[wg-review] 3. [Constituencies] Business, small business, and individuals

[Greg Burton <sidna@feedwriter.com>]

At 04:53 AM 1/11/01, Robin Miller wrote:
>Kent Crispin wrote:
>
> > The question is, of course, who are the customers? The primary customers
> > of the domain name system are in fact *businesses*, not individual
> > netizens

In one sense, that's true. If we replace "customers" with "consumers" the 
story changes. With the introduction of .name, this could change in both 
senses.

> >The bulk of the affected customer base, in other words, *did*
> > participate in a bottom-up process, and did arrive at a rough consensus,
> > and that rough consensus is the current structure.

Sophistry, Kent. One can't really call the commercial organizations that 
participated "the bulk of the customer base" even if they are members of 
that class.

>Its my experience that if any business has any majority on the net at all, its
>the small businesses owned by individuals.

This is something close to true - small businesses, anyway, regardless of 
how they're organized.

>The big corps were late-comers to the Internet game, all of us that have been
>on the Net for a while KNOW this

Not all big corps came late.

>Those interests have NOT been represented. I had no idea
>all this was going on until I found out the hard way that I was losing my
>rights as an individual and a small business owner.

A small-business constituency would be a very good thing. Would it be 
useful to think in terms of usage here? That is, individuals might register 
a domain name for business purposes - in that case, their issues might be 
addressed in a small business constituency. Individuals and families might 
also register a domain name for personal purposes - family genealogy, to 
promote their hobbies, to publish their personal work, and so on. While it 
can be argued that small-business interests have a niche in the business 
constituency, people who register a name for personal use clearly lack any 
vehicle for directly affecting the makeup of the NC or BoD unless they also 
fit into another group.

However, it is a truism that the interests of large corporations are not 
necessarily the interests of small business. That's why there is a Small 
Business Administration as part of the US Government. It's pretty clear 
that the SBA would like to see both an individuals' constituency AND a 
small business constituency, but people need to organize both.

A similar situation to the "small/large business" issue exists within the 
non-commercial constituency, where the concerns of the educational 
community may very well differ from the concerns of charitable 
organizations (just an example).

To some extent, I think the issues of fora and representation are a chicken 
and egg thing. More people or small businesses or educational institutions 
need to be involved in order to create constituencies, but without 
constituencies in place it's very hard to get them involved. It would be 
useful for the NC to recognize this issue and find ways to address it.

>Big business .... are the business interests that
>have been EXCLUSIVELY catered to in that so-called 'consensus' that 
>resulted in
>the current structure.

Of all the constituencies that currently exist, it seems paradoxically true 
that the business constituency -clearly one of the best organized and 
strongest - is also the one must vulnerable to "capture". (Just get 300 
small business people to join it.)
Absent the creation of a small business constituency, this could very well 
happen without anyone intending to capture it.
It's an interesting situation - and one that should ultimately lead to the 
creation of that constituency.

Regards,
Greg

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