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``` [Barbara Simons has been doing hard work at the interface between technology and policy for a long time, most recently as president of ACM. As a member of the ICANN Board, she could be counted on to represent the interests of ordinary Internet users.]
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Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 16:02:55 -0700
From: Barbara Simons
I am running as a petition candidate for the North America (US + Canada) seat on the ICANN Board. Between now and August 31, I need to be endorsed by at least 2% of the activated at-large ICANN members living in N. America. (As of this writing, that figure would be 168, but it will certainly increase during the next week). Unfortunately, you needed to have registered by July 31 to be able to participate in this election. The endorsement url (this is not the election), is https://members.icann.org/cgi-bin/atlarge/endorse.cgi.
The obvious question is why anyone should care about ICANN or about the upcoming election.
People should care because ICANN is making decisions that will impact the future of the Internet. Winning this lesson would be a very mixed blessing - lots of pro-bono work and lots of criticism.
The only reason I am doing this is that I am terrified that the net will go the way of the radio, controlled by the same forces that transformed radio from being an open medium for communication and information to the highly controlled commercial medium it is today.
There are lots of problems with ICANN. But if ICANN were eliminated the replacement easily could be worse, especially if that replacement is the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). As many other observers will verify, WIPO's primary concern appears to be protecting and expanding trademark. Such an approach would have a negative impact on speech on the Internet.
Imagine, for example, a web site with a domain name such as "www.firestone_tires_are_dangerous.org" that was created prior to the recent revelations by someone who had been in an accident involving Firestone Tires, and was attempting to find out if there were other similar accidents. If trademark trumps, then such a domain name would probably have been found in violation of Firestone's trademark.
In addition to speech issues, the domination of trademark could create serious problems for small entrepreneurs. There are many examples of what I consider inappropriate cease-and-desist-letters. One of the more highly publicized cases involved etoys.com, which attempted to close down etoy.com, a web site of artists (not in the toy business) who had established their web site before etoys.com even existed. The etoy.com web site was taken down for a while, because the artists did not have the money to fight etoys. etoys.com eventually backed down primarily because of the bad press it was receiving, especially on the net. But there are many other instances where the domain name holder either quietly gave up the domain name or fought a losing fight without much publicity.
My ICANN statement is at http://members.icann.org/nom/cp/148.html, and my web page is at barbara.simons.org. My web page contains urls to a number of relevant policy articles I've written, a url to a set of endorsements, and urls to both a short and a detailed cv.
I won't bother reiterating my positions, since they are stated on the ICANN web site and my web page. I'll simply quote from the beginning of my web page:
"I am a candidate for the ICANN Board because I believe that the decisions made by ICANN are going to have a significant impact on speech, privacy, and the rights of the smaller players. These are issues on which I have been working for many years, during which time I have developed considerable experience and valuable contacts. As a member of the ICANN Board, I pledge to:
* - be accessible and responsive to the members of the at-large community,* - create an advisory group of experts in technological, policy, economics, and the law.* - work to build a decision-making process that is open and inclusive."
I hope your readers will support my candidacy. If they have any questions, they should feel free to contact me at simons@acm.org.
Thanks. Barbara ```
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