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

[Anupam]

Milton deserves much credit for revealing how he voted.  We should hope that
our representatives do so always.  Transparency is a very important value in
any decision-making process.

Best,
Anupam Chander

on 9/10/01 10:49 AM, Milton Mueller at Mueller at syr.edu wrote:

>>>> 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
> 
> 
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