Friends on all the lists this reaches, here's a message I shared with the ICANN Board reflecting my personal concerns about the possibility of another "ICANN reform process" calling for yet another round of public-input-to-be-ignored:

Hi,

I'm aware that the Board is discussing the LSE report on GNSO reform, and hearing concern that reforms to increase Internet-user involvement should be driven bottom-up, rather than top-down. In that context, I wanted to share my personal views from longstanding involvement with ICANN and its at-large.

The problem with bottom-up development at this point is that it's bottomed out. Nearly everyone who's ever tried to get involved as an individual with ICANN has been turned away in frustration after spending thoughtful time and effort. Having had their suggestions rejected in previous reform processes, why should they spend any more time with a new one? This does not mean there are no individual concerns with ICANN issues, only that the opportunity cost of raising those concerns has gotten too high.

So now, almost the only people willing to be involved with ALAC are those who see it as a means to non-ICANN ends, such as greater respect for their local groups or activities. (Some of these are people of good will, and some of their ends are valuable, they're just not ICANN's issues and shouldn't be.)

ICANN needs a way to incorporate the feedback of its "customers," since there's no market competition restraining it.

I hope you'll take this in the productive spirit in which it's intended, and I look forward to further discussion. Thanks, --Wendy

-- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/