Re: Proposed Replacement Re: Johnson, Farber, Maher and Cochetti

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Einar and all,

Einar Stefferud wrote:

> My reading of the Johnson, Farber, Maher and Cochett text is that they
> are grasping at straws trying to find some way to establish legitimate
> constituency definitions and boundaries so they can mount a voting
> system that is guaranteed to be fair to all, and which draws some of
> its structure from the US Constitutional Voting Scheme.

  You are of course intiteled to your opinion.  To us, this sounds like a
gross mischaracterization.

>
>
> However, when you look at domain names as being surrogate citizens,
> you discover that they do not represent much of anything that needs to
> be allocated 50% of the votes on an unwieldy 18 member Names Council.

  How so?

>
>
> In my view, this is simply no way to assure that all the voices that
> need to be given a fair hearing will get one, because the
> constituencies are not well defined, as they are with the concept of
> "One Person, One Vote" scheme of the US Constitution, or of any other
> parliamentary voting system.

  We don't agree at all here.  The constituencies are fairly well defined within

the Internet community.  Even the MoU folks realize this as they put out an
RFC to this extent and defined some or most of those constituencies.

>
>
> In this mailing list discussion, we have clearly seen how "One SLD,
> One Vote" is subject to distorting manipulations of many kinds, and
> immediately shows signs of unbalanced favor given to various SLD
> registrants.

  By definition the registrant cannot be a distorting factor in representation
of the stakeholders.  This is clearly stated within the Green Paper, as it
should be.  Any characterization otherwise is a vague and misguided attempt
to rest Self determination and a voice in that registrants Internet Commerce
or presence on the DNS.  That would indeed be non-benificial to the
Internet community at large and to the growth of this industry in general.

>
>
> Further, the primary concept of the whole scheme is to go directly to
> the end users, and then find a way to represent them at the top of a
> new authority structure, which will then dispense authority downward,
> along with policy to regulate and manage the operations of the DNS
> ROOT, the TLD Registrars, the newly budding Registrar Industry, and
> even the SLD registrants, through requirements for standard contracts
> that must be used in all SLD registration contracts.

  Agreed.  And this is precisely where those regulation should be determined
and decided, at the grass roots.

>
>
> I respectfully suggest that there is a much better paradigm for
> aggregating power from the edges of the Internet for the purposes of
> coordinating the operations of the DNS ROOT, the TLD Registries, the
> TLD Registrar Industry, the TLD owners and operators, and the SLD
> registrants/users.

  True there certainly is, and in doing so you take the control and put it
in the hands of a few with little or no pratiacial recourse.  That is not
expectable.

>
>
> This paradigm is called a "Producers' Cooperative", wherein, the
> collective producers of DNS Services become the electors of the
> members of the Names Council, and thus the Names Council will be
> answerable to the producers of the desired services, and to the their
> customers.

  This is an idea that could have some degree of success, but again does not
provide for direct grass roots voice in this process.  It is management by
committee, which has been proven time and time again to have only a limited
degree of sucess historically.

>
>
> Also, no single sector of the DNS Industry should be allowed to
> control more than 25% of the vote on the Names Council.  25% of the
> vote is already 50% of control.  33% of the vote is already 75% of
> control.  And 50% of the vote is 100% of control.

  This is juts to bizarre to even comment on.

>
>
> As noted in the mailing list discussion, with non-profit corporations,
> where the "stockholders" have little or nothing personally at stake,
> most people do not bother to vote, so that a mere 10% or so can
> control elections.

  Stockholders are only ONE part of the process.  STAKEHOLDERS are
yet another.  Please try to remember that.

> It is my view that the people who are going to be
> most sensitive to User interests will be the TLD or SLD registrars who
> will offer direct services to registrants, so it seems very reasonable
> to be to enable the Registrars, TLD Registry Owner/Operators, and ROOT
> Service Operators to each have a significant voice in the operation of
> their cooperative collection of enterprises.

  And Registrars, TLD Registry Owner/Operators, and ROOT Service Operators
should have a voice in this process, but not a controlling voice.  The customer,

or STAKEHOLDER, must have at least an equal voice.

