Seen from the other side... The position of the US Gov't seems to be that ICANN alternately invokes and ignores the multi-stakeholder model as it pleases to in order to advance the domain industry agenda. Governments, having given advice and been spurned on any initiative that is not convenient to the domain industry, feel compelled to resort to more aggressive tactics. Indeed, The USG may have concluded -- with substantial justification -- that ICANN's claims of "multi-stakeholder" only apply if those stakeholders come from a domain industry which has effectively captured ICANN policy making through threats, aggressive lobbying and support from empire-building senior staff. Certainly a survey of those ICANN stakeholders which do not profit from the buying or selling of domains -- ICANN's Advisory Committees and the non-contracted house of the GNSO -- would indicate deep dissatisfaction with the current direction. The ALAC still maintains the official position that the current gTLD application process is "unacceptable". Of course such public-interest advice has been largely ignored, because even before the GAC involvement ICANN has been acting as if it has had a gun to its head. How much of its policies, operations and corporate culture are currently based on risk management? In other words, the playing field has been badly unbalanced long before Strickland stuck his nose in. Years of structural imbalance, industry arrogance and multi-stakeholder lip-service is now meeting its match, at the hands of a spurned stakeholder returning with a bigger gun. The Singapore "Open the gTLD floodgates" party may yet happen, but I for one would not mourn its cancellation. - Evan On 7 May 2011 18:39, Antony Van Couvering <avc@namesatwork.com> wrote:

The position of the US Gov't seems to be that the multi-stakeholder model is fantastic, as long as ICANN follows GAC advice to the letter. Usually when someone is pointing a gun at you and telling you what to do, that's not called "multi-stakeholder" and it's not called "advice" either.

Antony

Not quite the action most would consider as definitive of a multistakeholder model. However, in the short term, it might be a necessary corrective for the skew identified to contracted parties in policy-making.

It is in the nature of governments that they do not defer to non-governmental entities. The sooner ICANN figures this out, the better. I also endorse Evan's lengthy note describing how ICANN has been entirely co-opted by the domain crowd. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly