Information About the Candidates:

Latin America/Carribean

ICANN'S MISSION

According to its charter, ICANN was established in 1998 with a mission of "performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the Internet domain name system" and the Internet address space, and certain other technical coordination functions. There has been substantial debate about the ways in which ICANN has interpreted that mission or the way its mission might evolve in years to come. In particular, many argue about how much ICANN's mission must or should include "policy development" activities, or be more narrowly constrained to technical decisions.

1. In your opinion, has ICANN appropriately interpreted its mission to date?

• Campos: In broad terms, it is my opinion that ICANN's activities have been consistent with its appropriate mission, and it should keep itself within the boundaries of technical matters and refrain from policymaking in general. Nevertheless, and especially when it comes to developing countries and regions, ICANN can play a role, by helping set up appropriate forums for discussion and advancement of the Internet in these regions. ICANN can play the catalyst, leaving the contents of policies and the operational aspects of their implementation to the regions themselves. Mobilization without intervention is a good thing, and most of the world is still poorly mobilized in terms of discussing the issues that may affect the development of the Internet across the globe in the future.

• Echeberria: Other. Creo que basicamente ICANN se ha mantenido dentro de sus cometidos, pero es algo en lo que hay que ser muy cuidadoso. Es inevitable que la administracion del DNS con lo que implica la apertura de nuevos dominios, la desmonopolizacion de los registros, etc. no se convierta en una discusion politica y no hay que olvidar que este proceso se inicio justamente motivado por factores politicos y no tecnicos.

  No faltaran las personas que esperen que ICANN asuma mas tareas regulatorias, particularmente no es mi punto de vista, por lo que actuare en ese sentido en caso de ser elegido en el board del ICANN.

  El funcionamiento correcto y mas transparente del GAC seria muy positivo para contribuir a que disminuir las presiones para sacar al ICANN de su mision. Es importante que la gente que representa a los gobiernos sea calificada, que este involucrada en la tematica y ademas que haya una participacion mas equilibrada de paises de todo el mundo.

• Nunes: Yes, ICANN's activities have been consistent with its appropriate mission. ICANN carry on an excellent job on the management of its attributions. It possisses a team with appropriate attributes to reach bold goal. Its philosophy is pertinent to the current moment, where the ethics and the democratic sense prevail.

• Campos: Keeping ICANN's responsibilities about the same.

• Echeberria: Keeping ICANN's responsibilities about the same

• Nunes: Broadening ICANN's responsibilities. My perpective will be always to extend ICANN's radius of action so that a bigger number of worldwide-level users can have access to the benefits of the politics implemented by ICANN in that it refers to the ample diversity of Internet.

NEW gTLD's

One of ICANN's most visible actions will be the planned addition of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD's)--like ".com" and ".org"--to the name space. No new gTLD's have been added yet, but ICANN is expected to select a small number of new gTLD's this fall. Debate surrounding this issue has been intense, particularly regarding the number and character of the gTLD's that ICANN should introduce.

3. Three years from now, do you think that the total number of gTLD's should be:

• Campos: Somewhat larger than it is today (10 to 30). Three years is a long, long time in the Internet calendar. As I have stated elsewhere, I am in favor of enlarging the current number of gTLD's, but this must not be done in a "big bang" fashion, because unforeseen side effects may show up. Prudence is "de rigueur" in matters that are irreversible, and in most of the world the civil society institutions that are needed to inhibit abuse and misuse are not yet in place. So, I expect it to be somewhat larger than it is today (10-30), with incremental implementation. But who knows, three years is a long time and ICANN will learn a lot as time passes.

• Echeberria: Much larger than it is today (>30). Yo me he manifestado publicamente a favor de una apertura mesurada de los nuevos dominios, creando nuevos dominios comerciales y no comerciales, abiertos y restringidos. Y tambien opine siempre a favor de separar la decision de la creacion de los nuevos dominios de la designacion de los nuevos registros. El actual proceso no creo que sea el mas adecuado. No ofrece igualdad de oportunidades para nuevos dominios de distintas partes del mundo, distintas culturas y distintos intereses. Por lo tanto, creo que en este contexto, la apertura de pocos nuevos dominios solo contribuira a distribuir la concentracion actual en unas pocas manos mas. Por lo tanto, en este contexto pienso que solo la apertura de mayor cantidad de dominios aportara soluciones para reducir la especulacion.

• Nunes: Much larger than it is today (>30). The biggest concern is not about the domain's number but which will be the criterion used for distribution of the same. I find that it must be created the amount of TLDs enough to supply the needs of the expressive segments of society. It is possible that this number surpasses 30, but what it matters is that it keeps a democratic condition for acquisition of the same, in conformity with preset control norms by ICANN.

