3.3.3.1 At Large Directors selected by a User Supporting Organization

One option is for individual users of the Internet to organize a "user" or "customer" SO that would choose board members. What is not clear in such proposals is how the SO would actually select board members. The existing DNSO is divided into recognized constituencies, each of which is self-organized and elects representatives to the Names Council, which in turn selects three members for the ICANN board. But this model provides little guidance for how a very large user SO-which is potentially open to any individual on a worldwide basis-would conduct its selection process.

If the user SO were to operate by analogy to the existing SOs-and conduct elections through an indirect process of questionable "legitimacy"-it would provide such a restricted form of public participation as a practical matter that it could not meaningfully be said to embody a public voice. If the user SO were to operate by allowing any individual to sign up for membership and participate in an online election, then it is simply a vehicle for conducting global direct elections, a plan which has the same virtues and flaws as the system for direct elections outlined in our own recommendations below.

The major difference, however, is that the creation of a user SO implies that this supporting organization should be on the same footing as the other SOs, and should be able to select either three board members (or some small number considerably less than the balanced nine-nine arrangement that is the status quo), just as the other SOs each do. We believe this seriously undervalues the public voice because it equates the public interest to be protected by the user SO with the interests represented by each of the ASO, PSO and DNSO. This approach fundamentally misconceives the role of the public voice, which is to operate as a check and balance to the narrower and more specialized commercial and technical interests already represented in the SO structure, and to ensure a significant level of public input into the decision-making process on issues of broad public policy faced by ICANN.

3.3.3 Analysis of alternative models of selection

3.3.3.2 At Large Directors appointed by Governments