[ICANN-EU] re: Questions from Roessler and Svensson

["Hans Peter Dittler" <hpdittler@braintec-consult.de>]

Hi,
as said earlier this day, her are my answers to your questions:

---Roessler questions:
- You are asking for a nomination for the At Large Elections.  Thus,
  you are most likely claiming that you want to speak up for At
  Large Members', that is netizens', interests in the ICANN Board of
  Directors in some way.
  What are, in your belief, these interests, as far as ICANN's field
  of activity is affected?

HPD: I believe, most users of the Internet want it open and available
everywhere to anybody who wants it to use. I think, commercial use and
non-commercial use should both be possible without too much restriction.
Most of the work of ICANN will be done in the supporting organizations. The
role of a director at ICANN will be to supervise proposals coming out of
these working bodies. These groups are mostly dominated by interest groups
and commercially oriented Internet-companies. The role of the
At-Large-Directors will be to look closely at those propositions and make
sure, that the individual user still has all its interests honored.

- Do you believe there are specific European or national interests
  to be protected at ICANN?  Please try to define these interests,
  and tell us what you think about them.

HPD: The Internet is an international medium. I am writing this in English,
even if I could write in German, perhaps in French but surely not in
Norwegian, Spanish or Celtic. There should be no specific German or European
interests in the Internet. There should be no specific interests of ANY
country in the Internet. The Internet is just a transporting medium and each
country (and each social, political, cultural, religious or other fraction
of the world) should decide on its own rules how to use this instrument.
ICANN has to make sure that this decision is open and possible for everyone
and these decision may not be done on behalf of others.

- ICANN doesn't pay your bills.  Could you elaborate a bit on your
  funding, and how this does (or does not) affect your independence
  from outside influence?

  (For instance, some of you are involved with or employed by large
  telecoms, domain registries or influential interest groups.  How
  can At Large Members be assured that this won't bias your work on
  the ICANN board, possibly in a way which is favorable for your
  employer, but opposed to users' interests?)

HPD: I hope to get some refund (in the unlike event of election) for
traveling from ICANN as stated somewhere in the bylaws. For the time used by
ICANN-work I am in the lucky position of running my own company and being
free of a too compressed time-schedule.

---Svensson questions:

1. Top level domains (TLDs)
Even though the TLD introduction process will commence
before the ICANN At Large election, it is likely to
be one of the core ICANN issues for some time to come.
What is your position on the introduction of new TLDs,
regarding issues such as trademark protection mechanisms,
speed of the addition, chartered vs. non-chartered TLDs?
Are you happy with the way ICANN has handled the matter
until now? Are you happy with the dispute resolution mechanism UDRP?

HPD: New TLDs will not solve any of the existing problems alone. We have to
change the usage of the DNS and put it back to its role as  a
lookup-service. A study during the IAHC-process several years ago has
already given the result that a few (or even many, as long as you stay in
the range below 4000) more TLDs will not harm the system. The discussion
went so controversial (and has taken so much time, first talks about this
question were in 93/94!), so best thing from my viewpoint now is to add a
few and use them experimentally, some with strict rules, other completely
open and see what happens. Charters are not easy to set up. Charters are
sometime hard to stick to. International charters are even harder. Charters,
when written, will have to be court-proof. And court-proof means to be that
in every country, where this TLD should be used. Quite a challenge...
I am not too happy with the speed this question was handled up until now. We
could have achieved a lot more, if we started a little faster.
The UDRP process started just a short time ago. From the few samples which
came out of this process, some are very good and widely accepted, others
not. This process has to be monitored and perhaps refined in some aspects.
But it is the best (or only) starting point we have got.

2. Political role
There has been a lot of debate on ICANN's current and
future role. Does ICANN or should ICANN have any political
role? Should and can it be prevented from playing such
a role? Is it desirable to have candidates considering
possible political consequences?

HPD: ICANN is a pure administrative business as it is setup now. The
governmental advisory board will look very closely (as the US-government,
the EU and all the others) that ICANN does not cross this border easily.
ICANN should show first a good working record in its administrative tasks
before any new territory could even be touched.

3. Role of the At Large members
There is currently no ICANN decision on the future role
of the At Large membership. It has not even been decided
whether there will be any further direct elections of
ICANN directors by the At Large members. In your opinion,
what role should the At Large members play in the future?
Should they have any role in between the elections and if so, which?

HPD: The At Large Membership is one of the essentials which was written into
the starting documents of ICANN. Without the presence of this representation
(or another accepted version of it), ICANN could never have started. The
US-government and the EU-Commission both see this part of the bylaws as a
"must".
At the same time, this is a huge experiment. Nobody has ever walked down
this way. This process has to be watched very closely and if it does not run
to the satisfaction of enough of the participants, it has to be changed and
adopted to the new environment.

Thank you for your time
-- regards Hans Peter Dittler --