.
>The
DNSO
....Domain
Names Supporting Organization
Domain name
politics divert players.
.
The DNSO
is a Supporting Organization of ICANN and advises the
ICANN Board "with respect to policy issues relating to
the Domain Name System."
Foremost on the agenda are the questions of how and
when to expand the Internet by adding new top-level
domains to the root, enabling commercial domain holders
to enjoy more options than ".com," overseeing the
ensuing cyberspace land rush. The stakes are very high.
Controlling the domain name system means effectively
controlling global expansion of the whole Internet.
The DNSO will have two bodies, a Names Council
(NC), comprised of elected representatives from the DNSO
Constituencies, and a General Assembly (GA)
composed of "all interested individuals and entities,"
which meets at least once annually. Recommendations to
the Board from the DNSO must be developed though a
process of building consensus among recognized
Constituencies.
Subject to the geographic diversity rules in the
Bylaws,
the DNSO "selects" Directors to the three Board seats
designated for this SO.
Visit
the DNSO Website
(http://www.dnso.org/)
DNSO
at the ICANN website
(http://www.icann.org/dnso/dnso1.htm)
.
.
Analysis:
Despite
the consensus process favored among DNSO constituencies,
critics charge, any advice agreeable to all the competing
players is rendered moot and mute from the ICANN Board
having the final say without needing DNSO consent. If
true, the consensus process in the DNSO, and all the SOs,
lends political cover to the Board, a democratic mask
hiding an autocracy, creating an illusion of openness to
deflect attention from the closed reality.
The biggest
problem with the DNSO, critics indict, is that the
constituencies have been gerrymandered by the Board, so
the gTLD-MoU faction controls virtually every aspect of
DNSO affairs. The gTLD players can foresee profits from
owning the domain name registries, just as NSI has grown
wealthy. The rest of us, meanwhile, have no say in the
ICANN decisions affecting our lives.
Contrast this
with the U.S. Constitution. ICANN's advocates have
compared the Names Council and the General Assembly to
the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives,
accounting for the voices of both gentry and masses
alike. Americans of all castes can vote for Senators and
Representative, however, revealing the analogy as a
fallacy, perhaps a deliberately deceptive one.
The critical
point is that only constituencies the Board recognizes
enjoy any suffrage in the DNSO, which means the right to
vote on who will sit in three DNSO seats on the ICANN
Board. Everyone else on earth is
disenfranchised.
True democracy
demands due process. Examine the processes in the
DNSO:
DNSO
Constituencies
(http://www.icann.org/dnso/constituency_groups3.htm
)
- "Each Constituency shall self-organize, and
shall determine its own . . . criteria for
participation," except that no individual or entity shall
be excluded from participation in a Constituency because
of participation in another Constituency, and
"constituencies shall operate to the maximum extent
feasible in an open and transparent manner" and
consistent with procedures designed to ensure fairness.
The Board shall recognize any Constituency (starting with
Constituencies below) by a majority vote.
.
- The initial Constituencies (in alphabetical order)
are:
1. ccTLD Registries
....
[country code Top
Level Domains, e.g. "domain.co.uk"]
2. Commercial and Business entities
.... [for-profit domain
name holders, from McDonalds.com to
IBM.com]
3. gTLD Registries
.... [The folks behind
the gTLD-MoU's seven new domain names.]
4. ISP and Connectivity Providers
.... [AOL,
EarthLink, WebTV, your cable company, local telco,
etc.]
5. Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders;
....
[Provisionally recognized; issue is
individual domain
name holders]
6. Registrars;
.... [e.g., NSI, Land
rush claims offices for registering domain
names.]
7. Trademark, other Intellectual Property &
anti-counterfeiting interests.
.... [This means WIPO
and other groups asserting the rights of IP
owners.]
.
- Members of each Constituency shall select three
individuals to represent that Constituency on the
Names Council, no two of which may be citizens of
countries in the same Geographic Region.
Alert!
Bypassing its Bylaws,
the ICANN decided that NSI could not elect three
representatives to the Names Council, as entitled. NSI
resisted, so the ICANN Board changed its Bylaws, like the
Board has done before.
.
Critics charge that the
Board is manipulating the constituencies of the Names
Council to guarantee that the gTLD supporters are in
control. Gerrymandering of this sort, if true,
invalidates DNSO legitimacy.