>
>
> Then, if you want to add some more user input, why not form an
> Association of DNS Server Administrators, with membership eligibility
> given to anyone that actually administers a DNS zone server at any
> level of the DNS tree.  This association should charge a nominal
> annual membership fee, and should then in turn represent its members
> to the Names Council.

  Not good enough.  Too much power in the hands of too few.  Schemes such
as this rob the user of what they are paying for and lead to paying more for
less.

> This last association of name server
> administrators sorts out the difficulties with some SLDs being used to
> as the top of corporate name trees, while others go for putting all
> there 3LD names at the SLD level.  The correct representation identity
> is DNS Zone Administrators at All Levels, not just the SLD level.
>
> Indeed, all the confederated associations mentioned here (of Zone
> Admins, Registrars, Registries and Root Servers) should have
> membership fees, and should contribute funding to support the Names
> Council.  In an important sense then, all this boils down to the
> formation of a confederation of trade or other associations for the
> purpose of providing the administration of the required coordination
> of the Internet DNS Name Service.

  Confederation of groups that represent a segment of the DNS system should
and do already exist to some extant, and should have a voice in the management
of
the DNS structure.  However, each Stakeholder should have the vote individually
or as a group through some sort of confederation if they should so choose to
participate in that manner.  There should be no requirement for those
stakeholders
to do so in that manner.

>
>
> Now we have 4 well defined constituencies, and straight forward
> methods of giving them significant representation, at 25% each, all
> the way down to the lowest level of DNS service, right next to the
> users who buy services from competing service providers, and to the
> DNS zone admins that enter host names into the DNS system.  It is my
> opinion that the market can take care of sorting things out below this
> bottom level.

  As I have pointed out specifically, this scheme is not workable without the
Stakeholder getting less of a voice.  That is not expectable.

>
>
> Now then, does anyone see a way for anyone to juggle this game to rig
> the voting and take over sole control?  Is there any easy way to
> thwart the interests of any party with an interest in the use and
> operation of the Internet?  It there any way to divert the incentives
> to defeat coordination of running things in the best interests of all
> concerned?

  Yes, and I just pointed some of those methods out.

> After all, the Internet thrives on cooperation and dies
> from fighting.

  Than don't.  Just agree that the Stakeholder is the consumer along with the
user.  And he/she has the ability to change what he/she will consider should
be done.

>
>
> Now, with four well defined constituancies, lets also take care of the
> little problem of having too many members (18) on the Names Council.
> In my opinion, and the opinion of many other people, it is not
> possible to get anything done with more then 10 members, or less than
> 100 members.

  First of all as I have said before, there are far more than constituencies.
So,
you are by definition disadvantaging the majority of the Stakeholders and users.

> So, since an odd number is better than an even number,
> lets choose nine, with two members from each of our four
> constituencies, plus a chairman selected from outside all
> constituencies.  The Chair only needs to vote in case of ties.  It
> will of course be wise to select a Chair that has a lot of high level
> Internet Savvy and high level governing board experience in
> environments (Ala Internet) that do not have an inherent central core.
>
> Now, lets look at the problems of Trademark Industry Fair Hearing and
> some other left over fair hearing problems from the last two years of
> the DNS Wars.  We need to release some prisoners and right a few
> wrongs before we can all relax and claim we did a good job here.
>
> First there is the backlog of candidates for ROOT registration of new
> TLD Names.  How should they be treated?

  See Jim Flemmings response to this post.

>
>
> 1.  Ignore them as fools who do not deserve any kind of fair hearing?
>     Maybe we can just tell them to go away?  Who are they anyway?
>     Does the list include the MoUvement?  And who else?

  The MoUvement?  They may represent a tiny fragment of the stakeholder
and user internet community and as such have as much influence as they
can adequately provide or convince others to go along with.  So far they
have not done a very good job of that.  But time and effort will tell.

>
>
> 2.  Find a way to buy them off to compensate them for their efforts,
>     and for any Intellectual Property that may be confiscated.  It
>     will be rather difficult to just take away what is perceived to be
>     owned property without a hearing of some kind, perhaps in court if
>     no where else?

  Perhaps, and than again perhaps not.

>
>
> 3.  Give them a fair hearing before a Special Fair Hearing Panel
>     appointed by the Names Council, which after hearing all their
>     cases, will evaluate their findings and make recommendations to
>     the Names Council for actions to be taken to afford them fair
>     treatment.

