Comment on Draft "At-Large Infrastructure Formation Proposals"

["Jan Siren" <sirenj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I write as an individual US citizen.  The following comment is a response to
the ICANN draft document "At-Large Infrastructure Formation Proposals,"
dated
4 June 2003.  My numbering corresponds to that in the draft document.

I. The binding of At-Large Structures (ALSes) to geographic regions should
be
permissible, but not compulsory.  ICANN regions have never been a
particularly appropriate match to at-large users' interests.  In the age of
economic globalization, geographic regions are becoming ever less well
matched to commercial and industrial interests as well.  Provision should be
made for international and global at-large organizations not limited to
ICANN
regions.

II. The certification process should be capable of certifying international
and global ALSes no less promptly than it does regional ALSes.

III. Regional At-Large Organizatiions (RALOs) will develop slowly at best.
Restricting them geographically to ICANN regions will guarantee that their
rate of growth will remain significantly less than the rate of growth on
Internet usage world wide.  RALOs will for the foreseeable future be
"playing
catch-up" and will not acquire membership at a rate adequate to provide
their
members a significant voice in Internet governance.

IV. The review process should be enlarged to include ALSes of international
or global scope in addition to regional ALSes.

V. Description item 7 should be revised so that the process overall fairly
addresses the applications of ALSes that are international or global in
scope.  Objective 19 (misnumbered Objective 15 in the draft document) biases
the acceptance against ALSes whose scope is greater than regional, and which
may not choose to be bound within a single RALO or subset of the five RALOs.