If you are interested in exploring a role for your organization in establishing a proposed ICANN "At-Large Supporting Organization" to provide an individual user view on technical coordination of the Internet's domain name system, please send an email to comments@atlargestudy.org by February 15, 2002. Read on for more details!

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is considering the creation of an organization to enable individual Internet users worldwide (referred to as an "At-Large" constituency) to participate in ICANN's activities and decisions. As members of the At-Large Study Committee (ALSC -- an independent ICANN advisory group), we are contacting key organizations such as yours to help identify the level of interest in, and feasibility of, creating such an entity. The purpose of this notice is to elicit specific expressions of interest from organizations worldwide that would be willing to be involved in the creation of an "At-Large" organization.

ICANN
ICANN is a non-profit, private sector corporation responsible for the technical coordination of the Internet's domain name system. Specifically, ICANN coordinates the assignment of identifiers that must be globally unique for the Internet to function: Internet domain names, IP address numbers, and protocol parameter and port numbers. ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of the Internet, promoting competition, achieving broad representation of global Internet communities, and to developing policy through private-sector, bottom-up, consensus-based means.

At-Large Proposal
Our Committee recently submitted a report to ICANN's Board of Directors recommending that ICANN expand its current structure to add an "At-Large Supporting Organization" (ALSO). We recommended that a global ALSO be created to serve as a local and regional-based framework for At-Large outreach and education, engaging members, aggregating views, enabling consensus decision-making, and working closely with other organizations to address issues and develop policy on Internet user/consumer issues that fall within ICANN's specific technical and administrative mission. We proposed that the ALSO be a decentralized, regionally-based structure that will enable individual members to learn about and discuss relevant issues in their own language, find common ground with users in other localities and regions and ultimately provide meaningful user advice to ICANN.

We believe such an organization can help improve ICANN's service to those who are affected by its actions, and bring an important individual user perspective to such issues as access to domain names in non-Latin characters, the potential use of IP addresses and domain names for identification or location of individuals and groups, competition and choice (or not) in the provision of various services provided by independent parties under contract to ICANN, domain-name intellectual property issues, and introduction of new generic top level domains (gTLDs) - to list just a few. (For more information on the ALSC's report, see www.atlargestudy.org).

Current Structure
Currently, a 19-member Board of Directors governs ICANN, and three Supporting Organizations (SOs) assist with, review, and develop recommendations on Internet policy and structure, and encourage diverse and international participation in the technical management of the Internet. The SOs are the primary source of substantive policy recommendations, serving as advisory bodies to the Board, and each SO currently selects three board members.

At ICANN's direction, each of the SOs "self-organized" a few years ago and adopted participation structures appropriate for their effective functioning. ICANN is intended to have an open, bottom-up, consensus policy development process. The Board and the three existing SO's are designed to include representatives of a specific set of Internet "stakeholders" -- the Domain Name Supporting organization (DNSO), the Address Supporting Organization (ASO), and the Protocol Supporting Organization (PSO).

Matters relating to the system of IP (internet protocol) addresses are under the purview of the ASO. The ASO is comprised of the three Regional Internet Registries (RIR) responsible for allocating IP address blocks in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and is governed by an Address Council with RIR representatives. The PSO has jurisdiction over the assignment of IP parameters. The PSO's governing Protocol Council is comprised of representatives from four organizations -- the Internet Engineering Task Force, the World Wide Web Consortium, the International Telecommunications Union, and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. Primary responsibility for developing domain name-related policy rests with the DNSO. The DNSO is governed by the Names Council, which consists of representatives from seven constituencies -- ccTLD (country code top level domain) registries, commercial and business entities, gTLD (generic top level domain) registries, Internet service and connectivity providers, non-commercial domain name holders, registrars, and trademark and other intellectual property interests. Each of these constituencies comprises a set of firms or organizations. (For more information on ICANN and its structure, see www.icann.org and http://www.icann.org/general/icann-org-chart_frame.htm).

ALSO
The proposed ALSO under consideration by ICANN's Board, would parallel (and work closely with) these SOs in an ICANN governance framework to address ICANN issues of interest to Internet users. Specifically, to ensure that "users' voices" and diverse interests are represented, we have recommended that ICANN:

• Work with relevant entities to create the ALSO as a regionally-based framework for user involvement in ICANN;


• Create an At-Large membership (an ALSO electorate) based on an identifiable and vested community to help select ALSO leadership and formulate ALSO policy recommendations (the ALSO would have "participants" comprised of anyone interested in participating in open, on-line discussion forums, and "members" comprised of a verifiable, vested community of users who register and pay a membership fee to participate in voting and policy development); and
  
• Provide At-Large members with the responsibility for selecting six members of ICANN's Board, and for selecting members of six Regional At-Large Councils (based on six geographic regions) and one global At-Large Council to help build and govern the ALSO.

Next Steps
ICANN's Board has indicated its support for informed, sustained involvement of interested individuals in ICANN, and is expected to make a final decision on the proposed ALSO in March. We expect that a factor in this decision will be the demonstrated level of interest in creating a regionally based ALSO. To help address this issue, we ask that your organization consider whether its interests and/or membership might coincide with an At-Large organization, and, if so, whether there is interest in exploring a role for your organization in the ALSO's creation. Please indicate in an email to the ALSC if your organization is interested in discussing a role in
1) outreach to individual Internet users,
2) conferring At-Large membership on interested members of your organization,
3) starting a "founders group" to help establish a regional and/or global ALSO structure, and
4) other activities (please define).

Please send your email to comments@atlargestudy.org by February 15, 2002. If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact ALSC Executive Director, Denise Michel, at dmichel@atlargestudy.org. Thank you for your assistance with this important endeavor.

Sincerely,

The At-Large Study Committee: Carl Bildt (Chair), Chuck Costello (Vice Chair), Pierre Dandjinou, Esther Dyson, Olivier Iteanu, Ching-Yi Liu, Thomas Niles, Oscar Robles, and Pindar Wong (Vice Chair).