IP: At-Large solicitation

[David Farber <dfarber () earthlink net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: "Denise Michel" <denisemichel () sbcglobal net>
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 10:28:39 
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: At-Large solicitation

Dave,

The At-Large Study Committee (ALSC) will be extending the "deadline" for the
"solicitation of interest"
to February 15 and re-distributing it.  (The solicitation was posted on our
homepage at www.atlargestudy.org early this month and emailed to
organizations throughout the world -- sorry I missed yours).  The
solicitation with the new dates is included below.  Thanks for your help.

Denise Michel
Executive Director
At Large Study Committee
dmichel () atlargestudy org

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
If you are interested in exploring a role for your organization in
establishing a proposed ICANN "At-Large Supporting Organization" to provide
an individual user view on technical coordination of the Internet's domain
name system, please send an email to comments () atlargestudy org by February
15, 2002.  Read on for more details!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is
considering the creation of an organization to enable individual Internet
users worldwide (referred to as an "At-Large" constituency) to participate
in ICANN's activities and decisions. As members of the At-Large Study
Committee (ALSC -- an independent ICANN advisory group), we are contacting
key organizations such as yours to help identify the level of interest in,
and feasibility of, creating such an entity. The purpose of this notice is
to elicit specific expressions of interest from organizations worldwide that
would be willing to be involved in the creation of an "At-Large"
organization.

ICANN
ICANN is a non-profit, private sector corporation responsible for the
technical coordination of the Internet's domain name system.  Specifically,
ICANN coordinates the assignment of identifiers that must be globally unique
for the Internet to function: Internet domain names, IP address numbers, and
protocol parameter and port numbers. ICANN is dedicated to preserving the
operational stability of the Internet, promoting competition, achieving
broad representation of global Internet communities, and to developing
policy through private-sector, bottom-up, consensus-based means.

At-Large Proposal
Our Committee recently submitted a report to ICANN's Board of Directors
recommending that ICANN expand its current structure to add an "At-Large
Supporting Organization" (ALSO).  We recommended that a global ALSO be
created to serve as a local and regional-based framework for At-Large
outreach and education, engaging members, aggregating views, enabling
consensus decision-making, and working closely with other organizations to
address issues and develop policy on Internet user/consumer issues that fall
within ICANN's specific technical and administrative mission. We proposed
that the ALSO be a decentralized, regionally-based structure that will
enable individual members to learn about and discuss relevant issues in
their own language, find common ground with users in other localities and
regions and ultimately provide meaningful user advice to ICANN.

We believe such an organization can help improve ICANN's service to those
who are affected by its actions, and bring an important individual user
perspective to such issues as access to domain names in non-Latin
characters, the potential use of IP addresses and domain names for
identification or location of individuals and groups, competition and choice
(or not) in the provision of various services provided by independent
parties under contract to ICANN, domain-name intellectual property issues,
and introduction of new generic top level domains (gTLDs) - to list just a
few. (For more information on the ALSC's report, see www.atlargestudy.org).

Current Structure
Currently, a 19-member Board of Directors governs ICANN, and three
Supporting Organizations (SOs) assist with, review, and develop
recommendations on Internet policy and structure, and encourage diverse and
international participation in the technical management of the Internet.
The SOs are the primary source of substantive policy recommendations,
serving as advisory bodies to the Board, and each SO currently selects three
board members.

At ICANN's direction, each of the SOs "self-organized" a few years ago and
adopted participation structures appropriate for their effective
functioning.  ICANN is intended to have an open, bottom-up, consensus policy
development process.  The Board and the three existing SO's are designed to
include representatives of a specific set of Internet "stakeholders" -- the
Domain Name Supporting organization (DNSO), the Address Supporting
Organization (ASO), and the Protocol Supporting Organization (PSO).

Matters relating to the system of IP (internet protocol) addresses are under
the purview of the ASO.  The ASO is comprised of the three Regional Internet
Registries (RIR) responsible for allocating IP address blocks in the
Americas, Europe, and Asia, and is governed by an Address Council with RIR
representatives.  The PSO has jurisdiction over the assignment of IP
parameters.  The PSO's governing Protocol Council is comprised of
representatives from four organizations -- the Internet Engineering Task
Force, the World Wide Web Consortium, the International Telecommunications
Union, and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.  Primary
responsibility for developing domain name-related policy rests with the
DNSO.  The DNSO is governed by the Names Council, which consists of
representatives from seven constituencies --  ccTLD (country code top level
domain) registries, commercial and business entities, gTLD (generic top
level domain) registries, Internet service and connectivity providers,
non-commercial domain name holders, registrars, and trademark and other
intellectual property interests.  Each of these constituencies comprises a
set of firms or organizations. (For more information on ICANN and its
structure, see www.icann.org and
http://www.icann.org/general/icann-org-chart_frame.htm).

ALSO
The proposed ALSO under consideration by ICANN's Board, would parallel (and
work closely with) these SOs in an ICANN governance framework to address
ICANN issues of interest to Internet users. Specifically, to ensure that
"users' voices" and diverse interests are represented, we have recommended
that ICANN:
· Work with relevant entities to create the ALSO as a regionally-based
framework for user involvement in ICANN;
· Create an At-Large membership (an ALSO electorate) based on an
identifiable and vested community to help select ALSO leadership and
formulate ALSO policy recommendations (the ALSO would have "participants"
comprised of anyone interested in participating in open, on-line discussion
forums, and "members" comprised of a verifiable, vested community of users
who register and pay a membership fee to participate in voting and policy
development); and
· Provide At-Large members with the responsibility for selecting six members
of ICANN's Board, and for selecting members of six Regional At-Large
Councils (based on six geographic regions) and one global At-Large Council
to help build and govern the ALSO.

Next Steps
ICANN's Board has indicated its support for informed, sustained involvement
of interested individuals in ICANN, and is expected to make a final decision
on the proposed ALSO in March. We expect that a factor in this decision will
be the demonstrated level of interest in creating a regionally based ALSO.
To help address this issue, we ask that your organization consider whether
its interests and/or membership might coincide with an At-Large
organization, and, if so, whether there is interest in exploring a role for
your organization in the ALSO's creation.  Please indicate in an email to
the ALSC if your organization is interested in discussing a role in 1)
outreach to individual Internet users, 2) conferring At-Large membership on
interested members of your organization, 3) starting a "founders group" to
help establish a regional and/or global ALSO structure, and 4) other
activities (please define).

Please send your email to comments () atlargestudy org by February 15, 2002.
If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact
ALSC Executive Director, Denise Michel, at dmichel () atlargestudy org.  Thank
you for your assistance with this important endeavor.

Sincerely,

The At-Large Study Committee:  Carl Bildt (Chair), Chuck Costello (Vice
Chair), Pierre Dandjinou, Esther Dyson, Olivier Iteanu, Ching-Yi Liu, Thomas
Niles, Oscar Robles, and Pindar Wong (Vice Chair).





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