[ICANN-EU] Re: Questions to the candidates

[lutz@iks-jena.de (Lutz Donnerhacke)]

* Thomas Roessler wrote:
>- 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.

You should not restrict it to the @large members. I do not really care about
this group. The average netizen is much more important.

>  What are, in your belief, these interests, as far as ICANN's field
>  of activity is affected?

IMHO the main interest is stability of the network structure.
Then there are different interests: One group cries for more domain names,
another one requests clearer handling procedures and mor correctness of
registred data, and last but not least the group of trade mark owners and
there opponents.

>- 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.

My feeling is, that Europe welcomes more diversity in order to reflect its
increasing influence in the Internet development. Surely there are some
political interests - i.e. national law enforcement - resulting in filtering
or blocking requests. The actions in Germany regarding latest domain names
show a great misunderstanding of the situation. Fortunely there are some
politicans who want to register the not-so-political-correct domain names
for themself in order to provide approbriate propaganda on them. That's a
working solution.

>- 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?

ICANN pays some bills. To me it's not known which part has to be payed and
which not. Furthermore there are some financial resources necessary to do
the normal work. I queried some funding from politicans and business people.
Personally I hope that the government will provide a sufficient help.

(Otherwise a headline in the yellow press: 'German government throw away the
Internet' may occur. Just kidding.)

>Thank you for participating in this list, and kind regards,

Sorry for answering so late, I went to private barbecues over the weekend.