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ICANN Mulls Poll Taxes, Representation 84

Posted by michael from the silicon-valley-tea-party dept.
Cutriss writes: "The ICANN seems to be thinking about giving in to public demands. According to this article on Wired.com mentions that ICANN is considering allowing domain owners to elect their board of directors. It's a step in the right direction. I wonder if domain owners could collaborate and cast a collective vote of no confidence, absolving ICANN of its responsibilities..." I wouldn't call it a step in the right direction since each revision to ICANN's Board involves less individual representation and more corporate representatives. There's another story with some quotes from Karl Auerbach. The At-Large study that we talked about earlier has now been released in its final form. If you don't like the way ICANN is going, please consider attending their meetings. Next one is in Los Angeles next week.
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ICANN Mulls Poll Taxes, Representation More

ICANN Mulls Poll Taxes, Representation

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  • Some comments on the ALSC report (Score:3, Informative)

    by mpawlo ( 260572 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @09:43AM (#2527254) Homepage
    Here are some comments [slashdot.org] to the ALSC findings that I submitted to Slashdot a couple of days ago.


    They are still valid, even though you may not agree with me .-)


    Mikael

  • What about multiple internet domains? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @09:52AM (#2527292)
    Frankly having people vote who have internet domains isn't all that much better than anyone who has an email address. I personally own nearly six or so domains (this is not even including the ones that I am listed at a technical contact for due to my web development work). This also shuts out a lot more people that would other-wise be able to vote, I can name several people who probably would choose to vote yet this will cut them out.
    • This also shuts out a lot more people that would other-wise be able to vote, I can name several people who probably would choose to vote yet this will cut them out.

      Of course they COULD buy a domain registration and vote. It used to be $100/reg, but it's much lower now...

      But perhaps that's what's intended. Can you IMAGINE the revenue for the registrars if there's ever an important and closely-split issue coming up and BOTH sides decide to buy votes?

      (And can you imagine a Beo... naw!)

  • Catch 22 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Angry Black Man ( 533969 )
    Unfortunately there is no good way to solve the problem of one person voting multiple times. There are tons of people with hundreds of domains under their belts. Granted while it is easier to get e-mail addresses than it is domains the elections could still be off balanced by a single person with many domain names. Perhaps an even better solution would be allowing one vote per IP address or something along the lines of that. Again, it wouldn't be perfect or promise that only one vote per person is counted. It's something to think about. If anybody has any other ideas for solutions, I'd like to hear about them. It seems like something I'd be interested in researching and refining.

    • Re:Catch 22 (Score:2, Interesting)

      by instinctdesign ( 534196 )
      Perhaps you could have to register to vote, much like you currently have to in many countries. This would allow the combination of multiple factors from email address, domain, IP, etc. Seeing as how your email isn't all that anonymous in general (if that was what some people are worrying about) then this solution might work. As was mentioned in an earlier post, democracy isn't easy and you have to want to be a part of it so this extra time and effort would be worth it.
    • Voting by IP address would be even worse. ISPs would control the whole thing. Take a look at the ARIN registry some time. Is your name listed as the owner of your IP address? I didn't think so.

    • I thought they solved it (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 )

      What I don't get, is that when I signed up for At Large membership, I think I remember that there was a snail mail step, where I received some code thingie on a physical piece of paper. Doesn't that limit the fraud to people with multiple physical snailmail addresses? That's still do-able, but a much bigger pain-in-the-ass than setting up multiple email accounts.

  • ...considering allowing domain owners to elect their board of directors.

    I wonder, if you own 20 domains do you get 20 votes? That would be in keeping with ICANN's previous actions.
    • That would be just wonderful, especially when you consider that pornography sites constitute a great percentage of the domains out there.
      • Well I think even worse would be AOL and MS dominating ICANN (perish the thought). I mean, at least porn is a valuable service! I would rather the internet turn into a porn center than an AOL-ified kiddie town.

      • That would probably be good for the Internet: a large number of small business people who have been there from the start of the 'net (or at least since the beginning of the commercial variety), have experience with the technical issues as well as business concerns, and are definitely anti-censorship. I think my interests as a netizen would be much better served by a representative sample of 50000 pr0n vendors than by one Microsoft, AOL, or Esther Dyson. At least the pr0n vendors just want to make their money; they aren't interested in taking over the whole thing, they just want their little piece to be secure.

