On Tuesday 16 August 2016 11:00 PM, John Curran wrote:

On Aug 16, 2016, at 1:22 PM, parminder <parminder@itforchange.net> wrote:

As I said, most democratic governments of the world have laws for access to public information. Take India's Right to Information Act for instance. Wikipedia information on it is here, and here is the actual text. The US also has very good laws in this regard, to which you can get easy access. Over 95 countries have some kind of freedom of information laws ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_information_laws_by_country ) and I think most of them have better transparency laws than what ICANN adheres to…

Please be specific. ICANN already has a "Documentary Information Disclosure Policy”,

and to the extent you believe it needs to be changed, it would be good to hear how.

John, I have been as specific as I can. For instance, I want to know what the organisations said to be doing education/ engagement work with regard to IANA transition were really doing, and where exactly were they were doing it. I really have no idea what this huge amount of money has gone towards. And I have a feeling that I have a right to know, because I consider 'ICANN by its function is a public governance body" (as I said earlier, and heard profuse opinion against). I consider ICANN's money as some kind of public funds... Dont you think ICANN needs to disclose this information? (Please be specific.) The ICANN representative says that in regard to these contracts - all of them with US entities - that

"ICANN enters into confidentiality obligations as a result of bilateral negotiations with vendors - either using ICANN templates or vendor supplied templates. The confidentiality provisions in these 7 contracts were in many instances vendor supplied forms and do not allow, either explicitly or implicitly, for ICANN to disclose publicly the value of the services rendered, or, in several cases, any information pertaining to the contract without mutual agreement. This is consistent with common business and procurement practices...". (emphasis added)

Such a response would not be admitted under Indian public information access laws, as with most mature democracies. ICANN's conduct has *not* to be consistent with common business practices, it has to be consistent with common practices of bodies that perform public functions.

The defined conditions of non disclosure by ICANN are such that will today be laughed away in any public information access discussion in any mature democratic context, things like "Information requests....are made with an abusive or vexatious purpose or by a vexatious or querulous individual". https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/didp-2012-02-25-en

I am not clear what is the 'community's' plan regarding this. Does this group share the expectation that at the end of the transition process, ICANN will adopt information disclosure policies of the same level as that of mature democracies today (I give the public information regimes of India and US as specific examples)? If not, why so?

John, it is your turn to be specific :) .

parminder

First, transparency to whom? Probably you mean accountant's transparent to you, not to the public... But even if you are so good as to be calling for the latter, that is your expectation from someone, which is an entirely private matter, and your will to do or not do. We, on the other hand, are talking about *legitimate* expectation of the *public*, and I see no basis for a legitimate expectation of the public for your accountant to be entirely transparent to it.

Actually, I again do not concur with your characterization of anything that might

affect the public as an institution of "public governance", and you’ve failed to clearly

distinguish why this is the case for ICANN and not the hundreds of other bodies

that make standards and policies for objects that the public uses…

Some of us may have decided that we will jettison all known concepts and theories of political science and governance

Not jettison, but simply not apply without a valid basis.
… and consider the Internet and ICANN sui generis but I would suggest that it is not at all wise to do so. I do not want to comment on what two kinds of ideologies converge in this, what I see as, very dangerous direction, so let me not comment :)

Most excellent.
 If you would be specific regarding which particular norms and 
 standards for transparency you believe ICANN should meet 
 (regardless of your underlying justification why), then perhaps
 we may find areas of agreement among the working group?
Yes, I am specific. I want ICANN to uphold the same level of transparency standards that the more democratic governments do, and the details are all in the documents linked above. Tell me how would you want us to go from here.
Cite the standards that you believe are not being met, and the specific

changes to ICANN you believe this group should consider in its work.

By doing so, we may be able to make progress in areas of commonality

despite the lack of alignment in underlying belief systems.

/John

p.s. my views alone.