• Campos: An even mix of both open/unchartered and restricted/chartered TLD's.

• Echeberria: An even mix of both open/unchartered and restricted/chartered TLD's

• Nunes: An even mix of both open/unchartered and restricted/chartered TLD's. Inside of a democratic perspective I believe that the diversity of new domains will go to enclose a balanced mix of gTLDs, that it will have to obey, as said in my previous reply, to a efficient and criterion-based control of the concessions on the part of ICANN.

ICANN'S STRUCTURE

The ICANN Board of Directors is currently composed of nineteen members: nine selected by the At-Large Membership, nine selected by ICANN's three Supporting Organizations, and a President. At the Board's recent meeting in Japan, there was serious discussion about changing the Board's composition, possibly by reducing the number of At-Large Directors or re-evaluating the concept of an At-Large Membership itself.

5. Do you feel that the present composition of the Board of Directors:

• Campos: Under-represents the At-Large Membership.

• Echeberria: Oterh. Creo que la pregunta no es la correcta. El problema que hoy tenemos planteado es que muchos pensamos que la democracia directa en ICANN podia ser perfecta y ahora vemos que tenia muchas dificultades. La democracia no puede depender de la velocidad de la conexion de cada uno , o de la eficiencia del servicio postal, o de si la pagina que esta en un idioma funciona mas rapido que la que esta en otro idioma o de si el ICANN tiene o no dinero para hacer crecer sus servidores. Pienso que el tema a discutir es si la definicion actual de la mebresia At Large es la correcta y si los procedimientos son los correctos. Si podemos lograr formas mas transparentes de participacion entonces podremos darles mas peso a la mebresia At Large sino no. Sobre esto hay que trabajar mucho y no tengo una respuesta definitiva.

• Nunes: I do not have elements enough to think on this question. I am evaluating it.

• Campos: Other. There are two issues involved: the structure of ICANN's representation, covered in the previous answer, and the election process itself. As to the latter, and for many reasons, mobilization of all possible constituencies was very imbalanced, reflecting, among other things, our ("our" meaning everyone, within and outside ICANN) lack of experience with worldwide elections and the means available. It would be unfair on my part to be critical of the solutions adopted when I don't think anyone had (or has, for that matter) a bullet-proof proposal.

• Nunes: Do a good job providing the Board with input from a broad set of stakeholders. Participation of a great number of members in decision making and electoral process of ICANN, generates greater credibility and transparency, besides being an excellent referential to evaluate the degree of acceptability of the implemented politics. I believe that ICANN is based on these premises to establish new rules, regarding its attributions, to extend its representation in worldwide scale, on the Internet.

• Campos: Other. I don't think it will be possible, as issues get more and more complex and diverse (remember that the whole world will join the bandwagon sooner or later) to achieve consensus on every issue in order for it to be implemented. Therefore, a decision by qualified majority or otherwise will be in order. The most important thing, then, will be to make publicly available the individual votes of the board members, for the sake of transparency and accountability to the various electing constituencies.

• Echeberria: Consensus is important and ICANN has done a poor job at demonstrating consensus for its decisions. Nuevamente pienso que la pregunta es muy generica y por lo tanto la respuesta no representa cabalmente mi punto de vista. El consenso es muy importante y en algunos niveles de la estructura funciona bien y en otros no.

• Nunes: Consensus is important and ICANN has done a good job at demonstrating consensus for its decisions. Opinion diversity is a classic characteristic of democratic expression. I think it is healthful the occurrence of controversies, so that it creates alternatives in the solution of complex questions, prevailing of course the one that who get consensus between the participants. I don't believe that ICANN has neglected this aspect in its dicision taking process.

UDRP

Last year, ICANN and the accredited registrars for the ".com," ".net," and ".org" spaces approved the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Since then, the UDRP has governed the resolution of over 1000 disputes. The policy has sparked significant debate about the appropriate balance between the interests of trademark protection, domain name holder rights, and free expression.

8. Do you feel that that the UDRP is currently:

• Campos: Biased in favor of trademark protection.

• Echeberria: A good balance between competing interests. Pienso que el UDRP es lo mejor que se pudo lograr en su momento, pero por supuesto se puede mejorar. Creo que seria mas positivo para el mercado que la OMPI (WIPO) no tuviera una participacion tan mayoritaria en los arbitrajes de resolucion de disputas. Esto le da una posicion de demasiado poder y no hay que olvidar que la OMPI es una organizacion multilateral donde participan los gobiernos. La existencia de mas arbitros y una mejor distribucion de los arbitrajes seria positiva. El ICANN deberia tomar medidas tendientes a promover cambios en este mercado.

• Nunes: Not available.

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