IP: Re: ICANN Board proposing to extend its term

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 12:14:54 -0800
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: Ellen Rony <erony () marin k12 ca us>
> Subject: Re: IP: ICANN Board proposing to extend its term
>
> Mr. Farber:
>
> Since you posted ICANN's proposal to extend the terms of its interim board
> members, perhaps your list would be interested the response I submitted to
> ICANN on August 21.  Comments may be submitted to ICANN at
> <comment-initial-director-term () icann org>  To date, my response is the only
> one ICANN has received.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> What is the justification for extending the terms of this interim,
> unelected and unaccountable board?  The participation of the majority of
> the board members on public comment lists is abyssmal to non-existent.
> Without intervention of the Department of Commerce, this board would
> continue to hold its meetings in private.   Of greater concern, this board
> is developing policy directives that will affect millions of Internet users
> before it has even completed building its own foundation.
>
> Neither the at-large membership nor the DNSO constituencies, are complete.
> To date, only commercial and infrastructure representation has been
> annointed by the ICANN board, but the issues are being moved forward on a
> fast track. Its bylaws keep changing, and in one case, new rules have been
> applied retroactively.  And this board's idea of a bottom-up
> self-organizing process is to tell the DNS community who may have a voice
> in the policy recommendations.
>
> IMHO, this unelected and unaccountable board should not make a single
> decision that is unrelated to the development of the structure of the
> organization. It should focus *solely* on setting up its foundation and the
> mechanisms that will allow us to vote in replacement members of the board.
>
> Many of us do not trust this board.  And given the broad and vocal
> complaints about how the board members came to hold their positions, about
> ICANN's unsupportable claims of community consensus, its failure to hold
> open meetings, its blatant conflicts of interest, and its general hubris in
> promulgating policy that touches individual domain name registrants (not
> just registries and registrars), I believe continuing the terms of the
> interim directors will not be in the best interest of this privatization
> process and simply prolong the DNS community's collective pain.
>
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Ellen Rony                                          The Domain Name Handbook
> Co-author                         ____        http://www.domainhandbook.com
> ==========================     ^..^     )6     =============================
> ISBN 0879305150                (oo) -^--                   +1 (415) 435-5010
> erony () marin k12 ca us              W   W                         Tiburon, CA
>               DOT COM is the Pig Latin of the Information Age
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^