RE: [icann-europe] Re:.kids or .kids.us?

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

> From: Mike Roberts [mailto:mmr@darwin.ptvy.ca.us]
> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2001 11:54 AM
> 
> At 17:53 +0200 7/8/01, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
> >
> >I personally agree that, if ICANN cannot be a representative 
> body, the end
> >of the story you mentioned is perhaps the best one. I would 
> rather have my
> >DNS governed by the European Union than by a closed and elitaire body
> >strictly connected to the US government and a set of big 
> commercial domain
> >businesses. I would even put my effort to make this happen.
> 
> 
> There is a difference between the representativeness of a given set 
> of Directors and the perception of fairness of the method by which 
> they gained office.  There are presently six European ICANN Directors 
> - an academic from Spain, a government researcher from Netherlands, a 
> corporate researcher from Germany, a telecom executive from 
> Netherlands, a journalist from Germany, and a standards executive 
> from the UK.  How likely is it, taking your suggestion that the EU 
> select the group, that the range of backgrounds and nationalities 
> would be significantly different from that which exists today?

The CEO of Ford Motor Company is a european. Does anyone think that he
represent EU interests? Of course not.
The bottom-line is that the ICANN is still a California non-profit corp. The
corporate charter, malleable as it has proven to be, does not guarantee
representation of national interests. Even if it did, there is no
enforcement mechanism for such a guarantee. The only recourse is a US-based
court of civil law. Since when did the International Courts move from Den
Haag? Has EU now become citizens of the US?

> With regard to how the Directors got on the Board, four of them came 
> through selection mechanisms within the three ICANN Supporting 
> Organizations, one came through the recent pan-European At Large 
> election, and one is from the initial appointed set of Directors. 
> Leaving aside the issue of the debate over the initial Directors, how 
> would you change this process to improve the representativeness of 
> the other five European Directors in reflecting your views and 
> concerns?

Yes, let's leave aside the rat-hole of how they became representitives. I
don't want to go there either. However, because of the DOC MoU, there is
nothing that the ICANN can do to improve this condition. US Congress and US
law rule ICANN. There is no other option, for ICANN. However, had ICANN
remained a technical advisoary body and one (of many) advisory bodies, there
would not be a problem. That ICANN over-stepped its place, with UDRP, and
the less-than-perfect (I'm being nice) TLD selection process witnessed in
MDR, is what makes this a pressing issue. ICANN is behaving and talking like
something much larger than what it should be, and what the rest of us
expected/thought it was.

To be fair; the good news is that ICANN is under US jurisdiction, the bad
news is that ICANN is under US jurisdiction.

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