[governance] Caucus at IGF stock taking meeting

[Parminder]

Milton

> Who speaks for the people who pay this tax? What representation,
> control or accountability do domain name registrants have over the IGF?
> (I would suggest: none). 

The obvious fact is that a 'tax' is BEING collected by ICANN. We cant call
what ICANN collects as normal service charges, because it's a monopoly
provider with no regulation and sets its own charges. And it has the
coercive power of excluding anyone from the Internet, if he or she does not
pay up. If you are on digital territory you are in some way contributing to
the ICANN, as per rules set by the ICANN itself.  And it does whatever with
this collection - deciding to utilizing it for some technical governance
tasks, and some not so technical. 

The next issue is as you say 'who speaks for the people who pay this tax'
(which is directly or indirectly all people who use the Internet). I think
ICANN has less representative-ness of 'these people' that IGF etc (and you
have often argued about the lack of representative-ness, transparency etc of
ICANN).

Public policy activity needs to be financed by taxes - and not opportunistic
or pro bono participation (with the political interests often disguised).
These principals of policy and governance are basic... And we all do set
some score by IGF's role in global public policy making in the area of the
Internet. 

IGF is in any case already financed through the UN which itself is financed
through the taxes we pay.... And if you are not satisfied with
'representation, control and accountability' of it, we need to engage and
make it more so. 

IGF's purpose is to make ICANN and other IG spaces more accountable,
stakeholder-controlled, transparent etc - so, the tax collected from
Internet users can and should legitimately be used for funding it. Starving
the IGF of such funds and ICANN using the tax it collects in the manner it
likes, is what constitutes a non-fulfillment of the above canons of fair
governance you speak of. 

> The principle of no taxation without representation is fundamental to
> democratic governance.

I completely agree. That's the problem I have in paying taxes to ICANN. 

Parminder 
________________________________________________
Parminder Jeet Singh
IT for Change, Bangalore
Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities 
Tel: (+91-80) 2665 4134, 2653 6890
Fax: (+91-80) 4146 1055
www.ITforChange.net 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Milton Mueller [mailto:mueller at syr.edu]
> Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 9:10 PM
> To: Parminder at ITforChange.net; Jeanette Hofmann
> Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] Caucus at IGF stock taking meeting
> 
> >>> Parminder at ITforChange.net 2/1/2007 8:06:12 AM >>>
> >Your suggestions for raising funds are very interesting. A 'tax'
> >on domain names is a good idea, since the money is to be used
> >for IG related public policy activity.
> 
> Who speaks for the people who pay this tax? What representation,
> control or accountability do domain name registrants have over the IGF?
> (I would suggest: none)
> 
> The principle of no taxation without representation is fundamental to
> democratic governance.
> 
> 
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