FC: ICANN press release on "at-large" membership resolution

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

See also:
http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-14mar02.htm
http://www.cavebear.com/tmp/resolutions1.pdf
http://www.cavebear.com/tmp/resolutions2.pdf

Politech archive on ICANN:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=icann

-Declan

---

Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 09:17:39 -0500
To: mikael () pawlo com, nikolajn () ascio com, atsai () gnr com, farber () cis upenn edu,
        Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>, <DGillmor () sjmercury com>,
        igora () microsoft com
From: Esther Dyson <edyson () edventure com>
Subject: Fwd: ALSC press release
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed

hard-fought.... FYI from Esther


> "GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY!"
>
> ICANN BOARD APPROVES INDIVIDUAL INTERNET USER PARTICIPATION, CALLS FOR 
> ORGANIZATION OF AT-LARGE MEMEBERSHIP
>
> March 14, Accra, Ghana -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 
> Numbers (ICANN) Board of Directors approved a resolution during its 
> meeting today that called for the creation of an At-Large mechanism for 
> "meaningful, informed participation by Internet users," as recommended by 
> the At-Large Study Committee (ALSC).  Taking a critical step towards 
> structuring participation and representation of individuals from 
> throughout the diverse global Internet user communities ("At-Large 
> constituency") within ICANN, the Board called upon the ICANN community to 
> create an At-Large membership based on "bottom-up, self-organized, local 
> Internet community" groups.
>
> "The ALSC is pleased the Board committed to a strong role for individual 
> Internet users in ICANN and acknowledged the merits of our report," said 
> Carl Bildt, ALSC Chair. "We worked to find a solution that ensures 
> Internet users have a sustained role in the technical coordination of the 
> Internet, and are gratified the Board has now recognized the Internet 
> community's bottom-up organizing activities."
>
> In the resolution, the Board stated that it "wishes to move forward with 
> energy and enthusiasm to build a meaningful structure for informed 
> participation by the full range of Internet users, and seeks avenues to 
> achieve these objectives that are bottom-up, self-organized, and 
> self-sustaining."
>
> ICANN is in the process of considering wholesale restructuring, and the 
> resolution instructs the Board Committee on Restructuring to ensure that 
> their ongoing efforts at crafting a blueprint for ICANN reform include 
> "workable mechanisms and procedures that enable meaningful opportunities 
> for participation by the full range of Internet users," and "an 
> appropriate role for those interests in ICANN's coordinating and 
> management structures."
>
> In its annual meeting in November, 2001, the Board formally accepted the 
> ALSC's final report as a basis for discussion and received in Accra the 
> Committee's "Implementation Report," which provided details on the 
> processes needed to implement the ALSC's final report. The final report 
> proposes a regionally based global framework for all interested 
> individuals' structured participation in ICANN, focuses At-Large 
> membership (an electorate) on an identifiable and vested community, 
> provides a reasonable, initial mechanism for registration and 
> self-funding, and grants At-Large members a proportionate responsibility 
> for selecting ICANN's Board.  While the Board, today, made clear that 
> there would be no direct elections to fill At-Large Board seats at this 
> time, it left open the possibility of future At-Large elections.
>
> "We are still moving forward from where we were, although we have not yet 
> reached our goal of regularly elected At-Large directors," said Esther 
> Dyson, an ALSC member and former chairman of ICANN. "Now the At-Large 
> Membership has the challenge ­ and responsibility ­ of meeting the Board's 
> call for informed, active participation… which we hope will lead to 
> issue-oriented, transparent elections."
>
> The ALSC's reports are available on the Internet (at www.atlargestudy.org) 
> and the Board's resolution is available at www.icann.org.
> .
> ABOUT THE ALSC
> The ALSC is an independent Committee created by ICANN earlier this year to 
> provide recommendations to ICANN's Board on how to structure the diverse 
> global Internet community's participation within ICANN. The ALSC is 
> conducting an aggressive outreach, discussion, research, and 
> consensus-building campaign that will culminate with the submission of a 
> final report to the Board in November. In addition to Carl Bildt, the ALSC 
> includes Charles Costello, Pierre Dandjinou, Esther Dyson, Olivier Iteanu, 
> Ching-Yi Liu, Thomas Niles, Oscar Robles, and Pindar Wong. Biographies of 
> these individuals, and Information on the ALSC, can be found at 
> www.atlargestudy.org.
>
> ABOUT ICANN
> ICANN is a technical coordination body for the Internet. Created in 
> October 1998 by a broad coalition of the Internet's business, technical, 
> academic, and user communities, ICANN is assuming responsibility for a set 
> of technical functions previously performed under U.S. government contract 
> by IANA and other groups. Specifically, ICANN coordinates the assignment 
> of identifiers that must be globally unique for the Internet to function: 
> Internet domain names, IP address numbers, and protocol parameter and port 
> numbers. In addition, ICANN coordinates the stable operation of the 
> Internet's root server system. As a non-profit, private-sector 
> corporation, ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of 
> the Internet; to promoting competition; to achieving broad representation 
> of global Internet communities; and to developing policy through 
> private-sector, bottom-up, consensus-based means. ICANN welcomes the 
> participation of any interested Internet user, business, or organization.
>
> CONTACT
> Denise Michel
> +1 310 823 9358
> dmichel () atlargestudy org


BACK TO THE FRONTIER - this year's PC FORUM with
Craig Barrett, Rick Belluzzo, Eric Schmidt... and you!
www.pcforum2002.com/pcforum/speakers.cfm
March 24 to 26


Esther Dyson                    Always make new mistakes!
chairman, EDventure Holdings
writer, Release 3.0 (on Website below)
edyson () edventure com
1 (212) 924-8800    --   fax  1 (212) 924-0240
104 Fifth Avenue (between 15th and 16th Streets; 20th floor)
New York, NY 10011 USA
http://www.edventure.com







-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------