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

[Karl Auerbach]

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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