Reports from Breakout Sessions

Reactions from committee:

Clarify "special voice" proposal

How would "special voice" scale-if hundreds wrote each week, board won't pay attention? How do people find out if they get heard?

Where organizations can be members, what would be the weight of the organizations vote?

What about fees?

Also discussed-representation through organizations organized nationally. Concern raised that nations with few users would be dominated by a few (e.g. the ccTLD registry, the government).

Different levels of participation (even if everyone voted) also discussed.

Minority report: Idea that countries would be members was ruled out of bounds on the basis of the White Paper.

Capture: Threats and Countermeasures

Outlined groups or types of interests that might capture ICANN.

Tried to lay out mechanisms for preventing capture:

Reactions from committee:

Example-Russian press captured by commercial interests, so it's impossible to know what is really going on. Or . . . truth is known but no power to do anything about it.

Perhaps individuals should have information and power to make changes (e.g. kick out the board).

What about capture away from future members-if too much is frozen according to status quo?

Structure can promote conservatism, by keeping some people out. Can try to build flexibility and vision into rules and structure. E.g. sunset provisions.

If the board is captured, the organization (membership) is probably captured too-so openness is not sufficient. We should look at mechanisms used in other membership organizations to prevent (and fix) capture.

(Will Zachmann)

Assigned values re perceived treat of capture:

Would be helpful if at-large directors were well-known within the Internet community generally.

Is capture by national governments realistic given requirements of geographic representation on the board? (Izumi argues that fear might be unrealistic.) Membership by billions of Chinese citizens is not necessarily a bad thing. Doesn't = capture.

What about capture by Internet professionals?

How should directors be nominated and elected?

Recommendations:

Questions:

Standing committee to deal with membership, authentication, fraud, quorum, election mechanics, etc.

When identifying self as candidate, candidate must provide conflict of interest and financial disclosure.

May not be member of election committee.

(Minor): Membership fraud is voter fraud. Mechanisms to prevent voter fraud should be investigated.

Fee should be to cover cost of authentication and members (not poll tax).

(Major recommendation): Current bylaws on geographic representation limit voter autonomy and are infeasible. (Automony problem is that SO vote will limit options of at large members). This should be revisited and revised.

Reactions:

Why is geographic limit infeasible?

If SO selects a director who does not meet geographic distribution requirement, what happens? One bylaw provision says board elects SO nominee automatically, other says geographic representation required.

Even if SOs within the rules, their votes can limit options of at-large members who vote later.

What if SOs vote at the same time for directors who, together, mess up geographic diversity? Who yields?

No objection to the objective itself, only to the mechanism.

Any discussion of how voting should work (parties? Cumulative voting?)

Considered options for slates; could be considered further by election committee.

How would translation service requirement constrain candidates (how much would it cost, etc.)?

Included requirement as a minimum to "taking part" in the activities of the board and serving constituents. Perhaps volunteers could provide it.

(Note, previous version of bylaws included provision for translation; perhaps this should be addressed by the Board.)