  Yes, as long as the regulation or standards that govern that hearing are
decided
and determined by all.  Not just 4 constituante groups.

> Is there any reason not to allow them a fair hearing
>     and fair treatment.  The resulting recommendations of these fair
>     hearings should also supply the Names Council with an ordered list
>     of candidates for TLD insertion into the "authoritative" ROOT in
>     support of an orderly process of new TLD insertions.

  This is of course that there is a Names Council such as you propose and
constructed in the manner you propose.  As I have pointed out now there
are too many flaws in you rendition.

>
>
>     Please note: If any of these "candidates really are (as has been
>     widely claimed by various people over the last two years) rogues,
>     pirates, thieves, or other unsavory undeserving fellows, then
>     these things should show up in their fair hearing, should they
>     not?  A fair hearing seems only fair, so that is what I propose.

  I agree.  And a majority vote from all of the stakeholders should be the
determining
factor in the judgment.

>
>
> Next, Lets talk about Trademarks.  Here too a Special Fair Hearing
> panel should be set up by the Names Council to take testimony from
> interested parties of all kinds on the issue of the relationships
> between Trademarks of all kinds, and DNS Names of all kinds.

  Trademarks are not a issue with respect to Domain Names.

>
>
> - snip Trademark nonsense -



> And one last item -- All Fair Hearing Panels and the Names Council
> itself should operate as Open Deliberation Bodies, and all hearings
> must be open to the public, with a public record to be published on
> the Internet for all proceedings.

  This is good.  As long as the vote from the stakeholders from all represented
groups or individual stakeholders can participate by their vote on that site.

>
>
> SUMMARY:
>
> It is my intention to offer what I have written here as a replacement
> plan that does not suffer from the fascinating problems resulting from
> attempts to map the US Constitution onto the Internet, where there is
> no equivalence for "citizens" who can be identified and can be
> allocated one vote each.  Without a very clear and simply precise
> definition and identification of specific individual voting rights,
> there is no way to map the US Constitution, or any National State
> Voting Scheme (parliamentary or not) onto the Internet.

   We disagree.  It can and has been done already for a different venue.

>
>
> Instead, the Internet needs to use some other method to find or
> develop consensus for coordinated group actions.  Individual actions
> should of course remain freely choosable by individuals, so we are
> only concerned with coordination of group actions, such as provision
> of a Comprehensive Coherent Conflict-free Open TLD ROOT Zone and
> Service, on behalf of all who are dependent on such a thing existing
> in a robust globally operational form.  In short, DNS should enable
> everyone to on the Internet to resolve the publically advertised DNS
> name of everyone else who wants to be seen, though there can be no
> guarantee of any ability to resolve any private DNS name that is not
> advertised to the public.  INTRAnets can and must be allowed to
> operate with such private, unpublished, DNS names, as a matter of free
> speech and privacy rights.
>
> This leads me to ask a very simple question:
>
>         What is wrong with the concept of a confederation of
>         interested parties forming up a self governing structure along
>         the lines that I have outlined above.

  See my above comments.  Many many things.

>
>
> PROPOSAL:
>
> Assuming that the US Govt White Paper will not resolve all these
> issues for us, or if it does make such an attempt, I propose that we
> substitute the kind of solution that I have outlined here.

  Please do.  I have already suggested something much along the lines of
Jim Flemmings suggestion.  Yours here is too top heavy.

>
>
> In short, the so-called New-IANA Board of Directors should be charged
> with fostering establishment of a Names Council (by whatever name)
> along the lines of my outline above, and it should establish an
> appropriate set of Fair Hearing Panels to assure that all voices with
> an interest in the workings and deliverables of the DNS Service will
> be fairly heard, as input to the Open Deliberations of the Names
> Council or its Fair Hearing Panels.
>
> Further, I strongly suggest that the New-IANA Board should also be
> structured along the same lines, with 9 members including its Chair,
> and with its members selected by the Names Council, the IP registry
> Community, and the IETF Nomination Committee.  This leaves room for 2
> more members to be drawn from some other communities of interest, plus
> a Chair.
>
> Best Regards;-)...\Stef

 Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com