As part of its $100-million initiative to improve lives through new communications technology, the Markle Foundation will commit more than $1 million to ensure the general public has a say in the governance of the Internet.
Partnering with five other groups, the foundation will be involved in several projects to increase public participation in upcoming elections to the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) -- the nonprofit international oversight body for the Internet domain system.
In the first part of its new initiative, the foundation has given ICANN a $200,000 grant to help create a mechanism for public voting on nine of the 19 positions on the first elected ICANN board of directors.
Other parts of the Markle initiative will bring in nonpartisan organizations to help with the upcoming elections:
The Carter Center, which has monitored elections around the world, will work with ICANN to establish a free and fair way to evaluate the public elections;
American Library Association will distribute educational materials about ICANN and the Internet and will provide "virtual voting booths" in many libraries;
The Center for Democracy and Technology will produce a pamphlet to inform the general public why they should care about the ICANN elections;
The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School helped host a workshop on ICANN, and will research possible ways for open governance and deliberation to be used online.
"Management of the Internet by a private entity will not be stable or legitimate if that entity does not adequately include the public voice," Markle President Zoe Baird said in her announcement of the initiative.
"So it is essential that ICANN -- which is establishing rules that impact individuals and organizations alike -- be accountable to all Internet users everywhere. Specifically, that means building a legitimate way for individuals to vote and create an authority they can trust. We are bringing in experts who can make this happen."
Public elections for the ICANN board may be held next summer. ICANN's mandate is to regulate the Internet's domain names and numbers -- Internet "addresses" most often expressed in the form of names, like PNN's Web address at www.pj.org.
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Release.199911021044.1219.html
