Internet users will be able to participate in the non-profit organisation charged with managing the Internet domain name system under a plan adopted last Thursday.
Anyone with an email account and a postal address will be able to vote for the 18 members of an "at-large council" that will become one of the main supporting organisations of the Los Angeles-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), according to its interim president, Mike Roberts.
Ten of the 18 council members will be elected according to geographic region, with two each from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa but no more than one from any single country. The eight additional council members will be elected globally, Roberts said.
Once Internet voters elect the council, it will select nine people to represent Internet users on the ICANN board of directors.
Nine other members of the ICANN board will be selected by three other supporting organisations that focus on legal and technical issues regarding the domain name system and Internet protocols.
No membership dues will be required to participate in the first round of elections. Instead, the group hopes to raise $100,000 from foundations and other private sources to fund the council's start-up costs.
The new blueprint for individual involvement, adopted at ICANN's quarterly board meeting in Santiago, Chile, could mollify some ICANN critics who have complained that the interim board of directors has shown more concern for corporations than for other Internet users.
ICANN staff members considered limiting the at-large membership to people who have registered domain names, the addresses that end in .com, .net and .org. The board was right to expand the membership pool to any Internet user who is interested in participating, said Jonathan Zittrain, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. But he said the multilayer election system is "too Byzantine".
To qualify for voting, Internet users will have to visit a website and fill out a form asking for "basic personal identifying information", such as name and address but not a social security number, Roberts said. Those who sign up will receive a personal identification number by post. Then they will have to go back to the site and log in with their PIN to complete the registration process, which was designed to prevent voting fraud. Elections will not be held until at least 5,000 people from all over the world sign up, Roberts said. - Info: www.icann.net