On behalf of eGrants.org, I wish to clarify the intention
of our support letters. On August 8, 2002, I added my voice of support to
the concept of non-commercial validation as a way to improve the integrity of the
.org Internet address. We continue to believe that promotion of a validation
program will help build public confidence in making online philanthropic transactions
and that validation is a critical component in growing this public confidence.
eGrants.org has a validation program as part of its business operation and feels
it is a vital tool. It was not our intention to single out the DotOrg Foundation
as the only bidder that was proposing an ideal system. It was our intention
to encourage the ICANN Board to consider this an important issue when evaluating
bids.
On August 14, I commented that the issue of accountability is the single
most important issue that should drive the ICANN Board's selection decision.
We specifically mentioned by name our support for two of the bidders. The .Org
Foundation has proposed setting up the direct election of a majority of board members
by the at-large community of noncommercial users. The Internet Multicasting
Society and the Internet Software Consortium have put forward a model of accountability
that comes from traditional Internet approaches to transparency. For example, all
their software will be freely available with no restrictions in source and binary
form. It's a high form of accountability that also has the potential to drive down
costs.
Sincerely,
Michael Stein
Associate Director
eGrants.org
The
Presidio, Box 29256, San Francisco, CA 94129-0256
http://www.egrants.org/
info@egrants.org