Patrick, That is fine we can agree on many points here. My remarks are below -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Vande Walle [mailto:patrick@vande-walle.eu] Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 9:06 AM To: Dominik Filipp Cc: Discussion for At-Large Europe Subject: Re: [EURO-Discuss] alac review
As for the user representation in ICANN, I am of course not satisfied with the current situation. However, "civil society" type of arguments are not going to convince the other parties involved. We need another approach.
Definitely.
I think it would be much more convincing to point out that domain name registrants, many of whom are natural persons or small businesses, are not properly represented, yet contribute to a large part of the ICANN budget through registrar and gTLD registry fees. This amounts to USD 40 million per year.
This has already been pointed out many times in the past. This fact is constantly being ignored by BoD.
At the very least, we should expect that representation on the board is proportional to the contribution to the budget...
Definitely.
...but this has been confiscated by the intermediaries: registries and registrars. I note that NomCom appointed members to the board are selected on their personal capacity, not as representatives of the "paying majority".
That is why the At-Large reform should be about. Patrick