On Wed, Jun 16, 1999 at 11:11:39PM -0500, John B. Reynolds wrote:
>
> FWIW, I agree with Karl that an individual domain holders' constituency is
> needed - I just no longer believe that the IDNO effort as currently
> structured is the appropriate vehicle for their representation. The
> practical effect of Kent's proposal would be to give those who qualify for
> an existing constituency two or more votes for the Names Council and
> everyone else one.
1) It's rather more complicated than that, and 2) what I described
actually covered a range of possible implementations.
One implementation, the one I have thought through the furthest, is
the "At-Large" constituency as I described earlier. The ALC has the
following membership criteria: "Any individual can join and have a single
vote".
The statement you make about "two or more votes" has some validity in
a theoretical sense, but, I believe, has little practical
consequence:
Consider General Motors (GM), a member of the Business Constituency
(BC). GM has a representative that can vote for the NC reps of the
BC. That individual could also be a member of the ALC, and could
vote for the NC reps of the ALC, maybe even one he nominated.
But this is extremely minor league, and a waste of GM's time -- we
have to consider the major leagues.
Major league bad would be for GM to get 10000 of its employees to
join the ALC, with instructions to nominate and elect three NC reps
that support GM's position. There is essentially *nothing* that can
be done about this, and requiring ownership of a domain name is no
guard at all -- GM could easily get each of those 10000 employees a
cheap domain name.
The fact is, as you point out below, that the ALC is susceptible to
capture, and the IDNO is just as susceptible to capture. This is an
intrinsic problem, it cannot be solved, and it is why (in my opinion
-- I've never heard anyone say it) the General Assembly does not have
a vote.
However, it seems unlikely that GM is going to undertake the major
league bad either, because the payoff (control of 3 NC seats) is not
worth the trouble -- the seats are only a small fraction of the
total; the NC operates under a number of constraints; all DNSO
policies go through several layers of review before they ever get the
ICANN board; the ICANN board and the other SO's can all modify or
veto the policy.
That is, the manipulation of the votes does not give a payback in
influence or power that would make it worth a large companies time,
and the negative effects in the event of disclosure would be
considerable. [On the other hand, manipulation of the ICANN
at-large membership *might* be worth it...]
In summary, when you think through the realities of the situation,
the fact that some individuals might be able to participate in
multiple elections for NC members is just noise. I realize this
isn't a proof or anything, but I really don't think it is a concern,
either at the 10000 vote or the 2 vote level.
> It does not take into account that individual domain
> holders are generally the DNS stakeholders who have the fewest resources to
> defend themselves, and consequently the most to lose.
No proposal does. The IDNO does not really address this problem,
either.
> For the record, I consider myself an agnostic on the constituency question.
> An at-large membership (or one limited to domain holders, which would be
> more appropriate for the DNSO) would not be immune to capture. Depending on
> how they are structured, constituencies can either prevent capture or
> institutionalize it. Unfortunately, the present DNSO appears closer to the
> latter case.
Evidence?
--
Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be
[EMAIL PROTECTED] lonesome." -- Mark Twain
