Fwd: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Names for the Working Group on InternetGovernance

[Milton Mueller]

Adam copied Karl Auerbach on his message.
As a non-member he cannot reply directly to the list
so I am forwarding....

>>> Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> 8/20/2004 10:09:44 PM >>>
I don't expect everyone to agree with me.  Many of my positions are
very
nuanced.  For example, I agree with the concept of commercial
enterprise
and do not consider those who push for commercial gain or advantage
(within the limits of law) to be acting improperly.  Nor do I find
anything wrong or undesirable about the general concept of "government"
-
government can be the kind of good thing described in the Preamble to
the
US Constitution.

My own approach is to try to define and refine bodies of principle and

process that shape and limit the ways in which governance powers are
applied to concrete situations.  It is my belief that through long term

expericence applying and refining such principles that we will
eventually
come to a regime of internet governance that is acceptable to most of
us.
I have been very disappointed by ICANN's failure to raise, much less
address, questions regarding the principles that should govern (or
release
from governance) the internet.

I ran in an open election against 6 well qualified candidates.  My
platform was published to the public (it is still online).  I won that

election.

One might argue that I was elected by a small number of the potential
voters.  However, I was elected by those who actually bothered to take

part.  And should such an argument be used to try to detract from my
legitimacy I would hasten to point out that that argument, were it
valid,
would apply with rather more force to others who occupy much higher
offices.

It is a moot question whether I would have won re-election: ICANN
dismembered (pun intended) its public election system and intentionally

deprived the community of internet users of even a token voice.

It is an extremely difficult job trying to speak on behalf of more than

300,000,000 people.  During that time I was the only board member who
maintained a written public journal of what I decided and why.  Anyone
who
wished to discuss my decisions with me was free to do so.  And many
did.
Several of those discussions altered my views and votes.  I, nearly
alone
among the ICANN board members, did honor the ICANN structure that
designated the then-DNSO as the primary source of authority on DNS
related
matters that should be overridden by the board only on the basis of
clearly articulated and compelling arguments.

I do not believe that any other member of ICANN's board, past or
present,
or any member of ICANN's "staff" can show a record of disclosure, open

minded discussion and evaluation, or adherence to articulated objective

principles that amounts to even a thin shadow of what I did.

There are those who like to try to describe me as acting to oppose
ICANN
in all things.  The truth is that I voted with the majority on ICANN's

board on something like 86% of the questions that came before us.

It was interesting that all of this played out against the backdrop of

commercial boards of directors that, like ICANN's directors, failed,
and
unfortunately continue to fail, to honor their obligations to make
independent informed decisions.  Consider how things could have played
out
differently had the directors of Enron pursued their duties of inquiry
and
independent judgement.

Those who are affected by what ICANN does, the community of internet
users, the majority of whom engage in non-commercial activities, is
almost
entirely nullified by ICANN's processes.  The community of internet
users
even though they bear, usually indirectly, huge costs from ICANN's
bloated
bureaucracy and from ICANN's system of propping up prices for domain
names.

Unfortunately there are certain industrial actors who find this
situation
to be to their liking, who have benefited greatly from it, who have
apparenly no regard for the costs imposed onto the public at large, and

who have obtained effective control over ICANN's decision making
processes.

I have come to the belief that ICANN has run off the rails and that the

remedy requires a return to fundamentals and a willingness to make deep

changes to the status quo.

Why do we have ICANN in the first place?  We certainly don't need yet
another legislature enacting laws of trademark policy.  But that's what
we
have in ICANN.  And we certainly don't need another regulatory agency,

particularly a regulatory agency run by commercial incumbents, that
dictates who can and who can not enter the domain name business and
under
what terms.  But that's what we have in ICANN.  But we *do* need some
body
to make sure that the upper tier of the internet's DNS system runs
reliably, efficiently, and accurately 24x7x365.  And that we do *not*
have
from ICANN.

Despite it being ICANN's reason for existance, ICANN has entirely
disengaged from matters that actually concern the reliable and accurate

operation of the top layers of the internet's domain name systems.
ICANN
has abandoned oversight of root server operations and IP address
allocation.  We, the community of internet users expected ICANN to be a

fire-department to protect DNS and IP address systems from danger.
This
we did not get.  This abrogation of responsibility by ICANN has left
the
internet badly exposed to accidental or intential disruption.

ICANN has instead usurped the powers of national legislatures by acting
as
a supranational legislature enacting economic policies that amount to
de
facto laws of domain-name based trademarks and imposing arbitrary and
anti-competitive business regulations on those who wish to engage in
the
business of buying, selling, and using domain names.

I have proposed remedial measures.  These are visible on my website.
These measures require explicit definitions of powers and authorities
and
the creation of governance bodies that precisely encapsulate those
powers.
The absence of this kind of clarity has led to much of the difficulty
we
have had with matters of internet governance. The methods and
structures
that I have proposed are quite consistent with the majority of
discussions
on these topics that are occuring in fora outside of ICANN.

> Regarding communication, Karl appeared in as many if
> not more NCUC meetings than any other Board member -

I'm not sure about that.  I was stretched so thin (being on the board
took
well in excess of 40 hours/week) that I had to focus more on some
matters
than on others.  Andy M-M may have attended more than I did.

> .... It is true that he showed more interest in At Large than NCDNHC

> most of the time.

I am very much of the belief that the atomic unit of legitimacy is the

individual person.  It is my strong belief that an organization,
commercial or not, only has derivative legitimacy.  The force of that
derivative legitimacy ought to be in proportion to the degree to which
the
organization reflects the positions of its members.

By-the-way, I do not use the term "at large" in the crippled way that
it
is used in ICANN's current vocabulary and manifested by the ALAC and
its
myrid of tributory structures.  Rather, I consider "at large" to
encompass
all people who are affected by the internet (with the phrase "affected
by
the internet" read very broadly to encompass not merely those who use
the
net but also those who's life and actions are changed by the existance
of
the net - in a word, everyone.)

                --karl--