[ncdnhc-discuss] NCDNHC Response to Threatened Cutoff of NC Voting Rights

[Milton Mueller]

On Feb 1, 2002, representatives of the Noncommercial 
Domain Name Holders Constituency received an email 
asking us to show cause why our voting rights in the 
Names Council should not be suspended.

This is the formal response of the NCDNHC Adcom.
Here are your "causes:"

1. The NCDNHC is making a good faith effort to collect 
funds.

A membership dues program was initiated in the Fall. 
We have collected about $6,000. Additional funds are 
still coming in, as are additional memberships. 
Collection was delayed somewhat by ICANN's method of 
invoicing, which involved emailing 3Mb pdf files 
directly to members. We greatly appreciate the 
administrative support of ICANN staff, but many of our 
members could not receive the ICANN invoice, due to 
the size of the file. We are still dealing with the 
consequences of that.

At any rate, when this program was instituted we made 
it clear to the Names Council that we would NOT be 
able to meet the deadlines imposed by the Names 
Council sanctions program, but that over the longer 
term we can be expected to develop stable and 
substantial sources of financial support. At that time 
we received assurances from several members that we 
should go ahead with our efforts to raise money.

2. Suspension of our voting rights would be 
counterproductive.

Eliminating our voting rights will also eliminate any 
future contributions from NCDNHC. The only effect of 
such an action will be to INCREASE the financial 
support burden of other constituencies. 

NCDNHC member organizations cannot be expected to 
continue to provide financial support for the DNSO if 
they are barred from voting. The constituency has 
shown that it can generate funds, even in our current 
relativelydisorganized state. With some forbearance 
that amount will steadily grow. We see no reason why 
DNSO would want to cut itself off from the funds that 
we do generate.

3. Suspension of voting rights would undermine the 
legitimacy and effectiveness of the DNSO.

The DNSO was constructed to be a policy making body 
that provides representation to the various interest 
groups with a stake in domain name issues. It cannot 
fulfill that function unless all groups are 
represented. The DNSO has already received widespread 
criticism for imbalances in its representational
structure. To eliminate the voting rights of the 
entire noncommercial sector because of a temporary 
monetary shortfall that does not impair the DNSO's or 
ICANN's ability to function would be perceived by the 
rest of the world as small-minded. It would 
undermine the only raison d'etre of the DNSO, which is 
a mechanism for generating bottom-up consensus among 
affected stakeholders.

4. Unrealistic expectations.
While we accept and are trying to meet our financial 
obligations to DNSO, the NCDNHC is not composed of 
organizations that generate multi-million dollar 
revenue streams by means of domain names, nor is it 
composed of large-scale telecommunication or content 
producer businesses for whom lobbying is a routine cost
of business. It is therefore not realistic to apply 
the same financial support standards to us as to the 
other constituencies.

To conclude, there are strong and sufficient
reasons for the sanctions NOT to be applied in this 
case. We hope that the Names Council as a whole will 
vote that way at its upcoming meetings. 

Milton Mueller
YJ Park
Dany Vandromme
Thierry Amoussougbo 

NCDNHC Adcom