[EURO-Discuss] alac review

[Patrick Vande Walle]

Dominik Filipp wrote:
> Patrick,
> 
> I apologize for a bit manipulative wording 

Dominik,

No offense.  I will not reply point by point, but just notice we 
actually agree on a lot of things.

As for the user representation in ICANN, I am of course not satisfied 
with the current situation. However, "civil society" type of arguments 
are not going to convince the other parties involved. We need another 
approach.

I think it would be much more convincing to point out that domain name 
registrants, many of whom are natural persons or small businesses, are 
not properly represented, yet contribute to a large part of the ICANN 
budget through registrar and gTLD registry fees. This amounts to USD 40 
million per year.

At the very least, we should expect that representation on the board is 
proportional to the contribution to the budget, but this has been 
confiscated by the intermediaries: registries and registrars. I note 
that NomCom appointed members to the board are selected on their 
personal capacity, not as representatives of the "paying majority".


Patrick