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Subject:

[CSL]: Policy Post 7.01: Congress Examines ICANN Decision-making on Top Level Domains

From:

John Armitage <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

The Cyber-Society-Live mailing list is a moderated discussion list for those interested <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 9 Feb 2001 11:20:54 -0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (203 lines)

From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 11:15 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Policy Post 7.01: Congress Examines ICANN Decision-making on
Top Level Domains



CDT POLICY POST Volume 7, Number 1, February 8, 2001

A BRIEFING ON PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES ONLINE
from
THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY

CONTENTS:
(1) CONGRESS EXAMINES ICANN DECISION-MAKING ON TOP LEVEL DOMAINS
(2) ICANN PROCESS UNDERREPRESENTS USER INTERESTS IN MAJOR ISSUES
(3) CDT ADVOCATES INTERNAL REFORMS TO ICANN STRUCTURE
(4) INTERNATIONAL STUDY TEAM BEGINS EXAMINING AT-LARGE REPRESENTATION


----------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) CONGRESS EXAMINES ICANN DECISION-MAKING ON TOP LEVEL DOMAINS

Last year's selection of seven new global Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) by
the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) continues
to generate controversy. On February 8, 2001, the Subcommittee on
Telecommunications of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a
hearing to examine the procedures of ICANN, the organization that oversees
Internet domain names and other addressing functions.

CDT Associate Director Alan Davidson testified at the hearing, describing
the public's interest in ICANN, and the ways in which that interest can be
best protected.

The decision to adopt new gTLDs -- names that would join ".com," ".net,"
and ".org" as organizers of Internet content -- affects Internet users
worldwide. The current gTLDs are highly congested and poorly
differentiated, making it more difficult for users to find names that
appropriately identify new online resources. New gTLDs, if properly
introduced, could alleviate that problem  and provide new opportunities
for online expression. But a poorly managed rollout of new gTLDs could
badly interfere with users' abilities to find and publish online content.

The gTLD decision, like many of ICANN's decisions, is therefore of public
interest. CDT believes that ICANN has a responsibility to ensure that the
public is well-represented when such decisions are made.

CDT's testimony is available at:
http://www.cdt.org/testimony/010208davidson.shtml


----------------------------------------------------------------------

(2) ICANN PROCESS UNDERREPRESENTS USER INTERESTS IN MAJOR ISSUES

Members of the Internet user community and advocates for user interests
have been under-represented throughout ICANN, and as a result have been
excluded from important decisions. ICANN holds quarterly in-person
meetings at locations all over the world, at which most of its major
decisions are made. The expenses associated with physical attendance at
such meetings place participation out of reach of many NGOs and public
interest advocates. As a result, decisions made by the ICANN Board of
Directors are made without benefit of broad input from the user community.

In theory, the ICANN Board of Directors includes representatives from
the  user community, but only five of the allotted nine seats for such
"At-Large" Directors have so far been filled through online elections.
Moreover, even the five elected Directors were not permitted to
participate in ICANN's gTLD selection, nor have they participated in
any of ICANN's decisions to date.

Besides the Board, ICANN also includes structures meant to encourage broad
participation, but they do so only imperfectly. While ICANN explicitly
provides representation to a number of commercial interests, it fails to
represent properly the millions of individuals that own Internet domain
names or have an interest in ICANN's decisions. The main outlet for
individual participation -- the General Assembly of the Domain Names
Supporting Organization -- appears increasingly ineffective. Non-commercial
organizations have a constituency, the Non-Commercial Constituency, but it
is only one of seven groups making up one of the three supporting
organizations.

Overall, considering the broad impact of its decisions, ICANN does not
presently provide adequate means for public input into its activities.
CDT believes that major changes are necessary if ICANN is to achieve the
degree of responsibility and legitimacy required for it to administer
such important Internet functions.


