This draft document articulates a civil society perspective on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and identifies issues for the upcoming At Large elections.

Civil society is a third sector of society alongside the state and the market. Civil society supports freedom of association, freedom of expression, participatory democracy, and respect for diversity.  A vigorous civil society is also an important limit on the power of governments and on the power of the commercial sector.

We encourage individuals and organizations to discuss this statement internally and with others and to suggest improvements. This statement will be further developed at the:
    Civil Society Forum
    Yokohama, Japan (ICANN Meeting)
    Thursday, 13 July 2000, 9:00-12:00

For more information see web sites above.  Comments can also be submitted to Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) at <hklein@cpsr.org> .

Initial signatories (individuals):
Karl Auerbach
  Individual Domain Name Holders Constituency (USA)
Chris Bailey
  Internet Rights Campaign
  Association for Progressive Communications (APC) (UK)
Tracy Cohen
  LINK/Wits University (South Africa)
Marc Holitscher
  Unit for Internet Studies (Switzerland)
Tomoya Inyaku
  JCA-NET (Japan)
Hans Klein
  Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) (USA)
Norbert Klein
  Open Forum of Cambodia (Cambodia)
Veni Markovski
  Internet Society - Bulgaria (Bulgaria)
  ICANN Membership Implementation Task Force Chair for East Europe
Milton Mueller
  Syracuse University (USA)
Toshimaru Ogura
  Net-workers against Surveillance Task-force (NaST) (Japan)
Nii Quaynor
 Network Computer Systems (NCS) (Ghana)
Roberto Roggiero
  INTERCOM - Ecuanex (Ecuador)
Marc Rotenberg
  Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) (USA)
Barry Steinhardt
  American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) (USA)
Shinji Yamane
  Japan Chapter preparatory committee (Japan)
  Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)

 Guiding Values

1. ICANN must be representative.

2. ICANN must be transparent.

3. ICANN must use bottom-up processes.

4. Intellectual property rights are not privileged over other rights.

5. ICANN must limit itself to technical policy-making.

6. The domain name space is not an exclusively public resource.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided.

8. ICANN must respect privacy.

9. Costs should be minimal and equitable.
 
 

Issues in the ICANN Elections
 

1. ICANN must be representative.

ICANN currently suffers from a democracy deficit. Since its creation in 1998 and continuing to the present, the commercial sector has had disproportionate representation on the Board of Directors.  The democracy deficit will continue at least until all At Large Board seats are filled by elected representatives.

• All At-Large Board seats should be filled by election as quickly as possible.
• Any policies passed by a Board that is not fully representative should be subject to an annual vote of reauthorization (“sunset provision”).
• ICANN should embrace the membership provisions of its bylaws. Election procedures should be made more open, barriers to candidacy reduced, and full rights of membership should be recognized. In particular, provisions that attempt to weaken the legal rights of members should be removed from the by-laws.
• Internet users in many developing countries have Email but not web access. ICANN membership should be possible (and easy) with just an Email connection.
• The Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO) should restructure its constituencies to reduce the disproportionate representation given to business and intellectual property interests.
• The DNSO should recognize new constituencies, including an Individual Domain Name Holders constituency, a developing countries constituency, and a small business constituency.

2. ICANN must be transparent.

Information-sharing should be maximized before, during, and after all ICANN decisions.

• ICANN should make available records of the process of all decisions, except those pertaining to personnel or to the negotiation of contracts.
• The cash flow structure of ICANN should be made public. A strict lineal path should be established between expense request, authorization, issuance of purchase order, receipt of invoice, delivery, and payment.
• ICANN should publish a report with each of its decisions that explains how the action being taken fits within ICANN’s scope and how the decision was created by an open and transparent process  based on the consent of a majority of ICANN participants.

3. ICANN must use bottom-up processes.

ICANN is in danger of becoming an organization whose policies and practices are determined by its staff. ICANN needs to rededicate itself to its original conception as a decentralized, bottom-up standards making organization.

