Jamie Love's candidacy for the DNSO seat on the ICANN board of directors

Briefly

To endorse me for the DNSO seat on the ICANN board, send an email note (by September 11) to:

icann-endorsements@dnso.org

with the following information:

BASIC BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Thanks to Dennis Schaefer, I was talked into being nominated for a position on the ICANN board, representing ICANN's Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO). Information about the DNSO is found at http://www.dnso.org. My personal home page is here.

For those who don't know, ICANN stands for the "Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers," which is on the web at http://www.icann.org. ICANN is one of the new "Internet governance" institutions, and a particularly important one, because it is asserting control over the assignment of Internet IP numbers and domains, which are needed for Internet navigation. Through this control, ICANN apparently could dictate policy on an astronishingly wide range of matters. At present, ICANN has used this power to dictate policy in the areas of trademark policy for domain names (adopting a proceedure to take domain names away when there is a trademark dispute, under certain conditions), and privacy (creating a rule against the anonymous registration of domain names). ICANN is run by a 19 member board of directors. The current board members are found here.

There are several ways to get on the ICANN board. Some seats are elected in the ICANN "at large" election. You can find more about this here: http://members.icann.org/ There are several good candidates for the ICANN at large election, including, for example, Larry Lessig, Karl Auerbach and Barbara Simons for the North American seats. See also Hans Klein's page on at large elections here. I am not a candidate for the at large election.

Nine seats on the ICANN board are elected from three "Supporting Organizations," including one that deals with protocols, one with IP number allocations, and one with domain name policy. The DNSO is the SO that deals with domain names. This year the DNSO will elect one member to the ICANN board. Because the candidates are all from North America, it will be three years before another North American will be elected by the DNSO to the ICANN board.

I am a candidate for the DNSO seat. Two candidates for the DNSO seat (Jonathan Cohen and Ronald Wiekers) are intellectual property lawyers. The fourth candidate, Peter de Blanc, established the top level domain for the Virgin Islands. Bios and campaign statements and lists of endorsements for each of the four candidates are on the front page of the DNSO web page.

How the DNSO election works

The DNSO seat will be elected by the 19 members of the DNSO "Names Council," which is the DNSO governance organization. The DNSO is heavily weighted to business interests, as can be seen by looking at the members of the DNSO Names Council, at http://www.dnso.org/constituency/ncmembers.html. It will take 10 votes from the names council to be elected to the ICANN board.

There is also a period for endorsements, which ends September 11, 2000. This is where Internet users can express support for candidates. The procedure is simple. You send an email note to icann-endorsements@dnso.org with the following information:

In theory, the Names Council is supposed to consider the endorsements. They definitely help. On September 11, 2000, the DNSO Names Council will have one week of balloting, and the person who received at least 10 votes will be on the ICANN board for 3 years.

Why Endorse me?

I was nominated by Dennis Schaefer because I have argued that ICANN policies on domain names and trademarks often override important free speech considerations, or are anticompetitive. I have also been vocal in the need to curb ICANN "mission creep" and otherwise limit ICANN's efforts to regulate Internet activity. Also, I have pushed for a big expansion of the "root" for the Domain Name System (DNS), creating thousands of new top level domains, including domains for civil society and free speech purposes, such as .union, .customers, .consumers, .isnotfair, .fans, .discuss, or even .sucks. I also support the notion that ICANN should address privacy concerns that relate to domain registrations and allocations of IP numbers. In general, I would represent the interests of users in the ICANN process.

For more information about me and the issues, can look at:

In addition, here are few things I have said about ICANN or discussed during the "campaign."