        ICANN is moving more and more towards governing the 'net top-down, in stark contrast to the way it was originally created. Now, more than ever, we truly need a grassroots organization springing from the small domain owners and technical architects of the network, not from some fading 20th-century relic of the U.S. Commerce Department. Hopefully someday ICANN will realize that popular input into the process isn't the problem, it's the solution. As currently constituted, though, ICANN doesn't seem able to grasp this principle (which you would think would be self-evident to a group who mostly hail from western, open societies).

    • You should try reading up [atlargestudy.org] on the story before you post!

      -Tammie

  • democracy in action (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @10:03AM (#2527325) Journal
    It has been said that Democracy is what happens when people participate. If no one participates, then what you get is a democracy of whoever happens to show up.

    You can have a democracy of special interests, a democracy of thieves, a democracy of madmen, or whatever.

    If you think your viewpoint is relevent and important, then you should do something.

    In the People are Lazy theory, People tend to do only those things that are utterly important to them. This allows more ambitious folks a free hand.

    This might not been in your best interest.

    • In the People are Lazy theory, People tend to do only those things that are utterly important to them. This allows more ambitious folks a free hand.

      But there is a COST to participating in a democracy: Eyeball time.

      You only have so much life. If you spend it all in political wrangling over the rules of living it you don't have any left to enjoy. (Unless your favorite passtime is policical wrangling, of course.)

      This is why there are Republics: So people can chose representatives they trust to spend the time coming up with a ruleset.

      It's also part of why Anarchists and Nihilists simply ignore or work around those who "claim to make rules".
  • The fact is that many companies have many tens, sometimes as many as hundereds of domain names. Why should they get that many votes? Should I get to vote on the BOD of McDonalds if I happen to eat several hambergers every day?

    The people running an organization like ICANN should be impartial, not people who have power becuase of how many domain names they happen to be squatting.
    • If MacDonald's is the only hamburger on the market due to a contract with the US Dept of Commerce to be a state-sanctioned monopoly on hamburgers, yes, you should get to vote for seats on the Board of Directors.

      smile,
      -l

  • This is not "a step in the right direction" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by scarhill ( 140669 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @10:06AM (#2527336) Homepage
    Cutriss writes:
    "The ICANN seems to be thinking about giving in to public demands. According to this article on Wired.com mentions that ICANN is considering allowing domain owners to elect their board of directors. It's a step in the right direction."
    According to ICANN's original charter (which the board has ignored), all internet users were supposed to be able to elect half of the board. Now this committee proposes (and the board will no doubt rubber stamp) that domain name owners elect one third of the board, with the rest appointed by a variety of industry "stakeholders".

    How is that an improvment???

    • The real problem with this is that if you read the by-laws [icann.org], they need a 2/3rds majority to pass anything. With the number of At-Large Directors elected, they kept that portion under 1/3 of the total slots. Thus even if all of the At-Large Directors are opposed to a measure, they can STILL pass it.

      Disgusted with ICANN,
      -Tammie

      PS Also take a look at this article [slashdot.org] submitted last Wednesday that talks about the same thing.

    • It certainly isn't "a step in the right direction." ICANN isn't giving in to public demands, its giving up on public participation. It seems to me that ICANN is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

      "Well, lets see...the voting system has problems, prone to multiple voting...then let's not let voting have an effect on the board!"

      That's basically what they're doing. Reducing the number of board members elected by the public (from one half to one third), limiting voters to domain owners, and charging "annual membership fees" (aka Poll Taxes) to public voters; they are starting to take the public out of the process and hand it on a silver platter to corporations. I wouldn't be surprised if in a couple of years they decided to eliminate public voting all together, in the name of getting "members who are knowledgeable about the technical issues surrounding the Internet" and eliminating voting fraud.

      Then there's this idea:
      To compensate for anyone's loss of a vote, ICANN plans to create a committee responsible for collecting input from the public, including people who do not own domains.I don't see how that's any compensation. Changing the public's role from determining who makes up the board to what gets written in some committee's report (which probably won't get read anyway) is no compensation.


      All this bitching has made me hungry, so I'm off to get a sandwich,

      • Re:This is not "a step in the right direction" (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Luyseyal ( 3154 ) <swaters@@@luy...info> on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @02:09PM (#2528860) Homepage

        It certainly isn't "a step in the right direction." ICANN isn't giving in to public demands, its giving up on public participation. It seems to me that ICANN is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

        Indeed, several of us on the At-Large forum list have said that we would sign an amicus curiae or whathaveyou on a report to the Department of Commerce that ICANN has failed to implement anything at all resembling public participation as promised.

