Hi Bret It does fulfill one other very important function... it allows participation by users who may not be online often enough or at a high enough level to register and vote, or follow the processes. Many people in the developing world have a lot of issues that need to be raised at the ICANN policy levels, but cannot function at the policy level as individuals (lack of time, money, education, access to internet). The ALSes can take the information out to the users, and bring back and collate their feedback. Telecentre and community based groups are really important in this activity. We are making policy that will affect people who are not currently online. It is imperative that we make every effort to consider them while we are doing this so that the policy that we make will not be inimical to their interests when they do finally come online. Or worse yet, we create policy that actively prevents them from coming online. I also have to say that as an Internet user since 1990 (email and usenet, veronica, archie and gopher) I was not one who was aware of the vote or one of the 76,000 who registered to vote. I would have, had the marketing and information effort reached me in Trinidad. Just as important as validating the users is making sure that every single user has the opportunity to register to vote. If that does not happen, the vote is flawed (as I believe the original one was) by self-selecting the people who are already participating, and not the true individual internet users, the ones who check their email, who shop on Amazon, but don't know ICANN exists, or know DNS from DNA. Jacqueline -----Original Message----- From: Bret Fausett [mailto:bfausett@internet.law.pro] Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 7:53 PM To: NA Discuss Subject: [NA-Discuss] Individuals and Organizations Since the topic has come up on the list once or twice over the last few days, I thought I might share some history about the creation of the ALAC as an "Organization of Organizations composed of Individuals." That's not a structure that one might choose if starting from scratch, and since it's not at all obvious why it came to be, I thought I'd share my recollection of events. Some of you know this background information already, but it may be of interest to those who are new to the ALAC and the RALOs. Once upon a time, back in 1998 when ICANN was created, ICANN was supposed to have 19 members of its Board of Directors. 9 would be elected by "Supporting Organizations" (3 from each of the domain name community, the IP address community, and the technical/standards community). 9 "At Large Directors" also would be elected by individual Internet users from around the world. And, finally, ICANN's President would have a seat on the Board. The group that incorporated ICANN seeded it with 9 "Initial" Directors, intending that they oversee the formation of the organization and step down when new Directors were elected to replace them. Within the first year of ICANN's existence, the three "supporting organizations" each elected their three Directors, bringing the total on ICANN's Board to 19, but the initial Directors stayed on until the new "At Large" Directors could be elected to replace them. But ICANN wasn't quite sure how to elect these 9 "At Large" Directors, so it tasked various advisory committees to study the issue. In early 2000, after close to two years of debate and study, the ICANN Board decided to hold global online elections. Given the uncertainties of the process and the fear of election fraud or gaming, the ICANN Board decided not to put half of its seats up for grabs in one election. Rather than electing 9 "At Large" Directors, it decided to elect only 5. In the summer of 2000, over 76,000 people signed up to vote in ICANN's online elections. After a few weeks of campaigning, five new Directors were elected in online elections overseen by the Carter Center. (You can see the archives here: http://members.icann.org/). Following the election, the ICANN Board tasked a blue ribbon committee, chaired by former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, to review the elections and determine what worked, what failed, and make recommendations for going forward. Some of the issues that the committee considered were "who is an individual internet user?", "how do you authenticate individual internet users for voting purposes?", and "how do you record votes in a secure manner not susceptible to fraud?" At the end of this study, the Bildt Committee issues a comprehensive set of recommendations about how to conduct online elections for ICANN Board seats. (See, http://atlargestudy.org/) Rejecting the advice of both the Bildt Committee and other groups that had examined the same issue (http://www.naisproject.org/), the ICANN Board decided that figuring out how to conduct online elections was far outside ICANN's mandate, and the subject was distracting it from doing the real work that it needed to do. Accordingly, it decided that the terms of the "At Large Directors" would end and that it would move to a Nominating Committee approach to elect the balance of its Directors. Many of the people who had studied online elections and campaigned for an At Large presence, however, were not content to allow the Board to end At Large participation altogether. The efforts of people like Esther Dyson, Roberto Gaetano, Vittorio Bertola, Wendy Seltzer, Andy Mueller-Maguhn, Izumi Aizu, Adam Peake, and Jeannette Hoffman convinced the Board that it needed to retain an At Large presence. What the Board agreed to do was sidestep the troublesome issues of "who is an individual Internet user" and "how do you authenticate individuals" by substituting existing organizations in the place of individuals. The logic was that organizations that existed for purposes other than ICANN presumably would have verified their members, through membership fees, fund-raising contributions, physical presence or some other means. ICANN would borrow and build upon the efforts of legitimate organizations to build its At Large membership. This was the original thinking behind the idea that At Large Structures be organizations where individuals predominate; it's basically a fudge for authentication and verification of individuals. Bret _______________________________________________ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge-lists.ica nn.org --- Draft MoU with ICANN: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_MOU Draft Operating Principles: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_OP Draft Code of Conduct: http://www.icannwiki.org/NARALO_Code_of_Conduct No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.7.6/814 - Release Date: 5/21/2007 2:01 PM No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.7.6/814 - Release Date: 5/21/2007 2:01 PM