Hi Beau On Oct 1, 2009, at 4:10 PM, Beau Brendler wrote: I guess I should have anticipated that the bit I responded to might set you off. Really wasn't the focus of my post (below), though.
It seems assumptions are being made about the consumer constituency based on an absence of facts. Shocking! You wrote:
Since you're responding to a message I sent, let me just be sure it's understood that the "you" below is someone else I was responding to, not me.
It is my recollection that Rosemary was at the NCUC meeting in
Sydney, and seemed very sympathetic to NCUC at the time. While I would assume she has been lobbied by Consumer Constituency folk, it is my hope that she will be sympathetic to NCUC arguments.<
Never heard of her. Never met her. Never lobbied her. I agree with Bret Fausett -- though, as one of the applicants for the seats who wasn't picked, I don't think it's necessarily appropriate to make public comments about the candidates.
"Lobbied by Consumer Constituency folk" -- don't look for phantoms where there aren't any.
His assumption may have been unfounded, but it doesn't seem unreasonable. It was understood that the three appointee slots were more or less envisaged to be for people from the following categories: a) technical--as opposed to social science/law--academia, b) individuals, and c) noncommercial consumer groups. That vision may have changed somewhat en route to a decision, given some of the selections, but it was a pretty widespread assumption that one person would be from a noncommercial consumer group, and would be looked to to help draw in other noncommercial consumer groups. It doesn't seem too unnatural to assume that someone trying to organize a noncommercial consumer constituency might be talking to an applicant for the noncommercial consumer slot...
"While I would assume she has been lobbied by Consumer Constituency folk, it is my hope that she will be sympathetic to NCUC arguments."
Generally speaking, I doubt the two would be in opposition much of the time. What are you so afraid of?
I assume the you here is not me. Once again, the main concern is that noncommercial GNSOers not get permanently locked into the SIC/ staff charter by virtue of (any---not about you) constituencies being approved while the proposed cooperation on its mutually satisfactory revision is pending. That would disenfranchise a whole lot of people and could unnecessarily institutionalize some divisions we should be working to overcome. I agree with you that a consumers constituency should easily find common cause with others in the noncommercial world, assuming that it comprises noncommercial consumer groups and advocates for noncommercial interests. Other formulations would give rise to other trajectories. Cheers, Bill
-----Original Message-----
From: William Drake <william.drake@graduateinstitute.ch> Sent: Oct 1, 2009 4:57 AM To: At-Large Worldwide <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: Re: [At-Large] Board appointments to fill 3 non-commercial seats on the new Council
As usual, NCUC and ALAC members are having the same conversations in their respective silos, e.g. on .hn, the AoC, etc. Since I replied to David on the NCUC list where he'd posted but he was forwarding from here, I should share my reply here as well. So FWIW...
Bill
Begin forwarded message:
From: William Drake <william.drake@graduateinstitute.ch> Date: October 1, 2009 10:46:43 AM GMT+02:00 To: NCUC Members List <NCUC-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> Subject: Re: [At-Large] Fwd: Board appointments to fill 3 non- commercial seats on the new Council
Hi
On Oct 1, 2009, at 7:21 AM, David Cake wrote:
At 11:31 AM +0900 1/10/09, Adam Peake wrote:
From: Denise Michel <denise.michel@icann.org> To: Cheryl Langdon-Orr <cheryl@hovtek.com.au>, At-Large Worldwide <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: [At-Large] Fwd: Board appointments to fill 3 non- commercial seats on the new Council
Dear Community Members,
The Board has appointed the following individuals to serve as Non- Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) representatives on the new GNSO Council:
Mohammed Rafik Dammak - Tunisia Rosemary Sinclair - Australia Debra Hughes - United States
It is my recollection that Rosemary was at the NCUC meeting in Sydney, and seemed very sympathetic to NCUC at the time. While I would assume she has been lobbied by Consumer Constituency folk, it is my hope that she will be sympathetic to NCUC arguments.
Hope so too. I suppose it may depend on the argument we're making...?
In the event anyone's not familiar, a wee bit of background on the group of which she is the Chair of the Board, the International Telecommunications Users Group. INTUG was established by a bunch of large transnational corporations back in 1974 to advocate the liberalization of global telecom markets. They were, in effect, a sort of issue-specific International Chamber of Commerce. In parallel with other big business associations, they lobbied governments at both the national and multilateral level; I dealt with some of their folks in the 80s to mid-90s in the ITU context, and still have some of the docs they submitted to ITU and OECD from those days. They were especially active in advocating the loosening of regulations on the international private leased circuits used by financial and other corporate users to construct closed private networks bypassing public switched networks for global voice and data transmission (pre-commercial Internet), but also pushed for the reduction of international calling rates (fixed and mobile) under the accounting and settlements system. Thereafter, if I recall correctly, a lot of their early members bled off into other industry lobbying groups; the current membership http://intug.org/members/our-members/ seems to comprise national associations, some of which are not entirely big business, e.g. the membership of ATUG (which she also heads) "consists of 1/3 from the Top 1000 trading companies in Australia, 1/3 from the Small to Medium Enterprise sector and 1/3 coming from small business, consultants, educational organisations such as TAFE and local government."
In the Internet era INTUG's been less visible (at least to me) relative to other industry lobbying groups so I'm not aware of its positions on most ICANN issues, but it's a founding member of the Alliance for Global Business, which has taken stands on some relevant topics. For example, you can read the AGB's Global Action Plan for Electronic Business here http://www.witsa.org/papers/3rdEd-GlobalActionPlan.pdf . Some quotes of interest:
*WTO members should recognize that specific WTO agreements governing trade in goods, trade in services, or trade-related intellectual property apply to electronic transmissions...Business will work to encourage all countries to implement effectively the TRIPS agreement. Business will also continue to develop and deploy technologies that prevent IP infringements in the online environment.
*Business should have a significant role in the formation of policy for technical management of the domain name system and the development of policy. Through the various Supporting Organizations of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and in particular the Business Constituency of the Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO), business will continue to work to ensure continued stability and security of the Internet, as well as appropriate protection of intellectual property. The protection of intellectual property (especially famous names) and efficient ways of dealing with cybersquatting remain priority issues for business.
*Governments should recognize that the Internet is a new medium providing new opportunities and challenges. Existing regulatory systems must provide consumers with useful protection of their personal data and at the same time guarantee the free flow of information needed for the information society to produce the anticipated benefits. Governments should also recognize that self regulation may be a more flexible method of achieving data protection than government regulation. To that end, governments should: • work with the private sector to adopt interpretation of existing regulatory solutions based on the criteria in the paragraph above; • recognize the validity and adequacy of effective selfregulation augmented by the use of privacy-enhancing technologies; and • educate the public to use such privacy-enhancing technologies properly.
And so on...
I look forward to working on issues of common concern with the INTUG Chair and the other board appointees in the new SG for noncommercial users.
Best,
Bill
*********************************************************** William J. Drake Senior Associate Centre for International Governance Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva, Switzerland william.drake@graduateinstitute.ch www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html ***********************************************************
_______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann...
At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
_______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann...
At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
*********************************************************** William J. Drake Senior Associate Centre for International Governance Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva, Switzerland william.drake@graduateinstitute.ch www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html ***********************************************************