        Methinks they'd be pretty sad if the DoC said "get with the program or dissolve."

        -l

  • Well, I'm sure I can vote for a lot of people here when I say that the 'owners' of the .CX TLD will most certainly be voted out by at least 99% of their customers.

    Back in the old days when Planet3 used to run this TLD, things were great. Yeah sure, you may call them a little bit slack at a professional business level (email favours, quick fixes etc.) but their management console was very simply to use and didn't hinder the user in any way. Great.

    But then the wonderful people who reside on Christmas Island (small island near Australia I believe) decided they wanted their TLD back in their control and pretty much dismissed Planet3 of any association.

    That's when it all went wrong. DOTCX (or whatever they named themselves) had no clue about managing a TLD. How on earth did this get pass ICANN? Why did the decision get made at ICANN to allow these idiots to have control of a well establish, popular TLD.. God knows..

    I'm not too sure of the current status - The last time I looked, DOTCX were still looking for registrars to sell their domains and manage DNS, from the prerequisits I noticed on their site, they still probably don't have anyone..

    One of the more frustrating issues from this complete cock-up from ICANN was that when your current .CX domain expires - if DOTCX don't have any registrars, you loose your domain! *poof* and are unable to re-register it or continue to pay your annual subscription as there is noone available to take your cash.

    Fortunately, either through incompetance of good-will, my .CX domain which was due to expire in May this year, is still active and I have not been contacted either way for renewal or notifications of expiry. I suppose that's good but still leaves this huge shadow of doubt.

    So, what can ICANN do about it? Make more decisions like this? The idea of domain users voting for certain things sounds like a good idea, surely it could help avoid situations like the .CX fiasco, but then you run into many more complicated situations would could take _even longer_ to resolve. It's hard enough to resolve issues with ICANN and it's members, let alone with the rest of the world polling away...

    My 2 quid.
  • Nitpick: Michel's key concern was that the new proposal would prevent Internet users who don't own a website from having a vote in ICANN

    Doesn't it give you a warm fuzzy feeling to know that ICANN board members see domains and websites as the same thing?

    • Well, if their concern from the article was to make sure that ICANN is composed of people that know the Internet's technical problems, then I'd say they've failed :)

  • If individuals are left out... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Then the only solution is to cast a diferent internet... with diferent set of top level servers...

  • How does this solve the problem? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gcondon ( 45047 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @10:31AM (#2527444)
    Ultimately, the problem is that ICANN is getting too cozy with the corporations that dominate the web.

    As mentioned in the article, the problem with the last "public" election was that it suffered from massive fraud by people opening throwaway email accounts to vote with.

    Certainly a "one domain = one vote" scheme would heavily favor corporations which regularly buy blocks of domains to protect their trademark turf.

    However, even a "one domain owner = one vote" scheme would be unfair to the public. While they might be limited to a single vote for the majority of their domains, only big corporations (think M$) have the money to rig the elections by purchasing domains through shell organizations (think The Association for Competitive Technology).

    At least when the primary mechanism for ICANN voting fraud was free, the public could still compete with the corporations.
    • I wouldn't call it a step in the right direction since each revision to ICANN's Board involves less individual representation and more corporate representatives.

      If an individual is a domain owner, how does this apply? (answer: it doesn't) Actually, since non-corporations can own domains, the corporate bashing here really doesn't belong.

      I'm really puzzled at the fear/corporate bashing element exemplified here. If my corporation owns X domains, why /shouldn't/ I have representation? Why should some idealist ELF college student / non-domain holder have an equal say - or worse, as this poster proposes? My domain, my money, my vote. Don't like that? Go argue with your poly sci prof and stay out of the real world.

      Certainly a "one domain = one vote" scheme would heavily favor corporations which regularly buy blocks of domains to protect their trademark turf.

      And this is new? ICANN's already influenced by the big boys, which is nothing new to the Internet. Actually, defense contractor influence is part of its tradition. Just look at NSFNET's original plans for how the net would go commercial (a proposed shift of public assets as big as the frequency giveaways to broadcasters).

