Subject: Your Listserve

From: Michael LeBlanc <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 12:21:56 -0400

Esther, et al:

How can I get my name REMOVED from your list? I am getting 10 or emails per
day re: ICANN. I must have asked a question on a newsgroup ONCE, about 9-12
months ago, and ALL OF A SUDDEN, I am getting all these emails.

*Please* help me resolve this. Thank you.
------------------
Michael LeBlanc
LeBlanc Communications Group, Inc.
17 High Street
Norwalk, CT  06851
(203) 852-8800 Ext. 103
(203) 852-6599 Fax
[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]> 
www.leblanc.com <http://www.leblanc.com> 

-----Original Message-----
From:	Steve Doty [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent:	Thursday, August 03, 2000 11:49 AM
To:	Jean Camp; vinton g. cerf; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]
Cc:	[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject:	RE: Complaint to Dept of Commerce on abuse of users by ICANN

 Well the real question her his do any of us that are complaining have corp.
sponsors? If we do not have that Million dollar sponsorship then We can not
do nothing. We are just specks on the icanns ass.

IMHO
Steve Doty
Jaxx Communications, inc. (been fighting for ISP's right for 6 years and
getting no where)

As friends, or at least a collegial colleague,  of people on both sides of
what began as a cooperative process and has become a series of sometimes
personal battles I believe I offer an useful perspective  on ICANN.

In organizations which are participatory people are far happier with the
outcome than in organizations which are not participatory regardless of the
facts of the outcome. Winners and losers are happier and more define
themselves in the first category.  In short the problem with ICANN has been
overwhelmingly ne of participation.

There has been anger at ICANN that has further mired a struggling
organization which is attempting to met an ill-defined mandate in
unrealistic conditions created by flawed Federal oversight. Ironically two
of these problems -- the anger and the struggling -- could be solved by
increased participation.   ICANN has tried to solve its problems itself
without reaching out to other organizations, beyond the notable and
admirable exceptions of ISOC and IETF. For example, one way in which the
problem of franchise could have been solved would be to have other
organizations offer cycles on their servers, simultaneoulsy splitting the
load and offering opportunities to participate in a distributed manner.
Neither the ACM nor MIT nor IEEE have been contacted with such a request,
to my knowledge. Two of those mentioned are large membership-based
organizations which have extensive experience in international elections.
All three have technical legitimacy.  Beowolf could have been or could be
helpful, harnessing the strength of the Linux users community.

While it may seem odd to advocate an offering envelope-stuffing and
cycle-sinking opportunities to those who now seemed to be entrenched as
opponents; I believe that in fact such an action would covert opponents to
participants. There are things besides rage to be seen in the previous
letter including passion and commitment.

In fact, it seems that some are opponents because it is the only role which
is structurally open in ICANN. As a result ther are people who would seem
natural supporters of ICANN who have been forced to choose between a role
in the opposition and no role at all.  As such, some can participate as
partners or perceive exclusion and eventually, inevitably, be  forced into
opposition as the only available role.

At a recent Harvard workshop on markets, governance, and globalization I
returned to find that the final note from the day before remained on the
top of my pad, "participation itself is happiness." Going back one page I
found that the sentence began, "Regardless of the final outcome.."

The importance of participation in long term legitimacy cannot be
overstated. The less participation the less legitimacy among losers AND
winners. Regardless of the outcome those who have not participated see
themselves as losers in a closed and exclusionary process. And I believe
that is why ICANN seems unable to make many willing to offer support,
regardless of rulings and outcomes.

The closed nature of the nominations committee, the monotonic decrease in
number of popular board members, and the lack of volunteer recruitment have
severely damaged the legitimacy of ICANN. Not because they will lead
necessarily to outcomes which would be unacceptable from any quarter, but
because the reduced participation reduces the acceptability of any outcome.
No outcome can alter the fact of a closed process. An engineering focus on
outcomes over process is often the only correct and appropriate focus. But
in the case of ICANN it has proven woefully narrow. Transparency in the
engineering sense means that a process is so seamless as to be invisible to
the system user. In the governance sense transparency is exactly the
opposite -- transparency means users can see each and every step.  ICANN
has been seeking a high transparency system in the engineering sense in
order to produce an efficient and useful mechanism. But transparency in the
governance sense is what is needed.

Voting and membership are critical elements of participation. This
election, IMHO, could create or destroy the legitimacy of ICANN.

Please do reopen the registration, allow universities, graduate students,
companies, individuals, and membership organizations to assist in handling
the  processing load.  You (and I) were amazed by the sheer number of those
who would participate. Allow participation,   Legitimacy is difficult.  Yet
there is only one way to achieve it: embrace an open, inclusive,
transparent process regardless of the inefficiencies which offend an
engineering sensibility.

best regards,
Jean

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/people/jcamp

---

From: Mike Roberts <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 13:00:44 -0700

Michael - on a ONE TIME BASIS ONLY, I am copying the ietf list on 
this response.

ICANN is very sensitive to the spam issue;  we have consistently 
opposed unsolicited email.

We maintain only two subscriber lists - ICANN-Announce, and 
Members-Announce and we use them infrequently.  Members of these 
lists know that information about our activities is routinely posted 
at our websites

<http://www.icann.org> and <http://members.icann.org>

and they don't need constant email from us.

 From what I can tell from your email, you have not been spammed by 
ICANN but by one of the individuals that indulges in large scale 
cross posting of messages concerning us.  Perhaps you can prevail on 
Mr. Doty and others who are behaving as he is to cease their cross 
postings to you.

- Mike Roberts