Wendy Seltzer wrote:
As these minutes indicate, the Board determined to send the "domain reservation" issue to the GNSO Council for Council response. While several on the Board would have favored Board action, others felt it was more appropriate to get GNSO consensus before taking action.
Apologies for my delay on responding, as I'm just catching up on much of my email after a very hectic few weeks. I was quite disheartened by the Board conduct as described in those minutes, ALAC's treatment by some Board members is clearly not that of a constuency being taken seriously, let alone what I believe to be the representatives of the single largest stakeholder group in ICANN. It's quite easy, in this context, to understand the exasperation behind the tone of Danny and others who have been involved in this process for a long time; their cynicism clearly has substance. The challenge of us "optimists" in At-Large is to drastically reduce the introspective nature of ALAC and _demand_ that the public point of view be heard. In the matter above the Board listened to its Registry members who argued against direct action, knowing full well that issues such as this are bogged down within GNSO to the point of atrophy; exactly the _opposite_ of emergency action will happen. Meanwhile, as ALAC does not have official voting standing within GNSO, we cannot necessarily have a suitable consideration of the public POV there either. (Meanwhile, it can easily be argued that the business and IP constituencies are redundant). (And yet some wonder why NARALO backed the view on the JPA that ICANN still does not have the maturity required to "leave home". I am amazed that anyone within At-Large would suggest speedy independence in its current public-hostile form...) We have our work cut out. Messages such as these are eye-openers that cut through the procedural jungle to clarify just what we're up against. Thanks to Danny and Wendy for their work on this.
Despite the lack of immediate Board action, I think it was useful for ALAC to send this request, as it put the issue on the Board's agenda and will no doubt lead to further discussion. I agree. We need to stay on top of this so that when (likely not "if") the GNSO proves incapable of consensus action we can go back to the Board in a timely fashion and ask it to get involved to protect the public interest. If this causes the Board to wonder why the GNSO's incapability indicates a failure of process, that's their own challenge to solve.
Our challenge is to identify issues of public concern -- not to simply react to the existing agenda set by public-hostile constituencies -- and demand action. - Evan