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By Sally Watson, 30 June 2000 00:25

NEWS Civil rights groups have launched a fresh attack on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), accusing the organisation of being "undemocratic". A raft of US-based internet campaign groups are calling on users in the UK and Europe to register to vote in the organisation's elections in September when five new members will be elected to the board. Icann was formed in 1998 to take over the management of top-level internet domain names from Network Solutions (NSI) and to arbitrate on controversial issues such as intellectual property and copyright on a worldwide basis. The group has been accused previously of bias towards large companies. In addition, after being accused of being US-centric, in October last year it elected three non-US members to its board. Web activist Chris Bailey said:"Icann is quite a powerful body, it has a lot of influence. The board is largely dominated by commercial interests and civil society is greatly underrepresented. There is very much a north/south divide with areas like Africa and South America not getting their voice heard," he said. The Institute for the Management of Information Systems (IMIS) is supporting the call to get more individual voters signed up to Icann. Chief executive, Ian Rickwood, said Icann should be representative of Internet users but warned that results may not be easy to achieve. The activists will hold a Civil Society Forum alongside Icann's next meeting in Japan, next month and have published 'guiding values' for the organisation including encouraging transparency and avoiding centralisation. Bailey said users should make their voices heard. "We are having a job to get people to realise what is going on," he said, "We feel we should try and use ICANN to the maximum we can." Although the elections are three months away, anyone wanting to vote must register by 31 July. Philip Virgo, advisor to IMIS, said: "All those serious about ecommerce and the information society should join the Internet Society and, in parallel, vote in the Icann elections." Ester Dyson, interim chairman of Icann, told silicon.com she agreed with the Civil Society's 'guiding values' and added: "I believe we are on our way to achieving them."