Karl Auerbach wrote:
>There is no reason why a group of people who have a direct interest in
>domain name should be refused a constituency when six constituencies
>were automatically granted for six types of business entities.
The constituency structure is gerrymandering by another name.
For example, there is no justification for the ICANN board to have excluded
a place on the DNSO for educational interests. The pat response is that
educational interests come under the moniker of the NCDHC (non-commercial
constituency), as if the educational commnunity has common concerns with
museums and non-for profit organizations.
The unrepresented education component of the Internet may ultimately be the
most important one. Changing technical standards and protocols will
certainly be of broad interest to the education community. Students receive
Internet accounts from universities, and K-12th grade schools across the
land are being wired while their students learn to design personal
websites, and use the Internet as a research tool. Furthermore, school
districts are establishing Internet policies, many of which rely
unrealistically on the ability of proxy servers and safe surfing software
to deny access to offensive Internet material. Last year, a 12-year-old
boy was briefly suspended from school because, at noon recess, he accessed
a porn site by accident when he was guessing at the name of a popular
Nintendo 64 game character.
If the ICANN board feels trademark owners' issues are so distinct and
separate from those of business owners to merit a separate constituency and
3 voting members on the Names Council, then the education interests should
likewise get special representation. It's clear, however, that
universities, schools, and organizations like the AAUP (American
Association of University Professors) and CUE aren't on ICANN's radar
screen.
............................................................................ Ell
en Rony The Domain Name Handbook
Co-author ____ http://www.domainhandbook.com
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