[governance] Are Internet users powerless or empowered, and how?

[Jacqueline A. Morris]

Can we separate domain name owners from internet users? As George has
reminded us, almost ALL users will never register a domain name. So maybe we
can leave the domain owners issues aside for a bit and  refer to the users
issues?
For example - if we talk about easy and comfortable access to content online
for users (the main thing that I think users want), we'd need to definitely
talk about native scripts and local content issues. Pricing of access is
also an issue - if it is unaffordable to get online, then that is definitely
a user issue. 
I think that back and forth about ICANN's structure, how it should have been
and why what currently obtains is worse than what should/could have been is
far less important than on the ground issues for users.

Jacqueline

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karl Auerbach [mailto:karl at cavebear.com]
> Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 15:20
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; George Sadowsky
> Subject: Re: [governance] Are Internet users powerless or empowered,
> and how?
> 
> George Sadowsky wrote:
> 
> > At the risk of starting yet another questionably productive thread on
> > this list, I have to comment on your comment below.  I found it an
> > amazing comment, and perhaps symptomatic of why this list is not as
> > productive as it could be.
> >
> > 99.999% of Internet users are not drowning in powerlessness! Instead,
> if
> > they are drowning in anything, they are drowning in a sea of
> > extraordinarily rich information service offerings that they couldn't
> > have dreamed of having access to 10 years ago.
> 
> The context in which I use the world "powerless" is in the context of
> existing and future bodies of internet governance.
> 
> For example, yes, we users have great power in the marketplace to
> select
> ISP's and the like.
> 
> But we users have virtually no voice in the body that extracts over
> half
> a billion dollars (US$) out of the pockets of domain name buyers every
> year and, at the same, time subjects us to the kangaroo court system of
> the UDRP and the privacy-busting Whois.
> 
> The fear and concern that I am expressing is that in bodies of internet
> governance - and remember a body of governance is a body that exercises
> a near plenary form of power - that in these bodies, current and
> present, internet users are denied the means to hold that body, and the
> decision makers within it, accountable for its actions.
> 
> In other words, my intent is the word "powerless" is interpreted in the
> context of bodies of governance.
> 
> 		--karl--
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