2.2.3 Europe

This part reviews the European regional election for an At-Large Directorship on the ICANN Board. What follows is an analysis of the process and procedures that led up to that election and defined the election itself.

Under the rules drafted by the Election Committee, all regional ballots were limited to seven candidates; in Europe's case, five of those seats were directly nominated by ICANN. On the final ballot (member-nominated candidates included), three nominees (two of them member-nominated), were from Germany; the remaining four were from (respectively) France, Macedonia, Norway and Switzerland. Andy Müller-Maguhn, spokesperson for a German civil libertarian group, the Chaos Computer Club, won the election with almost 6,000 votes.

From data made available so far by ICANN, it is not possible to draw conclusions about the national distribution of European At-Large Members, nor is it possible to reliably describe the ways in which national preferences influenced the overall voting behavior. Instead, our analysis of the At-Large Membership and the characteristics of the At-Large Election in Europe is based on the following research:

• Personal interviews. A wide cross-section of European participants in the ICANN process was interviewed via e-mail. These ranged from candidates in the election, to governmental representatives, to industry leaders, representatives of NGOs, journalists and ICANN-activists. A list of interviewees appears as Appendix 3.
• Media coverage. A group of students at the University of Hamburg collected television, radio, print, and online coverage that appeared in Europe before, during, and after the 2000 election. Stories were reviewed, summarized, and categorized to create a picture of the overall media presentation of ICANN.
• Personal experience. The contributors to this report have been critical observers of the ICANN process and contributed to academic research in the area of Internet governance.

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