UDRS - Unfair Dispute Resolution Service

[39] Bret Fausett's website (http://www.lextext.com/icann/), ICANNWatch (for example contributions by Michael Froomkin at http://www.icannwatch.org) and online intervention by ICANN At Large Director Karl Auerbach (http://www.cavebear.com) are noteworthy. Whilst these websites receive press coverage, it is hard to measure whether they have changed the way in which ICANN has developed its processes or policy procedures or how ICANN Board decisions are made.

[40] The ACCC's submission to WIPO's discussion of domain name registration neatly sets out the competition regulator's responsibility for and interest in .auDA's activities. Note however that the focus of the submission is on intellectual property protection rather than the governance of Internet architecture and resources. http://www.accc.gov.au/ecomm/access1b.htm

[41] Membership is open to Australian organisations and individuals (details at http://www.auda.org.au) with voting in staggered Board elections across three membership categories. This prevents Board capture by special interest groups. As at December 2002, .auDA had approximately 380 members - a similar number to ISOC-AU - including individuals, small businesses, consumer advocates and corporate interests. However, in compliance with the Australian Privacy Act, detailed demographics are not publicly available. Profiles of Board candidates published during elections suggest that candidates and, as importantly, those actually elected, are not restricted to major corporate interests of areas of expertise such as information technology and law.

[42] Currently the independent directors are former ICANN Board member Greg Crew (http://www.icann.org/biog/crew.htm) and Chair Tony Staley. The independent directors are paid for their work; the elected directors are not.

[43] The final version of the mandatory Code of Practice can be found at http://www.auda.org.au/docs/auda-2002-26.pdf. I was Chair of the Registrar's Code of Practice Committee, the membership of which was drawn from a broad spectrum of industry and consumer organisations.

[44] The transparency of .auDA's operation (through public forums, through online publication and through encouragement of participation in its working parties) has been little remarked. It is of interest in comparison to the operation of other regulatory bodies, where participation is difficult (for example, restricted to a particular community) and where observers have access to outcomes rather than the deliberations that led to those outcomes.

[45] In contrast to ICANN it has not faced sustained criticism in legal, information technology or other publications and, overall, has secured the endorsement of bodies such as the Internet Industry Association, Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and ISOC-AU. 'Anti .auDA' groups, such as the DNS Action Group, do not appear to have a major following and proposals for an .auDA Watch site apparently did not eventuate. Like the anti-ICANN commentators, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of these groups on changing policy outcomes. In addition, the list has been discredited by the use of pseudonymous members who may have been one person, posing as several different characters. In addition, the personal invective found on the DNS List discouraged active participation from a diversity of stakeholders as, in many cases, people were unwilling to manage a large volume of off-topic email.

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