----------------------------------------------------------------------

(3) CDT ADVOCATES INTERNAL REFORMS TO ICANN STRUCTURE

For the last fifteen months, CDT has advocated strongly for broadly
representative, fair mechanisms to provide this representation to ICANN.
In March 2000, CDT and its partner Common Cause prepared a study of ICANN's
election system, concluding that an "indirect election" system proposed by
ICANN would not adequately represent the public's voice. In response,
ICANN agreed to hold more democratic direct elections -- eventually held
in October 2000 -- but has yet to settle on a permanent system to select
"At-Large" Directors representing users.

CDT also believe that the process used to select gTLDs was flawed in this
instance, and that reform is needed to ensure that all of ICANN's future
decisions are transparent, objective, and obviously fair. Policies such
as the non-refundable $50,000 fee ICANN requires just to apply for a gTLD
need to be modified in such a way that ICANN is able to recoup its
expenses without shutting the door on non-commercial applications. And,
prior to making any decisions, ICANN should publish and adhere to a set
of clear, objective criteria. Finally, ICANN should always provide full
justification for its choices, so as to allow maximum opportunity for
review and/or appeal.

Above all, ICANN needs to find ways to enforce a more limited mission
statement. ICANN was designed as a technical management organization, not
a policy-making institution for the Internet. Although some of its
decisions may have policy implications, we believe ICANN is not equipped
to make its choices based on anything but narrow, technical considerations.
To its credit, the current ICANN Board has reiterated its desire to keep
ICANN to a strictly technical mission and out of troubling policy matters.
However, CDT believes that for ICANN to truly become both responsible and
legitimate, it must adopt a three-pronged approach to its decision-making
structure. First, and to the extent possible, ICANN must limit its
activities to the purely technical. Second, ICANN needs to return to the
bottom-up consensus-building processes envisioned in its founding
documents. Finally, ICANN should implement meaningful representation for
the entire Internet community throughout its organization, so that the
all of the diverse interests found on the Internet may contribute to
ICANN's activities.


----------------------------------------------------------------------

(4) INTERNATIONAL STUDY TEAM BEGINS EXAMINING AT-LARGE REPRESENTATION

CDT and a team of international researchers from the non-profit and
academic community have recently begun examining the specifics of last
year's ICANN election in order to identify areas of success and
shortcoming. The study project, known as the NGO and Academic ICANN Study
(NAIS), will examine the nature of public representation in ICANN, and
will provide recommendations to the Board and the community. CDT and its
partner Common Cause serve as project coordinators for NAIS, as well as
North American researchers.

On February 7, the NAIS team transmitted a letter to the head of ICANN's
own Study Committee, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt. In that
letter, NAIS members requested that the Committee make important data
from  last year's election -- web logs, voting data, technical
specifications, etc. -- available to the public for thorough evaluation.
NAIS urged ICANN to be forthcoming with a wide variety of details from
several months of voter registration and campaigning, while at the same
time protecting the individual privacy of voters as fully as possible.

ICANN's first meeting of 2001 will be held in Melbourne, Australia, in
early March. The NAIS team expects to hold a workshop immediately prior
to the meeting, to inform the community about NAIS's progress and to
solicit opinions about the direction of NAIS's work. The final NAIS
report will be presented to the ICANN Board of Directors at ICANN's
second meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 4.

A copy of NAIS's letter to Carl Bildt is available at:
http://www.cdt.org/dns/icann/nais/010207bildt.shtml

An overview of the NAIS project, including a list of participants, is
available at: http://www.cdt.org/dns/icann/nais/010207overview.shtml


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Detailed information about online civil liberties issues may be found at
http://www.cdt.org/.

This document may be redistributed freely in full or linked to
http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_7.01.shtml.

Excerpts may be re-posted with prior permission of [log in to unmask]

Policy Post 7.01 Copyright 2001 Center for Democracy and Technology



---------------------------------------
CDT Policy Post Subscription Information

To subscribe to CDT's Policy Post list, send mail to [log in to unmask] In
the BODY of the message type "subscribe policy-posts" without the quotes.

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Detailed information about online civil liberties issues may be found at
http://www.cdt.org/

************************************************************************************
Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion
list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic
study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html
*************************************************************************************

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