Hi, On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 03:35:49PM +0100, Niels ten Oever wrote:
For inspiration you could have a look at the lastest report of the CCWP HR: http://is.gd/Uh4gbs
Thanks. I had a look at that before Dublin. As I said in my previous message, I don't especially care how this commitment gets enshrined. I am extremely sceptical that there is any practical difference that flows from it (more on that below). I think therefore that those who are insisting on this or that approach to how the commitment gets expressed (and I include the board in this, but not them exclusively) need to offer a clear example of how one approach makes a difference over the other. As to why I am sceptical: the report you mention seems to suggest a great deal of subsequent report preparation by ICANN. The report also seems to be a little unclear about ICANN's legitimate range of action -- a common problem that has led this CCWG to considerable discussion about ICANN's real mission, and which is (IMO correctly) being clarified in the mission statement as a result of this CCWG's work. What I cannot suss out from the report, though, is an occasion where an explicit commitment to human rights would make any difference to the sort of decision ICANN would in fact make in respect of any ICANN policy. I suppose if I squint I can come up with some sort of new privacy right consideration in the registry data service discussions, but that trade-off (against things like law enforcement considerations) has been a feature of the discussions approximately forever. Most of the free speech considerations are not actually things ICANN has any control over. Those issues are mostly lower in the DNS tree[1]. While ICANN can conceivably influence the behaviour of registrars and registries in that regard, I have a hard time seeing how any of the contemplated rights affirmations would change any actual ICANN policy, because of ICANN's limited mission. Best regards, A [1] I concede that future rounds of root zone expansion could increase ICANN's direct interaction with registrants of names. The difference between a brand owner registering examplecorp.com. (in the com zone) and examplecorp. (in the root zone) boils down to the amount of money the registrant is willing to spend, plus the registrant's willingness to accept that the latter won't work with email. So "brand" TLDs mean that ICANN is dealing directly with registrants of those TLDs. -- Andrew Sullivan ajs@anvilwalrusden.com