      That said, and recognizing I'm just a wee little domain owner with a few dozen under my administration, there's really no better way to handle it (even though folks like AOL/TW will certainly get to push things around). Any other non-representational effort is a sort of tyranny.

      the public could still compete with the corporations.

      Gosh, I think I'm going to take on GE today... not. To think people make fun of conservatives for fearing the government. LOOK! There's a Fortune 50 in your closet! Eek!

      Seriously now, what "public" do you propose? The gubmint version? The ACLU? The rioting masses at the latest trade conference?

      However, even a "one domain owner = one vote" scheme would be unfair to the public.

      The public, c'est moi, right? I'm tired of hearing special interest ploys to protect "the public" (read: wrestle control into their paws) in ICANN and other entities. Give the control to he/she that pays the bills.

      Want a domain vote? Buy one.

      *scoove*
      • I wasn't really arguing about the right or wrong of corporate control of ICANN. I was more trying to address what I perceive as weaknesses in ICANN's plan to provide more public (read non-corporate) input to the directors-at-large selection process. As I see it, the proposed changes move the process further, rather than closer, to that goal.

        That said, I am somewhat disturbed by your brutally frank advocacy of a purely marketized selection process. Taken to its logical extreme, organizations need only pony up the dough to obtain representation proportional to their "taxation". I am sure I can think of an organization or two, perhaps in the Pacific Northwest, who would be glad to spend whatever it takes to obtain near-exclusive control of ICANN. I am also pretty sure that very few of us would be happy with the results.

        Finally, as to your proposition to "[g]ive the control to he/she that pays the bills": rest assured that, ultimately, it is always the public that pays the bills. Otherwise, corporations would not be interested in the first place.

      • If an individual is a domain owner, how does this apply?

        You should read the At-Large study forum archive for discussion on this. Here are some starter responses fleshed out in much more detail on the list:

        • ICANN does not only represent domain owners. This is not a push-content only 'Net. This is why protocols and addresses have separate representation.
        • What is an individual domain owner? A 2LD owner? Why stop there? There are lots of non-US citizens who purchase 2LDs and even 3LDs, particularly in states with ccTLDs. Will they be excluded? What's the arbitrary limit on subdomains to get a vote? VeriSign is already worried that an arbitrary limit will cause unnecssary flattening of the domain hierarchy. My URL listed above is a valid domain name. I don't pay a dime for it, should I not get a vote? I'm already subject to Roadrunner and Dynodns restrictions, can't I have some say as to how they should run their businesses from a higher level: i.e., should they not have some accountability (moreso RR, less so Dynodns) to myself and others?

        I'm really puzzled at the fear/corporate bashing element exemplified here. If my corporation owns X domains, why /shouldn't/ I have representation? Why should some idealist ELF college student / non-domain holder have an equal say - or worse, as this poster proposes? My domain, my money, my vote. Don't like that? Go argue with your poly sci prof and stay out of the real world.

        • Individual domain owners currently have no representation. The DNSO is only for corporations. This was because IDNOs were supposed to have representation through ALSO.
        • As far as representation, if we don't have a "one person, one vote" analogue, you'll have the same problem to solve as did the Continental Congress did, their solution being the creation of a Senate and a House.

        Since you seem pro-free market, let me point out that ICANN is a Department of Commerce sanctioned organization. That means it is supposed to have public accountability built-in as a state-sanctioned monopoly. ICANN has been openly stifling free market competition by sucking VeriSign's dick repeatedly with government backing and no recourse from public input.

        The point of the 'Net is to allow lots of stuff, not dictate "there can be only one .com registrar" or "there can be only one root server system." But with ICANN headed down the US-centric, monopolistic path it's headed down, I certainly foresee instability in the 'Net as a result.

        I hope I'm wrong, but we'll see.

        -l

      • You want unfettered capitalism? Ok. Let's remove the legal protection of incorporation. Let's remove corporate welfare entirely. Let's remove government oversight and regulation departments. You getting the picture? Now go talk to the people running the corporations in this country and ask them if they really want unfettered capitalism. I guarantee they don't. It would get very ugly very quickly, and we would all suffer for it.

  • Be afraid... (Score:3, Funny)

    by imrdkl ( 302224 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @10:46AM (#2527499) Homepage Journal
    Why not just take the next step now? Lets have weighted voting based on things like:

    • How well you entertained the current ICANN board members when they visited your town or place of business
    • How many of the children of the board members you offered free scholarships
    • How many free vacations, car rentals, plane fares, etc you offered to the current board members.
    After decades of decadence, we can even demand that they reform. Just like the IOC!