.
Though this process of
gerrymandering to affect the Board elections in Los
Angeles in November, Critics say, 9 of the 19 Board
seats, plus Ms. Dyson as the tie-breaker, are locked into
supporting the gTLD plans by the Council of Registrars
(CORE) and the Internet Society (ISOC).
.
Because NSI opposes
ICANN, letting NSI have more that one seat within the
Names Council would upset what one critic has called a
"carefully scripted balance" assuring rapid
implementation of the CORE/ISOC strategy following Board
elections, if elections occur. Delivering control of
elective Board seats is the name of the game.
.
Notice:
The Board in Santiago agreed to "provisionally" recognize
the Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders constituency (5)
pending the November meeting in Los Angeles (and what
transpires with IDNO). Could the reason be, Constancy 5
will back gTLD when it counts? Gerrymandering explains
everything, charge critics, again and
still.
.
"A group of individuals or entities may petition the
Board for recognition as a new or separate
Constituency.... The Board may create new [DNSO]
Constituencies in response to such a petition, or on its
own motion, if it determines that such action would serve
the purposes of the Corporation. Whenever the Board posts
any petition or recommendation for a new Constituency for
public comment, it will notify the names council and will
consider any response to that notification prior to
taking action."
.
- Individual Domain
Name Holders Organization
(IDNO)
Called the "Cyberspace Association," IDNO
represents both commercial and non-commercial domain
name holders with little clout or voice. Compared to
the major players like Network Solutions or WIPO,
these are gnats in the face of a hawk.
(Website at http://www.idno.org).
.
Warning:
During the Berlin
meeting, the Board failed to directly address a motion
by Joop Teernstra to grant ICANN Constituency
recognition to the IDNO
(Individual Domain Name Organization), representing
many of independent democratic voices in the DNS
debate. The IDNO membership was represented at the
meeting, but mostly from the online participants
unable to attend a conference in Europe's most
expensive grand hotel, The Adlon. Online participants
wrote comments throughout the proceedings, posted live
to the website for the meeting, yet online support for
IDNO recognition received scant attention from the
rostrum. (Note: I am a member of IDNO.)
.
In Santiago, The ICANN
Board deferred any decision on the IDNO petition until
the Los Angeles meeting, after Board elections. Why?
According to some critics, because IDNO representation
on the DNSO Names Council increases the chance that
someone other than a gTLD supporter may be elected to
the Board, which could disrupt the contrived balance
of 9 out of 19 votes for CORE/ISOC, with Dyson as the
friendly tie-breaker.
.
By postponing a
decision about IDNO until after the elections,
recognizing IDNO will come too late to matter. This is
the same gerrymandering that explains why the Board
stopped NSI from having its rightful three seats on
the Names Council. Asked one critic, "How blatant must
corruption be before we wake up?"
.
.
- Top Level Domain
Association (TLDA)
Seeking recognition of prospective TLD
registries as a separate ICANN constituency, the TLDA
was chartered in May 1999 to develop alternative TLDs
to help expand the domain name space. The principal is
Gene Marsh at Anycast.Net in alliance with Richard
Sexton at VRx, Jay Fanello at Iperdome, and others.
Root server operator Marsh wants the Internet to adopt
his four new top level domains -- ".atm,
.home, .global, .set."
.
Website at
http://www.tlda.org
mailto:
marshm@anycast.net
.
Analysis:
TLDA is competing with
the seven gTLDs proposed by the Council of Registrars
(CORE). TLDA is one of the emerging alternatives to
the gTLDs. Chances for the Board recognizing TLDA as a
constituency are slim to nul, assert critics, making
TLDA into a test case for ICANN integrity.
.
The
DNSO
Process
(Source:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/aboutdnso.html)
- The DNSO shall serve as an advisory body to the
Board, with the responsibility of developing and
recommending "substantive policies" regarding the Domain
Name System.
.
- Recommendations to the Board from the DNS are to be
submitted after a process of consensus building produces
alignment on a recommendation.
.
Analysis:
ICANN supporters like to hold aloft the DNSO as a
shield to deflect criticism of the Board as an autocratic
despot. Relying on consensus qualifies as democracy in
action, say allies, avowing that ICANN actually is on the
front edge of democracy.
.
