Dear Evan, thank you for your mail and extensive explications on the latest version of the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook. When we saw the first announcement, we were not aware about the details of the community efforts involved and the broad agreement reached across members of the GAC, GNSO and At-Large on issues related to Morality and Public Order -- and a report that was unanimously endorsed by ALAC ...
From your elaborations we completely understand and share your frustrations and anger. As you correctly stated, “ICANN created At-Large to provide input on some of its most important policy and – now that we have provided it, in concert with other ICANN stakeholders – its staff have laughed it off.” This example is – once again – contradicting any principle and claims by the ICANN staff in charge on “multistakeholderism”, “public participation” or “bottom-up approach” etc. Furthermore, by ignoring the cross-community consensus here, the staff acts against the spirit of the AoC, where (9.1.e) ICANN commits to, i. a., assessing the PDP to facilitate enhanced cross community deliberations ... And this reaffirms our apprehension: "You can't recognize them by their words but by their doings".
We (shortly) discussed this issue on our last monthly EURALO call and we decided to support you on any initiative "to go beyond merely announcing our displeasure to the Board". Please keep us informed on any further planning and action. Best regards, Wolf on behalf of the EURALO Board Evan Leibovitch wrote Mon, 15 Nov 2010 03:15:
Hello everyone,
In the latest version of the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook, ICANN staff has essentially screwed its community.
Despite broad agreement reached across members of the GAC, GNSO and At-Large on issues related to Morality and Public Order -- and a report that was unanimously endorsed by ALAC -- ICANN staff have explicitly rejected all of our basic requests. Literally, only the most cosmetic -- changing the name from "Morality and Public Order" to "Limited Public Interest" -- approach was taken.
The sub-contracted Dispute Resolution Service Provider -- now renamed the Dispute Resolution Administrartor -- still exists, and many, many other changes have been rejected. Not ignored, but explicitly rejected by staff.
Here is the redlined version of the new document: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/draft-dispute-resolution-procedures...
And here is the staff "explanatory notes" http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/explanatory-memo-morality-public-or...
This is awful on so many levels. It asserts staff supremacy over the bottom up process. It repudiates everything that ICANN claims to want in its improvements of Accountability and Transparency. It asserts that on any disagreement between staff and community, that staff should prevail.
I am REALLY REALLY upset over this. This is an instance in which the GAC and ALAC were united in opposition to this completely odious piece of policy, and staff have literally shrugged it off in the name is "risk management". The only risk I see is the risk to ICANN policy staff making a mockery of every principle ICANN *claims* to want to uphold.
I am angry enough to want ALAC to go beyond merely announcing its displeasure to the Board. I encourage everyone to real Milton Mueller's blog entry at http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2010/11/14/4679990.htmlwhi... contemplating what action to take.
If we don't stand up for this, what is there to stand up for? ICANN created At-Large to provide input on some of its most important policy and -- now that we have provided it, in concert with other ICANN stakeholders -- its staff have laughed it off.
How strongly is At-Large going to fight this disgrace? What are the candidates for Director going to propose? Where would the ATRT stand on a process by which stakeholders can be stopped in their tracks by staff, which has threatened to drag out the process longer should we complain and make us the scapegoats of all the TLD applicants waiting for their chance?
This is truly disgusting.
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