Originator: --- (ComLink)
Date: 2000/08/06
Country: GERMANY
Source: ComLink

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ICANN CANNOT - WE CAN

Prohibition of elections because of faulty technology?

Hanover, Germany, August 6 – Since several months normal Internet users could register in the election campaign of ICANN (www.icann.org), to get some influence on the development of the Internet. Apart from the basic questions of legitimacy we thought that using this minimal chance of empowerment made sense and recommended registration for all our users and the users of APC.

The registration period was terminated on July 31 2000 at 23:59:59. Because of the massive amount of registrations the ICANN server was not reachable for extended times in the last weeks, so many users could not register. Despite massive protests and work behind the scenes to extend the registration period ICANN stopped the process. Many willing users stood in the rain.

Internally ICANN had calculated with 5-10,000 registrations, a very small number, considering approximately 200 million Internet users. Around 150.000 could register, a number of request that some other Web servers handle in less than an hour.

ComLink thinks that technical problems should not prohibit interested users from (democratic) participation. This is simply not acceptable. As a sign of protest and effort to get more people registered we will collect data of interested users until the 31st of August 2000. We will then hand these data over to ICANN.

On our webpage http://www.comlink.org/icann/icann_en.php3 we offer a form that is connected to a database. The form asks for the same data as the ICANN site did. This data will not be used in any other way and will be destroyed completely after handing it over to ICANN. Obviously we can't offer any guarantee for registration.

The alternative registration site for ICANN at-large registration is located at ComLink:  http://www.comlink.org/icann/icann_en.php3

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Christian Schulze, ComLink, APC member in Germany
Tel: +49 511 - 161 31 73 (Germany GMT +1)
Tel: +49 511 - 71 00 736
Fax: +49 511 - 165 26 11             
Fax: +49 511  - 169 69 55
Email: christian@comlink.org

The information contained in this alert is the sole responsibility of ComLink. In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit ComLink.

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