[ncdnhc-discuss] TACD letter on ICANN reform

[James Love]

This is the letter the TACD sent today to the ICANN Committee
on Evolution and Reform.   Jamie

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TACD Secretariat, 24 Highbury Crescent, London N5 1RX, UK
    Tel : (+44) 207 226 6663  Fax : (+44) 207 354 0607
     email : tacd at consint.org  Website : www.tacd.org
 The Steering Committee/Le comité directeur : EU/UE : Anna
 Bartolini,  Felix Cohen, Benedicte Federspiel, Jim Murray
     US/Etats-Unis : Jean Ann Fox, Rhoda Karpatkin, Ed
                 Mierzwinski, Lori Wallach


Committee on ICANN Evolution and Reform
reform-comments at icann.org


29 April, 2002

Dear  Members  of  the  Committee on ICANN  Evolution  and
Reform,

The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue is a forum of US and
EU consumer organizations that develops and agrees joint
consumer policy recommendations to the US government and
European Union to promote the consumer interest in EU and
US policy making.  The TACD includes 45 European and 20 US
consumer organizations
(http://www.tacd.org/about/participants.htm).

In February 2000, TACD adopted Ecom 14-00, which is on the
web here:
http://www.tacd.org/docs/?id=43.

Among the TACD February 2000 recommendations were the
following:

1.   ICANN's mission should be limited so that it does not
become a general purpose Internet governance organization.

2.   The records of ICANN should be open to the public,
including financial records, and all ICANN contracts.
ICANN should be accountable to the public, and the public
should be given an annual opportunity to review and
comment on the ICANN budget.

3.   Fees associated with domain registration should only
be spent on activities essential to the management of the
DNS system.

4.   US and the EU governments were asked to report on the
legal mechanics that would limit ICANN's power to address
broad Internet content issues, and insure public
accountability.


TACD would like to make the following contributions to the
discussion over ICANN evolution and reform:


BOUNDARIES FOR ICANN MISSION

1.   At present, ICANN is dominated by business interests,
and the ICANN board has blocked the election of board
members from the general public.  The ICANN Domain Name
Supporting Organization (DNSO) is greatly biased toward
business interests.  Individual or non-commercial domain
holders have only three of 21 votes in the DNSO governing
body, and may lose voting rights to even those three votes
in disputes over DNSO fees.

2.   A broad range of civil society groups agree that
ICANN should not become a general purpose Internet
governance organization.  To address the issue of mission
creep, it is important to have a much clearer statement of
what the ICANN mission is, and to have legal mechanisms
that would restrain ICANN from inappropriate expansions of
that mission.

3.   There are many Internet issues that will require
greater global cooperation, such as the coordination of
efforts to control Internet spam, privacy, the protection
of    children, securities fraud, cross border marketing
practices, and a variety of complex and sometimes
controversial areas concerning intellectual property and
speech.  Many of these topics are more appropriately
addressed by national governments or by treaties or
agreements between countries.  ICANN has neither the
competence nor the mandate to address a wide range of
issues.  ICANN should only address narrow issues involving
the assignment of Internet domain names and numbers, and
even here, only those that require global coordination.

4.   ICANN should not be empowered to use control over
essential Internet name and numbering resources to address
broader public policy issues.

5.   The International Telecommunications Union has
offered to play a role in defining the boundaries of ICANN
policy making.   The ITU should inform TACD how consumer
interests will be able to participate in this process.


DECENTRALIZATION

6.   Even in the area of global cooperation, ICANN should
not rely upon excessive centralization of decision-making.
In the areas of the assignment of Internet names and
numbers, ICANN should defer as much as is practical to
regional or local decision-making.

7.   The functions of the ICANN relating to domain names
should be much more decentralized.  ICANN can play a
useful role in resolving disputes over uniqueness of the
top-level domain (TLD) space, assuming it does not act to
restrain entry by registries in order to protect
incumbents, or prohibit the creation of new TLDs by non-
commercial entities.  In this respect, we express
disappointment and indeed astonishment that ICANN did not
approve the application by the World Health Organization
to create the .health domain, following objections by the
pharmaceutical     industry, or that it did not permit the
International Federation of Free Trade Unions to create
the .union TLD.

8.   ICANN should permit national governments to authorize
the creation of new TLDs, subject to addressing minimum
requirements for global coordination the uniqueness of the
TLD name, and other minimum technical requirements that
may be essential for Internet stability.


CONSUMER PROTECTION FOR DOMAIN NAME HOLDERS

9.   ICANN should follow a two track strategy with respect
to consumer protection that relates to persons who
register domain names.

10.  ICANN should adopt minimum standards for protection
of domain name holders, on issues such as abusive
registration practices or privacy, that all ICANN approved
registrars should follow.  The minimum standards for
consumer protection should be developed by domain holders,
subject to approval by the ICANN Government Advisory
Committee (GAC).

11.  National government should be free to supplement
these minimum levels of protection, for example to provide
additional protection in cases of abusive pricing or
registration practices, to protect personal privacy, and
to protect legitimate trademark concerns.


REPRESENTATION OF CONSUMER INTERESTS

12.  Consumer interests should have at least equal
representation to provider interests in ICANN decision-
making.

13.  Consumer interests should not be required to fund
ICANN's fixed costs or otherwise pay unreasonable fees to
participate in ICANN meetings or decision making bodies.
Users have already paid fees to registrars and registries,
and should not be required to pay twice to have a voice in
ICANN decision making.

14.  The global DNSO should be reorganized to ensure that
user interests have at least half the votes on the names
council, and that individuals, small businesses, and non-
commercial domain holders do not face difficult barriers
to participate in the DNSO.


TRANSPARENCY AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

15.  The ICANN board should record all of its board
meetings, and provide pubic access to MP3 files of its
meetings,

16.  The ICANN DNSO should not permit persons with
employment or business relations with registrars or
registries to vote in the user constituencies in the DNSO.

17.  There should be a "cooling off" period after leaving
ICANN staff, before representing an ICANN regulated
registry or registrar.

18.  ICANN board members should disclose on the ICANN web
page any business interests with ICANN regulated registry
or registrar interests.


Yours sincerely



Ben Wallis, TACD Coordinator
On behalf of the TACD Steering Committee

Anna Bartolini, President, CNCU (Italian National Council
of Consumers and Users)
Benedicte Federspiel, International Director,
Forbrugerråadet (Danish Consumer Council)
Jean Ann Fox, Director, Consumer Protection, Consumer
Federation of America
Rhoda Karpatkin, President Emeritus, Consumers' Union
Felix Cohen, Director, Consumentenbond (Dutch Consumers
Association)
Ed Mierzwinski, Director, Consumer Program, Public
Interest Research Group
Jim Murray, Director, BEUC (European Consumers
Organisation)
Lori Wallach, Director, Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen

--------------------------------
James Love mailto:james.love at cptech.org
http://www.cptech.org +1.202.387.8030 mobile +1.202.361.3040