  • Fuck 'Em (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    Those assholes have always been about as useful as tits on a bull. We should just forge our own root servers. With gambling. And hookers. Ok, forget the gambling...

    Seriously, anyone can put a root server up. The only problem is propigating the list of root servers to everyone and you could do that with multicast or something. It shouldn't be a hard problem to solve, people.

  • So dump ICANN (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ami Ganguli ( 921 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2001 @11:07AM (#2527571) Homepage

    ICANN is only relavent as long as everybody uses their DNS. I don't understand why somebody with some moral authority in the IT world doesn't just set up an alternative. I know there are in fact several alternatives, but these are private companies that nobody has heard about.

    So who could do it? The IETF and the ACM come to mind. There are probably a few others.

    Note that you don't have to switch all at once, you can still fall back to legacy ICANN domains if the new domain system doesn't find a match.

    My "ultimate" domain name scheme would allow anything as a .tld (although you could set up a few with restricted access, perhaps '.trademark' or something like that). That way, for example, IBM could use "buy.ibm", while somebody who doesn't like IBM could use "dontbuy.ibm". There would be no way to purchase all the domains under a .tld.

  • Ah, yes, another committee, the ever-present ICANN solution. Another layer to bang your head against, to negotiate with for months, to lose or dilute your suggestions...this is the public's compensation for losing any input into real power and decision-making.


    Of course it has always been problematic to count votes from a general, world-wide population. An organization with a public role doesn't necessarily need a one-person-one-vote sort of democracy to be accountable. But when the people who try to hold ICANN accountable have been rigorously excluded from the beginning (breaking through only occasionally such as in the election of Auerbach), we have to fight against removing the few processes that may promote accountability.

  • are likely not to know enough about them.

    It is my logical belief (through reasoned findings) that they, along with the United States Department of Commerce and the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization, are all corrupt.

    Please visit WIPO.org.uk [wipo.org.uk] to find out why.
    • They may well be reasoned findings, but your website isn't going to win any converts. It makes you look like Robert McElwaine.
      • You do not say if you object to style or content - and what parts, so your criticism is muted - but thanks anyway.

        I am after no converts - I just place the proof before you.

        Those with intelligence will see - and those without will not.

        My skills are not in web design - it does need a rewrite.

        Hopefully it will make it easier for you to understand ;-)

    • Jeez... (Score:2)

      by Danse ( 1026 )

      Tone down the website a bit. Make reasoned, rational arguments and lay off the silly imagery. It's childish and nobody with any credibility whatsoever will take you seriously. Add some structure to it. Get rid of the huge, goofy fonts. If you clean it up, it might be something that I would recommend to others.

      • Constructive critical appraisal is always welcome.

        Thank you for the advice.

        I thought the animated gif of Secretary Evans (DoC) said it all - a picture is worth a thousand words, is it not?

        Do you not have contempt to anybody in authority that would deny your rights?

        You are not the first to slag it off - I will have a go at rewrite. Probably keep the gif.

        Please come back in a few weeks time.

        • Contempt? Of course. But I prefer to express it in a way that someone who does not yet understand the issues, and therefore does not feel the contempt, would give a second glance to before writing me off as a radical loonie. That's why I was suggesting giving it some structure. Maybe turn it into a FAQ format, or a timeline. If you must keep the images, at least move them off of the front page. Perhaps move them to pages where the user will see them after they've read the portions that will make them understand, if not share the contempt. Basically, try to create a site that doesn't look like a tabloid story, but more like an in-depth, investigative journalism article.

  • These bozos are really pushin' it. Dig this: The only people with a "stake" (fucking horrible PC bullshit word) in the internet are the Corps and those who "own domains". What a load of fertilizer...

    and this: "The nine-member At-Large Membership Study Committee, created by the ICANN board earlier this year, recommends reducing at-large representation from one-half to one-third of the board seats.

    In addition, individuals wishing to help select representatives would have to pay unspecified annual membership fees and own domain names, which typically cost about $30 a year.

    ``It's just utterly laughable,'' said Karl Auerbach, a current at-large board member.

    Auerbach said he would consider resigning if the report is adopted. ``I would seriously question my desire to remain associated with a group that just slapped the Internet community in the face,'' he said."

