RE: [wg-review] Clarifications requested from BoD, Staff, NC, TC,Chair prior to co-Chair elections

["Judith Oppenheimer" <joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com>]

I also like the idea of a small business constituency.   As many small
businesses are in fact sole practitioners, I expect there'd be a large
cross-over with an individuals constituency, not only in terms of "size" of
member, but concerns and interests.

That said, there are multiple forms of "commercial" constituencies (BC,
IPC, etc.), the multiplicity lending greater force to their singular
agendas.  I see no reason why there should not be both a small business
constituency (the very existence of the U.S. Small Business Administration
is explanation enough that small business requires its own separate
business platform), and an individual's constituency.  As with other
constituencies, no doubt some members will find good reason to join both.

Judith

http://www.ICBTollFreeNews.com
"An important source of inside information," says InfoWorld;
"superb", "invaluable", "critically intelligent", "exceedingly
useful", report ICB Premium Subscribers.
ICB Premium Service is On Sale thru January 15.
http://www.icbtollfree.com/Article4910.htm

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-wg-review@dnso.org [mailto:owner-wg-review@dnso.org]On
> Behalf Of Peter de Blanc
> Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 10:54 AM
> To: 'Kent Crispin'; wg-review@dnso.org
> Subject: RE: [wg-review] Clarifications requested from BoD, Staff, NC,
> TC,Chair prior to co-Chair elections
>
>
> i agree with the idea of a SMALL business constituency, with some
> definition, like "less than 100 employees".
>
> One of the stats appearing on this list was that a large percentage of
> domain names were held by businesses with (i think) less than
> 5 employees.
>
> peter de Blanc
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-wg-review@dnso.org [mailto:owner-wg-review@dnso.org]On
> Behalf Of Kent Crispin
> Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 7:12 AM
> To: wg-review@dnso.org
> Subject: Re: [wg-review] Clarifications requested from BoD, Staff, NC,
> TC,Chair prior to co-Chair elections
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 12, 2001 at 03:57:52AM -0500, Sotiropoulos wrote:
> > 1/12/01 9:04:27 PM, DPF <david@farrar.com> wrote:
> >
> > >The reason this would be useful is at present I would have no idea
> > >whether the small business constituency proposed by some is a good
> > >idea or not.  If it turns out that the business constituency (as an
> > >example) consists of Microsoft, IBM and WorldCom then I would be
> > >inclined to think we may have a problem.  If it turns out (other
> > >extreme) that it has 15,000 members who get an equal vote
> and is not
> > >dominated by large businesses then I would be less inclined to
> > >recommend adding on a small business constituency.
> >
> > David,
> >
> > I think this link (already posted by Judith) should help
> you see what
> > the reality of the situation is: http://www.bc.dnso.icann.org/
> >
> > Click on the "Membership" link in the left frame.  I don't
> think many
> > of these companies are representing small business owners, do you?
> >
> > I think we "may have a problem" here David.
>
> The problem is that small businesses haven't joined.  The problem is
> *not* that there isn't a place for them in the dnso.
>
> > I'm actually surprised at your statement...  you didn't see
> this list
> > in Judith's earlier post?
>
> In that list you will find that the International Chamber of Commerce.
> The ICC represents an enormous number of small businesses --
> one figure
> I saw was 35000000 businesses worldwide.  Membership of the
> ICC is open
> to small businesses, including sole proprietorships, and, of course,
> small businesses make up the bulk of the members.
>
> However, this brings up an important point concerning the basic
> structural nature of ICANN/DNSO.  Clearly, the absolutely overwhelming
> majority of the 35 million members of the ICC simply don't
> have time or
> interest to devote to participating in ICANN.  To *almost everyone*,
> domain names are in fact a microscopic specialized policy concern, and
> they would much rather leave it to some organization to
> represent them.
>
> Domain names aren't like the environment -- if we get a runaway
> greenhouse effect we all die, and that is something that we
> all probably
> ought to think about.  Whether or not you can register
> microsoft.xxx and
> extort some money from microsoft is not the same level of importance.
>
> It's not sensible, therefore, that ICANN/DNSO *directly* support a
> membership of 35 million small businesses, or hundreds of millions of
> Internet users, for that matter.  The overhead simply doesn't justify
> it.
>
> --
> Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
> kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
> --
> This message was passed to you via the wg-review@dnso.org list.
> Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
> ("unsubscribe wg-review" in the body of the message).
> Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
>
> --
> This message was passed to you via the wg-review@dnso.org list.
> Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
> ("unsubscribe wg-review" in the body of the message).
> Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
>
>

--
This message was passed to you via the wg-review@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe wg-review" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html