Jamie Love was kind enough to nominate me to the ICANN At Large council. (http://www.icannatlarge.com/) Other nominees included Barbara Simons, Michael Froomkin, Michael Geist, and and Milton Mueller. Note this is different from the At Large effort set up in part by Esther Dyson and ICANN itself. (http://www.at-large.org/) Unfortunately, I'm going to decline the nomination. I frequently write about ICANN and don't feel that having that kind of relationship would be appropriate at this time. Nominations closed on Monday. Candidates are supposed to accept or decline their nominations by Tuesday evening. -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: clarification (sort of) on ICANNatlarge.com and other ICANN "at-large" things Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 07:09:45 -0400 From: James Love <james.loveat_private> I sometimes get so deep into this ICANN stuff I forget to explain basic things. And even though I'm sure I have left out many important details, here are a few that I should mention. 1. ICANN created an at-large study committee, chaired by Carl Bildt (Chair), the former Prime Minister of Sweden, plus Chuck Costello , Pierre Dandjinou, Esther Dyson, Olivier Iteanu, Ching-Yi Liu, Thomas Niles, Oscar Robles, and Pindar Won. The staff person was Denise Michel, who had worked in a variety of US government, tech industry, trade association and lobbyist jobs. 2. In Accra the ICANN board basically rejected having elections from the public for its board members, but appeared to leave to door open to giving the public some board seats later, and people were urged to go out and organize and make proposals. Using the atlargestudy.org forums, the ICANNatlarge.com effort emerged as an attempt to have a self organized democratic organization for the general public. Many hoped this would eventually elect ICANN board members, possibly as an ICANN "Supporting Organization" or possibly in some other way. 3. ICANNatlarge.com had over 800 members, and held its first election for a temporary 7 person panel, to which I was one of the seven elected. 4. A few days after the ICANNatlarge.com election Esther and Denise announced that there would be yet another ICANN sponsored effort, this one using at-large.org, a site first registered to Kent Crispin. The new "at-large" effort appeared to be run by Esther and Denise. The Esther and Denise effort created a new "At Large Organizing Committee" made up of people who represent organizations, with a few dozen members. There is no evidence that this group actually meets, votes, makes decisions or does much more than appear on a web page, but it has a lot of nice well meaning people involved. http://www.at-large.org/at-large-members.htm. In Bucharest Esther and Denise explained that this group would not have votes, but would find ways to learn what the public thought... it was sort of an outreach or focus group for public input, but one basically managed top down, rather than bottom up, and in keeping with the deep hostility of the ICANN board to anything remotely democratic, it did not even insist on the right to elect its own leaders, which seemed to allow Esther and Densie to run it however they like, without any need to explain "why them?" 5. Meanwhile, interest in ICANNatlarge.com drops off quite a bit, because it is clear that once again ICANN didn't like the election returns, and has reminded itself it didn't like elections either. 6. But ICANNatlarge.com more or less decides to stick to the original plan, and announced it would hold the election to replace the inital 90 day board members. That election is going on now, and has attracted some good candidates. 7. So basically, ICANNatlarge.com is moving ahead, holding elections, and trying to create the type of self organized democratic voice for the public that ICANN promised it would use to elect 9 of its board members. It is the democratic alternative to Esther and Denise's "at-large.org" effort, which is anything but democratic. 8. The Icannatlarge.com web sit is a bit of a mess right now, in my opinion, but if one wants to register to vote in the election, go to icannatlarge.com and "register here." That means, register to vote, or become a voting member in icannatlarge.com (it could be more clear). If someone wants to run for the board or nominate someone else, now is the time to do so, by posting a note to the groups's discuss list. (If you have don't have time for this crazy ICANN stuff, well, who can blame you? ) Jamie ------ James Love, Consumer Project on Technology http://www.cptech.org, mailto:loveat_private voice: 1.202.387.8030; mobile 1.202.361.3040 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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