Weisberg wrote:
> > Reasonable people can disagree on this, Eric, and we tried to find some objective
> > criteria by which we could define capture so as to try and inhibit it. For
> > example, what if 70% of the registered at-large members were from San Jose, CA?
> > Would that be evidence that the membership itself is not "representative" or would
> > that just be evidence that Karl Auerbach convinced his entire theater group to
> > plunge into Internet politics? :-)
>
> I realize that your example just happened to be geographic. You could as easily
>have posited a flood of Microsoft employees or ISPs. You are not suggesting
> that geographic capture poses a greater risk than one by the ORSC, CORE or WIPO. In
>fact, geography has relatively little to do with the issues we face.
> There is no single overiding interest which will bind the voters from San Jose to
>support a fellow resident of that town just because of his address. They are
> going to vote according to other criteria.
It is geographic because that's one of the few pieces of personal data that we believe
a member should give us and then because it is part of the authentication
process (which itself is far from perfect). We did not believe that ICANN could/should
undertake the expense of verifying other capture criteria (e.g, employer),
even if it could. Besides, the issues will change over time and you can't redefine
your membership for each issue.
So we more or less left the definition of capture at the corporate level and the least
expensive way to track that is through physical location. Not the best way
by a long shot.
Diane Cabell
http://www.mama-tech.com
Fausett, Gaeta & Lund, LLP
Boston, MA
