Out Of Balance
ICANN Has Reserved All The Best Seats For The
Corporate Elite
by Sandra Kegel
It is becoming clearer by the day that there is
little prospect of real democracy in the first
global on-line ballot, to be held between Oct. 1 and
Oct. 10. The unique event is in danger of
becoming a farce, even before the final list of
candidates is known.
Germans may be reminded of the days when Prussia
still had a three-class electoral
system. Political scientist Claus Leggewie is not
the only one worried that the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
election will lead to a
decision-making body made up exclusively of
privileged people with plenty of time, money
and influence.
With the registration period ended, candidates for
five of the nine directors to be elected at
large in October are in the process of being
nominated. The seven candidates from each of
five geographic regions of the world are named in
two ways; either they nominate
themselves, or they are put on the list of "eligible
persons" by the organization. But when
ICANN finally unveiled its list of candidates -- a
topic of heavy speculation in recent weeks --
there was immediate disillusionment.
The importance of ICANN will be immense because of
its control of domain names and its
role as the Internet's technical and logistical
center. ICANN wants to legitimize its authority
with the election, which was supposed to guarantee
that the "citizens" of the World Wide
Web had a say, along with industry representatives.
But ICANN has reserved all the best
seats for the corporate elite.
ICANN has already filled five of the seven European
and four of the seven Asian candidacies
in advance -- and Europe and Asia are two of the
most important regions. By nominating
Germany's Winfried Schüller and other industry
representatives for Europe, ICANN has
opted for global players, rather than ordinary
citizens. Mr. Schüller is a director at Deutsche
Telekom, owner of Germany's largest Internet access
provider, T-Online. Because 70
percent of the European "electorate" of 35,000
registered people are Germans, Mr. Schüller
looks to be a sure bet, since every T-Online user
can be expected to give him his vote --
just as tenant farmers used to give theirs to the
local landowner.
The method in ICANN's actions can be seen in Asia,
where Japan has the greatest number
of voters and ICANN has nominated Masanobu Katoh, a
top executive with the Japanese
computer manufacturer Fujitsu. How many Japanese are
likely to vote for the unknown
Johannes Chiang of the University of Taiwan, for
example?
Yet if Mr. Schüller and Mr. Katoh are elected, the
envisaged balance between users and
industry would be disturbed, and ICANN would lose
its original character as a non-profit
organization. Citizens of the Web have to unite to
gain a hearing, as ICANN tries everything
to silence them.
© Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
2000
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Michael Sondow I.C.I.I.U. http://www.iciiu.org
Tel. (718)846-7482 Fax: (603)754-8927
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