• ICANN staff and CEO must show more respect for procedural safeguards and checks and balances.
• The unelected Board seat reserved for ICANN’s President should be eliminated.  The entire Board should be democratically elected.
• ICANN should not select a new President until after the first round of At Large elections.  Any candidate for the position of ICANN President should not accept an offer until after the At Large elections.
• No person or entity that played an active role in the creation of ICANN should obtain any benefit from ICANN or be a party to any contract with ICANN until 24 months have elapsed after that role has ceased (no “revolving door” of personnel transfers between ICANN and external partners.)
• No person who has been member of the board or has held an executive office under ICANN should obtain any benefit from ICANN or be a party to any contract with ICANN until 24 months have elapsed after that role has ceased.

4. Intellectual property rights are not privileged over other rights.

The European Convention on Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression” (Article 10). ICANN should not compromise the right of expression in order to protect the right of property.

• DNS administration should not be leveraged to expand the scope of intellectual property rights (IPR).  Civil law has been an adequate vehicle for regulating property. Changes in the scope and nature of international IPR protection should be made through national legislatures and international treaties.
• Should DNS policy unavoidably intersect other policy areas, ICANN should be equally mindful of rights, laws, and norms protecting free expression, privacy, the public domain, and noncommercial use.
• The Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) passed in 1999 without the representation or consent of Internet users should be subject to review and vote of reauthorization.
• Intellectual property rights are best protected by establishing special zones in the domain name space for trademark (e.g. “.trademark”).

5. ICANN must limit itself to technical policy-making.

The power over Internet users inherent in DNS administration should not be used to make public policy.

• IP address management and DNS root server management need not be combined in the same organization. There are strong political, organizational, and technical reasons to separate address management from DNS policy making.
• ICANN must not be used as an instrument to promote policies relating to conduct or content on the Internet.  Its by-laws should explicitly recognize limitations on its powers in order to guard against expansion of mission ("mission creep").

6. The domain name space is not an exclusively public resource.

The assertion that “the [domain] name space is a public resource” (by ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee) provides a basis for excessive state control. Likewise, the “natural monopoly” model of country code TLD (ccTLD) registries creates an opportunity for excessive control.

• The domain name space is not an exclusively public resource. Assertions of public control over zones in the domain name space need explicit justification.
• Public resources in the domain name space need not be under the control of national governments.
• Multiple, parallel, and possibly overlapping TLDs registries for supra-national, national, sub-national, regional, cultural, linguistic, and other social and political groupings should not be excluded from the root. This is the basis of a vibrant civil society.

7. Artificial scarcity and centralization should be avoided.

Control points and artificial scarcity in DNS create barriers to Internet access and foster regulation of users.

• The DNS root is a single point of failure on the Internet that threatens operational stability.
• The single DNS root is a control point. ICANN should support the evolutionary development of the DNS away from a centralized architecture.
• ICANN should encourage the interconnection of the DNS with alternate name spaces.
• Scarcity in domain names creates opportunities for control. Expansion of the domain name space through the creation of new TLD registries should be ICANN’s highest priority.
• Expansion of the Internet domain name space should be unconstrained (except for technical constraints -- to the extent that such constraints exist.) Expansion through decentralization of the root and growth in top level domains is especially desirable.
• The use of domain names as a marketing device to index content creates excessive value in domain names and creates disincentives to innovation. The technical evolution of DNS should not be unduly inhibited by its use as a marketing technology by commercial users.

8. ICANN must respect privacy.

• ICANN's policies and internal procedures should adhere to Fair Information Practices, based on the OECD Privacy Guidelines.
• ICANN's policies for domain name and address management should not discourage the adoption of genuine privacy enhancing techniques or undermine the right of anonymity.

9. Costs should be minimal and equitable.

Similar services delivered in different parts of the world can have different cash values.  Likewise, users’ ability to pay can vary dramatically.

• ICANN’s costs should be distributed in a manner that corresponds to the costs caused by different users.
• Many costs have arisen from the high priority given by ICANN’s Board to address the concerns of commercial Internet users.  Costs assessed to those users should reflect this.
• ICANN should at all times strive to minimize costs (e.g. rather than holding Board meetings in business class facilities, ICANN should use non-profit quality facilities.)
• ICANN should allow an outside audit of expenses, business practices, cost controls, and accounting methods.  The standard of evaluation should be that of public-benefit non-profit entities rather than those of for-profit corporations.