ICANN really
is nothing but a front for the gTLD faction, allege
critics, and because ICANN has gerrymandered the
constituencies in the DNSO, what's the point of building
consensus among people who already agree with one
another? ICANN critics like to hold aloft the DNSO as
evidence to prove that from end to end, ICANN is a
"counterfeit
democracy."
.
All the time
and energy devoted to the DNSO debates by those opposing
Board actions, critics assert, tends to distract DNS
players from the issue of whether ICANN itself is
legitimate, which pleases the Board no
end.
.
- Recommendation to the Board from the DNSO shall be
transmitted to all other Supporting Organizations so that
each Supporting Organization may comment to the Board
within their own scope of primary
responsibility.
.
- The ICANN Board shall accept the recommendations of
the DNSO
if the Board finds that the recommended
policy:
(1) furthers the purposes of, and is in the best interest
of, the Corporation; (2) is consistent with the Articles
and Bylaws;
(3) was arrived at through fair and open processes, and
if
(4) it is not reasonably opposed by any other Supporting
Organization.
.
Analysis:
(1) What's in the
interest of the Corporation need not be what's in the
interest of the Internet or the world. Drive a truck
through a loophole.
(2) Consistency under fast-changing bylaws offers scant
reassurances.
(3) Democratic consensus-building within the DNSO counts
for nothing when the board has so much latitude for not
following SO advice.
(4) The board can play SO against SO to counter advice it
dislikes, for whom decides what is "reasonable"
opposition? The Board, of course.
.
- No recommendation of the DNSO shall be adopted unless
the votes in favor of adoption
would be sufficient for adoption by the Board
without the votes of the
DNSO-selected Directors.
.
- If the Board declines to accept any recommendation of
the DNSO, it shall return the recommendation to the DNSO
for further consideration, along with a statement of the
reasons it declines to accept the recommendation. If,
after reasonable efforts, the Board does not receive a
recommendation from the DNSO that it finds meets the
standards of Section 2(e) of Article VI of the ICANN
Bylaws
or, after attempting to mediate any disputes or
disagreements between Supporting Organizations, if the
Board receives conflicting recommendations from
Supporting Organizations, and the
Board finds a justification for prompt action, "the Board
may initiate, amend or modify and
then approve a specific policy recommendation."
.
Analysis:
In other words, when it comes to such critical issues
as domain name dispute resolution policies, which now
favor WIPO, the DNSO can lobby the Board with gusto, but
the Board still has a free hand to overrule the three
DNSO Directors. Ultimately, the only restraint upon the
Board could be howls of protest against its outrages.
Daily crisis management.
.
As for the
particulars of this matter, as best I can determine, the
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in
Geneva, representing the major transnational trademark
owners, a gTLD backer since the start, drafted a domain
names dispute resolution policy that naturally gave
preference to trademark owners, like McDonald's
restaurants being certain of prevailing against
McDonald's Shoe Repair Shop for the
"mcdonalds.com" address. Most of the
big trademark holders have already secured their domain
names under the ".com" TLD. All the
jockeying for position is about being sure to possess
their name under emerging TLDs, like
"mcdonalds.food" or
"mcdonalds.clown."
.
Believing the Board
was "captured" by the gTLD Council of Registrars (CORE),
ICANN's critics assert that the Board was pleased to
rubber stamp the uniform dispute resolution policy from
WIPO during their Santiago meeting. The Board unanimously
approved a resolution for a drafting committee that
supposedly represents corporations, nonprofits, the
top-level domain registrars, plus domain name holders
committed to adopting a uniform process where disputes
are resolved by arbitration. Critics charge that this
committee will be packed with gTLD supporters, leaving
independent and small business domain holders out of the
loop.
.
.
Names
Council
(Source:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/aboutdnso.html)
- A provisional Names Council is now in place,
and it includes representatives from constituencies 1, 2,
3, 4, 6 and 7 [see above]
The provisional Names Council cannot select ICANN
Board Directors, but all other
powers are intact. A definitive Names Council will
be elected after the ICANN Board
meeting in November 1999.
.
- The "NC Process"
.
(a) The NC consists of three representatives from
each Constituency recognized by the ICANN Board, with the
temporary exception of the gTLD constituency, with only
one representative.
.
(b) The NC is responsible for managing the
consensus-building process of the DNSO.
.
(c) Constituencies or GA participants may propose
that the NC consider domain name policies or
recommendations.
