-federalist.org
Subscribe to the CYBER-FEDERALIST!
send an Email to: cyber-federalist-subscribe@cpsr.org
=========================================================
A world wide internet government? (Score:1)
I got mine (Score:1)
Re:ICANN is nothing more than a smokescreen (Score:1)
Wait, we already did! The internet used to belong to the people, but in our infinite generosity we gave what we paid for as a people to big business so we could pay for it again and again. Just because it's (currently) mostly american business doesn't mean it'll stay that way.
Re:ICANN is nothing more than a smokescreen (Score:1)
Here's a clue for ya, chief. WE ALREADY HAVE IT ALL. We inherited it from PERFIDIOUS ALBION.
So shut up, already. I wouldn't want to have to sic the CIA on you...
No one at Latin seems to be a fair player (Score:1)
Note that people in that organization may help him to be voted or yet worst may be forced to be an ICANN voter. He is member too of the Monarchist Movement that seems to me their choices and intentions may not be so good.
The second one is just an 'skydiver', in other words a person who is there just by the hype; what seems to me that is too NOT good.
My $0.02.
Take back the net (Score:1)
icann.org down (Score:1)
When I registered back late in July, it also took me HOURS to get my registration through... the server was overloaded. Granted, I did register on the last day of July...
Perhaps before they do anything to the internet, they ought to sort out their own network first!
This is turning out great. (Score:1)
As I look at the names of who's getting the most votes, and cross referencing them with the previous story on slashdot (where the candidates responded to the Civil Society Statement). And I am most pleased.
Although, due to ICANN being irresponsible and not providing the resources necessary to allow for a truly democratic election, I have not been able to secure my vote.
But I am glad that those who did get through, are voting wisely. The three (Auerbach, Simons, and Tiller) would be a welcomed addition to the board. More importantly, I'm happy that many of the politicians in this battle are not getting many votes.
So to all of you ignorant trolls on this website, who believe that in large groups, people are dumb,... you are WRONG. People are intelligent, and if you would simply give them a chance, you would find that out. People in groups, can make democratic decisions which benefit everyone. And if you can't understand this, then I truly feel sorry for you.
By the way, was this sign up thing for the at-large memebership a one-time thing, an annual thing, or what?
Re:ICANN is nothing more than a smokescreen (Score:1)
You think someone who invents something is just going to give complete control over it to other people.
Re:ICANN is nothing more than a smokescreen (Score:1)
It should be noted that the strongest defense of diversity in domain names comes from people who happen to be in the U.S.; they include Auerbach and Simons, who have been heavily supported in their independent runs for the Board.
Re:Europeans, vote Mueller-Maguhn (Score:1)
Re:Hummm.. (Score:1)
--
The 7 person limit (Score:1)
Re:This is turning out great. (Score:1)
As ICANN pointed out: "The overwhelming number of registrations produced significant logistical and financial problems for a system that was established and intended to deal with fewer than 10,000 registrations."
Given that ICANN received more than 30 times the number of expected membership signups - I think they did pretty well all in all in attempting to handle 158,000 new users.
I also support their decision to proceed with the elections on schedule, while continuing to evaluate the process (and the whole at-large idea).
The At-Large signup period is now over (July 31) but so long as the interest levels for the At-large program are there, and so long as ICANN gets a sense that this experiment is not just a huge waste of resources and money, it looks like they will reopen membership on an annual basis.
So, if you have an active membership -> go vote! Participate! Let's show ICANN that the At-large program has support!
Re:DNSO (Score:1)
First, it looks like you are supposed to join the General Assembly of the DNSO. You do that by signing up for any of their mailing lists. An easy, low volume one is their announcement list: majordomo@dnso.org [mailto] with the words subscribe announce in the body of your message.
You then go to list of nominees [dnso.org] to review the nominees.
You can also read a statement from James Love [slashdot.org], since he looks like a good candidate. His page was linked to from the Civil Society Internet Forum [cpsr.org], which seems to have lots of good information about stuff having to do with internet governance... so you might want to check them out as well.
It then looks like the only real "vote" you have is to endorse a candidate and then the Names Council makes the final decision. See the instructions for endorsing a candidate [dnso.org] to endorse the candidate of your choice.
Somehow, that wasn't as easy as I would have hoped. At least it didn't take a month of waiting in the mail for a PIN number to arrive. Have fun :)
Re:31331 bytes in body? (Score:1)
\/\/0 d15©0v3®3d ©a®m@Po|\|0u®\/\/1nD0z3b0X3z
*grin*
31331 bytes in body? (Score:2)
DNSO (Score:2)
Largely overlooked is the fact that the Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO) of ICANN is also electing one board member.
The DNSO is arguable the most significant part of ICANN because it now makes the decisions whether to open up new gTLD's, and what standards are used worldwide to deprive people of their domain names when challenged by trademark owners. (In case you haven't noticed, the press increasingly refers to the process of hijacking domain names as being maintained by the "United Nations". It isn't -- it's ICANN, and it is run by trademark owners.)
