(Submissions to http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/sign-up.html as of 11/9/98)

• Mixed board structure in which minority of the board is self-appointing and majority is elected by membership in staggered terms.

• Members could be "authoritative Hostmasters."

• Members could be "Internet Professionals."

• Board members could all be members of supporting organizations.
• Membership open to any Internet user.
• Safeguards for proper identification of members.
• Board elected by vote of general membership.
• One or more seats on the Board for every geographic region.
• No age limitation for membership.
• Interim Board gradually releases part of its powers to the membership (basic policy decisions, budget approval, etc.).
• Rights of members linked to duty of financing the Corporation.
• Different classes of membership, in order to have representation of large organizations as well as individual users, with voting power and fees weighted appropriately.
• Membership through constituency organizations (ICANN accountable to organizations that are in turn accountable to broad constituencies).
• Persons representing non-telecommunications entities should be the majority membership.
• Composition of membership should be balanced to reflect needs of all of the Internet public and not dominated by individuals with short term economic gain as their goal.

• View board as a balance of interests, not as a body all of whose members are chosen by similar processes and constituencies.
• First steps should be taken, the organization set to work, and tested based on its results, not on what might happen.
• Representation of multiplicity of interests, not just "organizations" and "individuals."
• On-line voting.
• Private corporation, with voting shares owned by registrants.
• Membership open to all who comprehend the importance of the task at hand and care enough to take steps to involve themselves.
• Fair hearing panels where parties can seek redress.
• Representation of domain name owners’ interests.

• Due process, transparency, ADR.
• Reincorporate as a membership based organization, with powers apportioned to member classes.
• Social, economic, political, and other ramifications should be addressed by Board that represents broader user community, not technical community.
• Balloting by domain name holders.

• Possibility of abuse of proxies.
• Geographic representation, especially from Asia-Pacific.
• What distinction might be made for educational institutions and related users, versus commercial users?
• Will ICANN be a membership organization? If you cannot answer this question now, when will you be prepared to answer it?
• If it is not a membership organization, what legal requirements for public accountability exist?
• How will ICANN’s board ensure that it will not be self-perpetuating but will represent a diversity of interests, including ISPs and the business community at large?
• Can a judge be a board member? An FCC official? An IRS agent?
• Assuming that SOs retain their ability to appoint directors, then how do we prevent those who obtain their voice on the board via an SO not obtain additional voice through membership on other SOs or in the membership at large?
• How does ICANN ensure fiscal accountability to those who will be using and funding its services?

(Submissions to http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/sign-up.html as of 11/9/98)

• Make ICANN a stand alone organization, not the sum of its Supporting Organizations.
• Technical community should remain primary source for technical specifications.
• Supporting Organizations should have advisory roles only, within the corporate structure.
• Board, selected by direct election of Membership, should have final decision-making authority over all corporate functions.
• Maintain regional registries.
• Rely on outside organizations.
• All problems and changes should be investigated by a publicly protected research community pattered on the original ARPANET effort and the original IETF.
• Supporting Organizations should be open.
• Directors elected from a SO should resign from any appointment/office they may hold in the Supporting Organization (although they should be able to participate as observers in SO governing bodies).
• IETF is the natural protocol supporting organization ("PSO"). They could be a de facto PSO, or an independent body that performed the functions that would otherwise be performed by ICANN/PSO. It would be wise for ICANN to recognize the reality of the IETF, while at the same time the IETF recognizes the value of an internationally sanctioned and recognized ICANN.
• DNSO, to be effective, must have trademark representation.
• Changes to standards that involve the Domain Name System must be reviewed, open to public comment, and subject to final approval by ICANN.
• Technical representation on the Board, selected directly by, and responsive to, the various technical communities, is vital. "Technical," in this context, reflects the different communities that the IANA function has traditionally served: Protocol design and standardization bodies in the protocol areas; registrar, registry, and names/intellectual property interests in the domain names area; and registry, ISP, and major user interests in the address allocation area.
• User interests should be represented through the membership and board members selected by it. By contrast, the supporting organizations (or equivalent) should be centers of technical and operational expertise in their particular areas, containing people and organizations with significant contemporary stake in those areas, not just interest in the area or passionate beliefs about it, and their associated councils and board representation should reflect this.
• Explore option of making ICANN a committee of some existing organization (such as W3C).

• Technology is no longer a property of the technical fraternity along, but part of a wide sea of issues.
• Can we have a definitive answer on the role of the Names Council? (two interpretations currently: at large body which anyone can join or small elected top tier of the DNSO)
• Why should SO’s have any membership on the board whatsoever? What is gained by this?
• How does the board initiate policy should an SO not be willing to do so?
• How do we prevent SO’s from becoming nothing more than entrenched special interests? How do we allow their membership to permit "meaningful" participation by interests other than those who are the initial "core" members of an SO?
• Can the board coerce an SO to revise it’s membership rules?

• How does the board see the funding process: The timescale for ICANN budget and allocation of budge to each SO? Monies direct to ICANN who in turn fund SOs?