.
(d) If two-thirds (2/3) of the members of the NC
determine that the DNSO process has produced a community
consensus, that consensus position shall be forwarded to
the Board as a consensus recommendation,
.
(e) The NC shall
forward to the Board its selection(s) for the Directors
to fill any open Board position(s) reserved for the
DNSO.
.
(f) The term of office for the NC shall be two
years.
.
Analysis:
The Names
Council has started meeting with the gTLD players
apparently in control, despite resistance. Internal
politics and personality conflicts already consume the
passions of NC members, leaving them little energy to
challenge the
legitimacy
of ICANN
itself. A handy distraction.
.
If somehow
the DNSO ever would submit a consensus recommendation the
Board does not like, given all the loopholes for the
Board to avoid adopting disliked recommendations, such
measures are doomed to die.
.
Being
ignored, add critics, is the fact the DNSO may
advise
the
Board, but the board need not seek DNSO consent.
That's not a democracy.
.
Please note, too, the
General Assembly is left out of the loop in step (d),
backing a view that the GA is a bone ICANN tossed to the
masses. Arf!
.
..
General
Assembly
(Source:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/aboutdnso.html)
- "The GA shall be an open forum for participation in
the work of the DNSO, open to
all willing to contribute effort to the work of the
DNSO." Participants in the GA ought to be individuals who
have "a knowledge of and an interest in" issues
pertaining to the DNSO.
.
- The GA shall meet at least once a year, if possible
in conjunction with meetings of the Board. To the maximum
extent practicable, all meetings should be available for
online attendance as well as physical attendance.
.
- The costs of GA meetings shall be the responsibility
of the DNSO, which may levy an equitable, cost-based fee
on GA attendees to recoup those costs. There shall be no
other fees required to participate in the GA.
.
- The GA shall nominate, pursuant to procedures adopted
by the NC and approved by the
Board, persons to serve on the Board in those three seats
reserved for the DNSO.
.
Warning:
The only meeting of the
General Assembly may have been a sham.
.
A "General Assembly" met
briefly in Santiago. but at least one critic has charged
that the GA "consensus" supporting the Board was nothing
more than politeness among a group of unwitting Chilean
students attending the open meeting. Students of all ages
certainly qualify as Internet stakeholders, as do we all,
but is this real? Another critic, meanwhile, alleged that
the back two rows of the open meeting were packed with
trademark lawyers, supposedly visible in the
archived
video, and this
group provided the "consensus." Either way, the touted
support for the Board appears to have been contrived or
manufactured.
.
Analysis:
Critics charge that
the GA's infrequent meetings makes it merely a token
gesture, little more than a sop to non-commercial
individuals who do not fit into the business
constituencies of the Names
Council.
.
Unlike the Names Council,
there are no formal procedures established for the
General Assembly to submit recommendations to the Board.
And GA meetings would need to be far more frequent than
Board meetings to make headway on building consensus,
which takes time within even the most cordial gatherings.
The Board appears to be using the ambiguous nature of the
consensus process to avoid accountability and
responsibility, both of which spring from there being
defining votes on the public
record.
.
Seeing its powerlessness,
why does the GA bother meeting at all? The only official
business before the General Assembly meetings,
apparently, is nominating people for the Board. But here
the Names Council has the upper hand, the final say on
who is selected, and the Names Council allegedly is
"captured" by the gTLD faction.
.
Is it possible that the
General Assembly is just a pretense of democracy,
deliberately designed to distract and bemuse us while the
Board reigns
supreme?.
.
>IC
 .PRIOR
SECTION
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INDEX
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SECTION
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The only
restraint
upon the Board may
be our howls of protest against its outrages.
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.
EACH
NEW
DOMAIN
NAME
SPURS
THE
CYBER
LAND
RUSH
AS
THE
CYBER
LAND
RUSH S
SPURS
EACH
NEW
DOMAIN
NAME
..
|
|
Critics
say
the Board is managing
the DNSO
to be sure
that the
gTLD-MoU supporters
have total
control.
|
|
.
FREEDOM
ENRICHES
CREATIVITY
AS
CREATIVITY
ENRICHES
FREEDOM
..
|
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The only
reason for opposing democracy
is to profit from a lack of of
freedom.
|
|
Understanding
Network
Democracy
