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Re: Complaint to Dept of Commerce on abuse of users by ICANN

2000-07-30 20:40:04
I have no idea why so many different lists have been spammed.  (Spam is 
a technical term for massive cross-posting.  Spam is bad.)

The US congresscritters listed won't even see the message, as their 
mail server searches (or some poor aide searches by hand) for the 
correct legislative office matching the users' home address.  In 
Ronda's case, it appears to be New York, but s/he didn't bother to 
research the correct recipient legislator.  (I've removed or BCC'd the 
legislators, and other obvious duplications and errors.  Again, I've no 
idea about many of the remainder.)

In short, Ronda and Russ are spammers with no clue.


ronda(_at_)panix(_dot_)com wrote:

...  The version to sign
up at the ICANN web site requires frames. So people who don't have
a browser with frames are not able to even use that part of the
web site. And an alternative web site set up in another country
gives a message of "We are sorry. The database is currently overloaded.
Please try again when the system is less busy." when I tried to sign
up.

Clearly the whole ICANN model is not appropriate for the needs
of the Internet and its users.

I did propose a different model, and a prototype to build this
model to you before ICANN was given the U.S. Dept of Commerce
contract.

Ronda has been active in ICANN for several years.  Yet s/he did not 
bother to sign up for membership until the last possible moment?

The users of the Internet have access to several free browsers that 
support frames on a dozen platforms.  Folks that are unable to use 
the Internet are not an appropriate electorate.  Lazy kindergartners 
are not the target audience for ICANN membership.


"vinton g. cerf" wrote:
have you taken time to look into the numbers of people trying to
register? do you know what the planning estimates were before
registration campaigns were initiated by various organizations?
The planning numbers for registration were on the order of 10,000
people. As of a few days ago something like 145,000 people had
sent in raw registrations. Keep in mind also that there is a
PIN number that has to be sent by mail. There is a calendar
schedule that ICANN is trying to keep for the election itself,
so the PINs have to get to the voters in time for that.

Every possible effort was made to increase the rate at which
registrations could be processed and we've gone from about 1000
a day to an artificially limited 5,000 per day (200 per hour)
simply because staff time to process is limited. Registrations
close July 31.

I signed up shortly after the announcement.  I was surprised at the 
length of time it took for my PIN to arrive in the mail.  But, I did 
receive an announcement in April to the prospective members 
explaining the delay.

Never-the-less, there is no fee for processing the membership.  
"Thanks to a grant from the Markle Foundation, the initial launch of 
ICANN's At Large Membership program has been funded without the need 
for membership dues."

Those that desire faster service might offer to pay for expediting.  
There's no such thing as a free lunch.  


Russ Smith wrote:
This excuse follows the same "excuse pattern" that ICANN provides for almost
every problem.  What keeps happening is that these groups that do the
"planning" do so in secret and routinely ignore comments and often do not
know what they are doing.  

The planning was done in the open, and those that bothered to join the 
official announcement list anytime in the past several years has been 
aware of the process.  


The same thing happened with the UDRP.  When that was written many people
complained about no appeals process (short of filing a lawsuit).  

This poster appears to be ignorant of traditions of administrative law in 
the US and elsewhere.  Judicial review _is_ an appeals process!  That's 
why a "lawsuit" is filed.

There are
also extremely short deadlines for responding to a complaint or filing the
"appeal" lawsuit (10 days).  The excuse that was given was that these
appeals were only a delaying tactic by "cybersquatters".  

On one hand, there is a complaint that response time is too slow.  On the 
other hand, that response time is too fast.  Make up your mind!

Although multiples of 10 days is a traditional time measure, in many 
jurisdictions times have been changed to reflect a 7 day week.  The 
Internet allows faster responses.  Why not reduce the time to 7 days?

Oh, I see, everybody else should be fast, but you should be allowed to 
be slower.  How thoughtful and consistent.

... McLaughlin recommended lawyers publish the UDRP
problems in legal journals so ICANN can review these some time in the
future.  

That's what one might expect for a legal process with peer review.

...
"The ICANN tables do not include notations relating to subsequent
litigation, because the ICANN staff is simply too small and too
overstretched to monitor and verify the hundreds of legal disputes that will
surely ensue."

Should a fee be added for litigants to pay ICANN to register their case?
Again, there's no such thing as a free lunch.