(Summary: I represent different companies in PAB. More concretely I am the PAB
rep of two companies that are completely separate. May I vote for both?}
Hi PABers,
Here in PAB I represent FCR, a Research Foundation somehow dependent on the
Catalan Government. FCR may display a huge Internet involvement, ranging from
developing and managing the Scientific Ring (Catalan high-speed University
network) to building up CESCA (Catalan Supercomputing Center), through
creating CINET, one of the oldest ISPs in this area, and a signatory of the
gTLD-MoU at Geneva, too.
The FCR is a CORE Registrar through a new Department called Nominalia. Even if
initially I was supposed to just help FCR through the application process and
then remain their legal advisor for this and other Internet-related affairs,
I’ve found myself involved in CORE affairs on Nominalia’s behalf. But I’m
neither their employee, nor their general outside counsel.
Xarxa CINET S.L. (CINET)'s PAB rep used to be Josep Gaspa’; <rosa@cinet.es>,
now changed to Montserrat Meya <mmeya@cinet.es>. CINET, as I’ve said, is one
of FCR's “children”, a spin-off. It was once a FCR Department, then an
independent society fully owned by FCR. It's now in the process of being sold
out to outside investors. CINET’s management, different from FCR's, wanted me
to be their *eye-on-PAB*, but I wasn't sure that I could represent two
different entities (no rules on PAB functioning were even discussed). So they
appointed a *formal* separate rep.
Then I tried to convince other clients to sign the MoU. The first one was,
last June, OLE. This is the most popular Net search service (index “a la
Yahoo”) in Spanish. OLE owner, Pep Valles, is a former employee of the FCR,
but this “personal” link is the only one remaining. He is also a CINET client.
Pep did not wanted to get involved in PAB discussions and asked me to
represent him in PAB, but I declined as I was not sure that I could represent
two different companies.
Finally, last July Partal, Maresma & Associats S.L. (VilaWeb) also signed the
gTLD-MoU. VilaWeb is also a web index service, this one in Catalan (the most
important in this language and the second in Spain after OLE, at least before
the launch of Magallanes, for which I don’t have reliable statistics). VilaWeb
director, Vicent Partal, insisted that he wanted me as their PAB rep, and so
was stated in their signature form.
Even if using different languages, VilaWeb and OLE are competitors (Spanish is
also an official language here in Catalonia). This is the only link they have.
There are no economic relations between FCR (or CINET) and VilaWeb. And it is
no secret in Catalonia that their personal relations are not very fluent....
So I find myself reporting PAB developemnts to four different companies. And
formally representing two of them, with no relation whatsoeve between them.
I use this long explanation for two purposes: first, to underline once more
the near impossibility to define rules excluding “CORE members” from PAB
representation. I’m in CORE while not being a registrar. I represent a
registrar AND a company that has nothing to do with such registrar.... Good
sense, more than rules should sort out this problem (even if I agree with the
principle of avoiding cross-representation and I’m a little bit conxcerned
about how this is being treated in this concrete electoral process).
The second one, and more urgent is to know whether PAB (and PAB ExCom)
considers that I should be able to vote on bahalf of both FCR and VilaWeb, two
completely unrelated signatories of the gTLD-MoU and members of PAB. I think I
should, but I won’t without your permission.
Amadeu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 30 2000 - 03:22:15 PST