• Good bylaws, good reporting, a mission statement that makes sense and leads to action.
• Conflicts of interest will be avoided by maintaining the control and administration of the crucial Internet functions in public hands with oversight by the Internet User and Netizen community.
• The real result of members performance in the actual working environment of the ICANN, and in voting tendencies would indicate whether a member is truly impartial or not. The transparency of actual processes (day to day votes etc.) should prevent conflict of interest problems.
• All documents before the Board, except for narrowly-defined, identified sensitive material, should be identified and made publicly available.
• Require full disclosure of conflicts of interests, especially by Directors and officers.
• Openly publish prompt, accurate, and full minutes of official and unofficial meetings.
• Openly publish for comment pending actions planned by the Board of Directors and by officers and employees of ICANN which related to changes of policy or administration, then consider comments, and comment back on them to the community to ensure that community voice is being heard and heeded.

• Use the unwritten Law of the Sea as a model for Internet self-regulation.
• Name of organization should be IANA.
• Authoritative root servers should be under direct custody and maintenance of ICANN.
• The root (the ‘dot’) should be separated from the Second Level Domain (SLD) servers.
• The Second Level Domain (SLD) servers should be under direct custody and maintenance of ICANN. Another option would be to contract out to the best bidder maintenance of these servers (including .com, .edu., .net, and .org)
• Whoever maintains SLD servers should not charge the registrars or registrants an annual fee per domain.
• Add as many new gTLDs as possible, over the course of time.
• All registrars should be allowed to register domains in all the shared gTLDs (.COM, .ORG, .NET, and the new ones.) Prices for registration would be negotiated between the registrar and their customers. Any domain registrant should have the right to transfer their domain from any registrar to any other registrar.
• The .EDU TLD should be a shared TLD maintaining the current restriction that its limited to registrations by public institutions of higher education.
• ICANN should maintain a whois database (at whois.internic.net?) that provides domain and contact information on all the shared gTLDs. It would also be nice if arrangements can be made with all the ccTLD registrars, the U.S. Government domain registrars (.GOV & .MIL), the .INT registrar, as well as the IP registries (ARIN, RIPE, and APNIC) to share their public whois database with ICANNs as to provide one point-of-contact for a whois database.
• The name "InterNIC" (short for the Internet Network Information Center) and the internic.net domain, should not remain in the sole custody of NSI after the completion of the transition. It should be transferred to ICANN which should use it as an information resource (maintaining the RFCs as is done currently, etc.) and a directory of all the official ICANN registrars.
• ICANN should eventually strongly consider allowing anyone or organization to register there own TLD.
• Domains should continue to be assigned on a first-come first-serve basis, and ICANN and the registrars should be prohibited by ICANN policy from refusing to assign a domain, taking away a domain, or suspending a domain due to alleged or possible trademark violations. The only time a domain should be refused or revoked is with a valid court order from a court with jurisdiction in the place of resident or business of the registrant.
• NICS (http://pitch.nist.gov/nics) could be a replacement for some of the other domains for which IANA has traditionally been responsible.
• Consider the groundwork and preparation already taken by CORE.
• Some small amount of time should be spent on reviewing the purposes of the corporation, and the constraints on those purposes that are expressly manifested in the articles of incorporation. This was part of a drafting history that is probably unknown to the initial board, and very relevant to all activities.
• Clearinghouse model of SLD/TLD, on a first-come-first-served basis.
• Publicly registered TLDs should be required to prove their ability to register SLDs within six months of TLD registration or lose the TLD.
• A TLD registrar to maintain the TLD name-space, operate the root-servers, and assign authority, prohibited from doing anything more.
• Forge an alliance between public/private and form a separate, national technical advice group with specific 1-800 phone numbers.
• Disconnect Internet domain names from business and individual names.

• What will ICANN’s role be in relation to the 220+ ISO 3166 TLDs currently active on the Internet (commonly known as the ccTLDs)?
• Can "the membership" amend the articles or by-laws?
• What portions of the organic documents should be placed out of reach of the board (and hence be changeable only by the membership or by the board with some sort of external approval [perhaps judicial])?
• JCR Licklder’s original vision should be guidance for the evolution of the Internet. He said the most important question to keep in mind is "Will to be online be a privilege or a right?" Only if it is a right protected by governments and insured by all out efforts to achieve real universal access will it play the full role it can in serving human society.
• By what methods and criteria was the initial board constituted?
• What is the basis for the initial board’s claim to legitimate representation of the broad group of stakeholders involved?
• What is the basis for the initial board’s claim to be capable of adequately stewarding an "open, transparent, and representative process"?
• What is the board members’ technical and operational experience in the specific areas for which that this organization is charged with setting policies and procedures?
• Keep perspective. In the final analysis, ICANN is going to perform some rather mundane tasks: the administration of names and numbers. On the other hand, you get to decide who can become a registry, and therefore who could be running a potentially lucrative business. Further, ICANN is the first real test of how we set up and run a self-regulating organization.
• Will there be a discussion as to liability for infringing use of a registered name, what is the jurisdiction for filing a claim, and what ruling entity will oversee such claims and levy enforcement?
• Concern that Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers are pushing to convert all data communications traffic to the restrictive and arbitrary toll bound pricing model currently in effect for the telephone system.
• What would happen if the full transition were delayed?
• If there are further Congressional hearings, will ICANN be prepared to appear in its formal capacity and under what authority would it testify?
• What would be the legal effect of Congressional action (law or resolution) to block or revoke the transition?
• How will this impact small ISPs and other Net professionals on a day-to-day basis down the road?

• Board has not taken part in past two years of discussion.