Karl Auerbach
Encyclopedia
Karl Auerbach is a California attorney and internet protocol engineer who in 2002 sued the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...

)—of which he was an elected board member—for refusing to share corporate records. ICANN controls the assignment of domain names and IP addresses.

Profile

Auerbach is Chief Technology Officer at InterWorking Labs, in Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...

, which creates network testing and emulation products. Auerbach has been involved in Internet design since the early 1970s. He is a member of the Intellectual Property section of the California State Bar; on the board of directors of the Open Voting Consortium; a co-founder of the Boston Working Group, a public policy organization devoted to democratic Internet governance; and a member of the volunteer Internet Engineering Task Force
Internet Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...

 (IETF), which develops and promotes Internet standards such as TCP/IP. Auerbach has testified about Internet protocols and policies before Congress on several occasions.
In 2001, Auerbach was the Caltech-Loyola Law School
Loyola Law School
Loyola Law School is the law school of Loyola Marymount University, a private Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions, in Los Angeles, California. Loyola was established in 1920. Like Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law , it...

 Program for Law & Technology Yuen Fellow, speaking on the importance of internet governance.

In 1995, Auerbach became the principal software engineer and first paid employee at Precept Software
Precept Software
Precept Software was a company based in the United States producing a series of products known as Precept IP/TV. It was acquired by Cisco Systems on March 11, 1998....

, which created IPTV
IPTV
Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...

 and was acquired by Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...

 in 1998. At Cisco, Auerbach was a member of the Advanced Internet Architectures group/Chief Strategy Office until mid 2001, when he left Cisco to join InterWorking Labs.

Early life

Auerbach attended Van Nuys High School, in Southern California; graduated from UC Berkeley in 1971; and completed his Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...

 cum laude from Loyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University is a comprehensive co-educational private Roman Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions located in Los Angeles, California, United States...

, in Los Angeles in 1978. He joined the California State Bar in 1978.

ICANN Suit

In 2000, Auerbach was elected by a public vote to the Board of Directors of ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...

, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, as the At-Large Representative for North America. ICANN is a non-profit corporation responsible for Internet protocol (IP) addressing and the domain name system (DNS
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...

), including approving new generic top-level domains such as .net
.net
The domain name net is a generic top-level domain used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from network, indicating its originally intended purpose for organizations involved in networking technologies, such as Internet service providers and other infrastructure companies...

 and .biz
.biz
biz is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for registration of domains to be used by businesses...

.

In November, 2000, shortly after Auerbach’s public election to the ICANN board of directors, he asked to see the non-profit’s internal financial and other corporate records, which, under California law, he was entitled to see. ICANN initially resisted, then subsequently consented on condition that Auerbach agree, in writing, to extensive restrictions. Auerbach refused to agree to any restrictions, including limitations on what he could see, the right to copy documents, and non-disclosure.

On March 18, 2002, after 10 months, Auerbach filed suit against ICANN in Los Angeles, with legal representation provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...

. Auerbach argued that as a member of the board of directors of ICANN, he needed to see ICANN’s records in order to make “informed and intelligent” decisions. On July 29, 2002, Superior Court
Superior court
In common law systems, a superior court is a court of general competence which typically has unlimited jurisdiction with regard to civil and criminal legal cases...

 Judge Dzintra Janavs ordered ICANN to open its records to Auerbach by August 9, and stated that ICANN board members could not be denied their right under California law to review financial records, travel logs, legal contracts and other internal documents.

See also

ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...



IPTV
IPTV
Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...



Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility
Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility
The Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility was established in 1987 in honor of Norbert Wiener to recognize contributions by computer professionals to socially responsible use of computers...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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