[ncdnhc-discuss] Transparency: How we voted in the ICANN Board election

[Milton Mueller]

>>> DNSO Secretariat <DNSO.Secretariat at dnso.org> 09/09/01 08:01AM >>>

These are the results of the first ballot in the election
to the ICANN Board position in 2001:
           11 Amadeu Abril i Abril
           10 Paul Kane

=====
Members:
I want to explain why I voted for Paul Kane. YJ also voted
for Kane, and Vany voted for Abril. I will let YJ and
Vany speak for themselves. I will note, however, that while
some people believe we should vote as a bloc, it became
clear that there were significant people in the constituency who 
supported Amadeu, and Vany's inclination was to support 
him, so none of us felt justified to pressure others to vote 
the same way.

Neither Paul Kane nor Amadeu would be great champions of
the NCDNHC's positions or interests. However, my 
experience on the Names Council has been that Paul 
operates in a very consultative, inclusive fasion. He is accused
of being a "politician" and that is actually true - like a good
politician, he listens to people around and tries to do something
that is popular with all of them. This would be a welcome attitude
for the ICANN Board, don't you think? Most of the bad decisions 
ICANN makes are actually quite unpopular with the Internet's 
user base.

More importantly, he knows the business economics and
technology of the domain name registration industry.
Because registrar-consumer protection-Verisign regulation
issues will become increasingly important, Board members need
this knowledge. Without such expertise, the Board is at the
mercy of the big players, such as Verisign, for technical 
and economic analysis of registrar-related issues. Indeed,
the registry constituency, which is dominated by Verisign,
put heavy pressure on its members to vote against Paul.

To be fair, Cary Karp voted for Amadeu because he likes Amadeu.
But Cochetti and Tyndal also voted for him. Why would Cochetti
vote for the only other Board member besides Karl Auerbach
who voted against the revised Verisign agreements? Not only
vote for him, but put heavy pressure on Tyndal, who actually
favored Kane, to also vote for Amadeu? Think about it.

On the other hand, I saw Amadeu as backed by the same
set of people who have dominated ICANN to date, the same
set of cronies who awarded each other TLDs. By that I mean 
the CORE registry, the remnants of the gTLD-MoU group, 
the intellectual property interests, and Verisign.
I was also quite irritated by Amadeu's failure to respond to 
our questionnaire. Yes, he was indeed on vacation, but 
a politician who cares about feedback from his constituents 
CAMPAIGNS for their support during an election. The Board's
insularity was one of the key issues for me. Kane understood
that the Board is passive and insulated, and would have 
worked to make it more outgoing and consensus-based.
This was sufficient to overcome significant differences 
between us on policy issues.

I apologize to Joanna Lane especially and also to Jefsey M.
for their failure to receive any votes. YJ and I initially planned
to vote for Joanna in the first round, and force the election
into a second round. However, it became evident that Amadeu
might have enough to win in the second round, because a
vote from the registrars would be released. So we felt that
we had to vote for Kane in the first round and hope he
got the needed 11 votes. As it happened, Kane was stabbed
in the back by certain people in the registrar constituency, and
a vote (his own proxy!) that was supposed to go for him in the
first round went to Amadeu, and he lost.

The whole thing was rather ugly. Lots of behind-the-scenes 
dealmaking, especially among the registries and registrars.

--Milton Mueller