    And then -

    "Supporters of the at-large reduction believe it's important to have board members who are knowledgeable about the technical issues surrounding the Internet."

    What, Like Karl, Esther, et al. don't?

    I smell Vint Cerf...
  • Not entirely sure what the big deal with ICANN is anyway. Since their control is only "virtual" and the Internet really does not rely on their existance. In fact, we can do just as well without them. They talk about how there needs to be control for TLDs, etc. But, I say WTF?, I can create my own TLD and tell a bunch of people to use.

    Just setup named, and you can create any stupid name that exists. Albeit only those few people you tell will know.

    Even better, Click Here [new.net] and Here [alt-dns.net].

    Yeah it still costs $$$ to register a domain, but your choices are much wider and if everyone sets this up, then ICANN doesn't mean crap anymore.

    Quit your whining and do something about it. Going to those meetings ain't gonna do jack. Because corporate people don't give a crap about you. Just go behind their backs and use your own TLDs!!!!!!!!
  • I'm perplexed over the issues with both ICANN and the W3C seemingly bending over and offering up their hindparts to commercial concerns. People rail, bitch and moan about this sorry state of affairs, acting all the while like something needs to be done to reform these organizations in order to 'repair' the damage they've done/are about to do in the process of whoring themselves out.

    The solution is rather simple: ignore them and set up an open domain name scheme and http protocol immune from the efforts of these corporate sluts to sell off chunks of the internet. I've suggested this before and the primary objection is that 'most people' won't use the new http protocol or DNS system. I say, so what?

    Yeah, that's right: so what? Most of the current DNS scheme is completely tied up by commercial interests warring over trademarks or anything remotely approaching a trademark, while the W3C is thinking of incorporating technology that requires royalties. I'd hazard to say that more than 99% of the web is utterly useless as it is, so an alternative system with a reputation of *not* being friendly to business and not being cluttered with endless amounts of porn or single-page geocities/yahoo home-brew pages is, I think, a *good* thing. Who gives a shit if the average Joe doesn't visit your site? If you aren't a business you're looking to have savvy folks with a keen personal interest in what you have to offer visiting, aren't you?

    I'd use an alternative system for both items in a heartbeat, assuming it's completely open-sourced and GPL'd (to avoid another W3C or ICANN popping up). I'd wager that many scientific and academic interests would as well to avoid the 'clutter' of the regular web and to get domain names that aren't already handed out to business and squatters. Which means that when I use this alternate web it might be much easier to find something of practical value - and without goddamned adverts and popups! Tell me how this isn't a good thing.

    I say let's stop bitching and start planning an alternative. Ignore the W3C and ICANN and just go our own way. What can they possibly do to stop us?

    Max

  • There is a very reasonable alternative to that awful ALSC report:

    http://www.naisproject.org/report/final [naisproject.org]

    But unless there is a very strong outcry against the ALSC report, the NAIS report has a peanut's chance in a zoo of being adopted by the majority of ICANN's board of directors.

    By-the-way, if you are in LA for the ICANN meeting next week, make sure you preregister. Paranoia has struck deep and they aren't letting in anyone who hasn't preregistered.

    • Strong outcry? How does the /. community make any stronger cries? How does such a community actually get to have a say in this environment? The ALSC list is full of outcry, maybe more should join and post their feelings? see http://www.atlargestudy.org

      Karl, you're on the BOD, what do you recommend that /.'s should do to actually touch this group?

    • The At-Large-Study-Committee are very selective about what they use for input. The seem to hear only what they want to hear. Only today when someone questioned the basis of their assertion of "consensus" and said (paraphrase) "hey haven't you even tried asking on slashdot" one of the ALSC folks gave a lukewarm, non-committal reply and said (praphrased): "That would be nice, why don't you go and do it."

      ICANN and its progeny such as the ALSC are well practiced in claiming "consensus" for things they want to do and "no consensus" for things that they don't want to do. They rely on the claim alone and never demonstrate any objective basis for that claim.

      How do we rebut that? Given ICANN's selective hearing making direct inroads is very hard. Most ICANNites couldn't even spell /. much less know how to read it. My suggestion is to reach outside of /. and raise your concerns in other forums, particularly non-techie forums - things like your local newspapers, your local legislature, etc.

      We need to have an ICANN - it actually has a useful and valuable role. But it needs to be narowed to certain highly specific jobs and to be controlled by the public.

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