New York Times, March 10, 2000

Internet Board Faces Heavy Opposition on Voting Plan
By JERI CLAUSING

CAIRO -- An election that would select half of the international board that
administers the Internet faced a serious challenge on Thursday when a
united front of groups representing businesses, public interests and
ordinary users called for an overhaul and possible delay of the voting plan.

Despite the apparent consensus of the more than 300 people who attended a
public forum here at the meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN), the calls for change were met with criticism,
and in some cases, hostility, by some of ICANN's interim board members.

The tension spilled into the aisles at the lunch break, where
public-interest groups; the board's interim chairwoman, Esther Dyson; and
the board's lawyer, Joe Sims, had a heated exchange about exactly who the
board should represent and whether it has properly clarified its role in
administering the Internet's addressing, or domain name, system.

The showdown has been brewing since two public-interest groups, the Center
for Democracy and Technology and Common Cause, last week issued a study of
ICANN's plan for a letting computer users around the world elect nine new
board members by Sept. 30.

That report, financed by the Markle Foundation at the urging of Dyson, said
ICANN's plan to let any Internet user over 16 with a permanent e-mail and
postal address elect a special electoral council -- which would then select
the nine board members -- was plagued by conflicting goals, a lack of
accountability and the absence of safeguards against capture by
special-interest groups.

It urged the group to put aside its deadline pressure for completing the
election in September and instead focus on improving the process to ensure
the election is legitimate. The report urged ICANN to replace the electoral
council system with direct elections, to more clearly define the
organization's role and to better educate the public about its mission.

Although everyone who lined up to speak on Thursday urged the group to put
process over deadline, their proposed solutions varied. Some voiced support
for the report's suggestions; others proposed staggering the election or
reducing the number of so-called at-large board members. Still others
wanted to eliminate the general membership altogether.

The criticism comes more than six months after ICANN's interim board
adopted its election plan, spurring obvious resentment and frustration
among the interim, appointed board members, who have worked as volunteers
for the last year and a half to carry out the goal of having a fully
elected board in place by the end of September.

Nine other board members were elected last fall by three so-called
supporting organizations, which represent specific groups like Internet
service providers, domain name registration companies and the intellectual
property interests concerned about protecting their brands in cyberspace.

Hans Kraaijenbrink, one of the interim members, angrily told the crowd
Thursday that the report from Common Cause comes "one minute before
midnight," adding: "We are back to Square 1. I don't want to be back to
Square 1."

He and other board members said they were concerned that too broad a group
was angling for a voice in the process. ICANN's charge, Kraaijenbrink and a
colleague, Gregory Crew, said, is to oversee the narrow, technical
functions of the Internet.

Dyson and Vinton Cerf, an Internet founder and one of the recently elected
board members, said they were concerned that direct elections could result
in the selection of people not sufficiently knowledgeable about the
technical operations of the Internet.

"I am concerned about capture by people who don't know what they are
doing," Dyson said. "People who are stupid, individually."

Public-interest groups, however, are concerned that the current and
proposed structures of ICANN dilute the voice of Internet users who will
ultimately be affected by ICANN policy. While some of the board members
insist ICANN's mission is strictly technical, their policies already
overlap with broader issues, such as who can and cannot register certain
words in Internet addresses.

One of the first decisions the interim ICANN board made was to prohibit
so-called cybersquatting, or the bad-faith registration of domain names
containing trademarks with the intent to resell at a high price. And the
group currently is considering whether to also offer special protections to
"famous marks," which have never before been given international protection.

ICANN has already began its effort to build the at-large voting body,
launching a Web site last month where Internet users older than 16 can
complete a form, which will be subject to final rules set here this week.

ICANN's president, Mike Roberts, said that 6,000 people have already filled
out the online application form. He said that the bulk of the applicants
were male and that 70 percent were from North America, with another 20
percent from Europe. ICANN officials say that have already begun an
outreach effort to include more women and to make the make the pool of
applicants more geographically diverse.

Charles Costello, director of the Carter Center, which specializes in
establishing democratic elections in developing countries, said ICANN's
plan for an electoral council was problematic. "Electoral colleges are
top-down filters used to dilute the voting rights" of individuals, he said.

He said that by refusing to improve the election process, ICANN risks
"having very bad elections which are ultimately seen as illegitimate."