The race in the DNSO is lively because it pits James Love, a consumer advocate, against entrenched trademark interests. Go to www.dnso.org [dnso.org] and do review all the candidates.
Annoy Me (Score:2)
To activate your account you have to enter your member number, your password, and the pin they mailed to you. Ok, I can understand that. They need to know that you have both a valid email address and a postal address.
But everytime that you want to do something on the site, you have to enter all three. Is there a reason they need to know your pin after you enter it the first time to verify that you recieved the snail mail?
Furthermore, each of their scripts seems to do its own login. It does not appear that there is a central way to login and be able to use any scripts. Each one will ask you for the information during each session.
I would usually make a link that I can bookmark to log in to a site like this, and I wouldn't be annoyed. However it appears you would have to make one for each script:. cgi?login=1&mn=memberNumber&pw=password&pin=snailM ailPin
https://members.icann.org/cgi-bin/atlarge/endorse
would work for the endorsement, but not for doing anything else on the site.
bummer
Re:Hummm.. (Score:2)
If it were #1, then there would many people who received the snailmail by mistake, or late with an apology, but that isn't the case, so those things aren't happening.
Perhaps they lost part of their database, and aren't sweating it. The fact that the servers were too busy for many to register is evidence enough of their irresponsibility torwards the entire election.
As much as I would hate for it to be true, #2 is seeming more and more possible by the day. I think regardless of what happens, there needs to be an investigation, an we need to find out whether or not ICANN is "throwing" the election.
Re:I read through the platforms, and (Score:2)
That's the point. If you read the platform, they ask that ICANN's membership be official members per the california definition. I see why he wants that, but that opens up a huge can of worms. Many issue advocates and trial lawyers would love ICANN to be vulnerable to a legal seige that this would allow.
OTOH, not being official members also leaves members without any legal protection whatsoever. The problem is that California's law gives groups no defense against people who join, then sue. As I said, by the trial lawyers, for the trial lawyers.
I read through the platforms, and (Score:2)
So far, so good. While they aren't the greatest series of ideas in history, they do seem to be pretty solid.
ICANN, so far, has been run as a "let's do what's right no matter what those idiot users think". This is one of the major arguments against letting ICANN do anything. Their arrogance is tremendous, but so far, they haven't been able to live up to their high opinion of themselves. So I like the ideas for reducing staff discretion, greater transparency and more open procedures. And burn all TLD's? That's right up my alley.
IANAL, but:
With all that said, ICANN does need to be sent a message. So far, it has been autocratic, condescending and rude. They have managed to be a weird combination of three stereotypes: Faceless Corporations, Big Government Bullies, and the BSOFH. So while I think we need better ideas for the direction ICANN will take, this isn't a bad start.
And, hey, I got my PIN; I'm ahead of the game.
Never got my pin (Score:2)
Re:Hummm.. (Score:2)
Re:Hummm.. (Score:2)
Some individuals may have got more than one vote!? (Score:2)
I was in the first wave of membership registrations from Germany after the excellent publicity campaigns run by c't [heise.de] and Spiegel online [spiegel.de], and hence I received my PIN letter quite early. I was a bit suprised when recently I found another letter with another PIN and along with it received an email with another number and password.
I managed to activate the second membership without further problems. I was not able to endorse another candidate, though, because the server said that my second membership had been "placed at -3" for security reasons and refused to let me place another vote. I sent mail to ICANN asking for deletion of my second account, to which they haven't answered, though.
It might be interesting to know if there are others out there enlisted at ICANN with more than one membership account, and if any of these were able to cast more than one vote, which I would find rather disturbing and democratically unsatisfying. As far as I am concerned, I mainly see technical problems behind this, but for the conspiracy theorists among you, this is probably another bit of meat to chew on, as is this article [spiegel.de] on Spiegel online [spiegel.de] (in German) about the "revolt of the voting cattle" and fears of technoanarchists dominating ICANN.
ICANN is nothing more than a smokescreen (Score:3)
The ICANN elections are unfortunately nothing more than a smoke-screen for America's continued attempts to keep hold of their control over the Internet, and no matter what the results are nothing will really change.
Despite its open foundations and international scale, America seems to be unable to realise that it is not their property anymore, and that other countries play just as an important role in it as they do. Sure, they may have provided the environment where the foundations where built, but anyone can see that it has grown beyond America now.
Unfortunately America loves to extend its reach internationally, and this is just another example whereby America is trying to manipulate other countries to its own gain. As long as America is in "control" over the net, it can make it incredibly difficult for other nations to do anything which they don't like, since the threats and bullying behaviour which we see so often from America will shortly follow.
ICANN is little more than a people pleaser designed to distract the world from America's continued attempts to impose its control over the net. Sure, go ahead and vote for your favourite candidate, but nothing will change and the American Hegemony will continue in its attempts to stifle freedom and exercise control.
Hummm.. (Score:4)