"Business" users (was Re: FW: Our choice for the ICANN Board)
Hi again, On 27 November 2010 12:37, Sivasubramanian M <isolatedn@gmail.com> wrote:
*As more and more at Large leadership positions are filled by people from
the business constituency, It is becoming very important for ALAC and
at
Large to preserve at Large as a user's constituency to TRULY balance the business stakeholder group. Any leadership position within ALAC and at Large should be occupied by persons with ample concern for the end user.*
I must say that I'm perplexed by the nature of this question, and I take it personally even though I am not a candidate for Director.
Please don't.
I've changed the subject because my response no longer has anything to do with the election of Director. I explain this in the hope of changing some attitudes -- not about Director, but on larger issues surrounding the very nature of At-Large. Here is why I take this statement very personally. I work for a University, but I also own my own consulting firm and I am a partner in a startup venture. On travel visa applications my occupation is just listed as "businessman" or "consultant". My name has also been put forward to become one of the coming year's ALAC Officers, which certainly qualifies as an "At-Large leadership position". So I ask... Am I one of these "people from the Business Constituency" who needs to be balanced by others from a "user's constituency"? What views have I expressed in any policy work that would lead anyone to believe that I don't advocate from a user's perspective by virtue of my being a businessman? To what extent do my views need to be balanced ... and by what? I am simply making the point here is that drawing such lines in At-Large between "business" and "non-business" is needlessly divisive and impedes our ability to make progress. While Chair of NARALO I made sure that there were Conflict of Interest guidelines and that all individual users have to submit Statements of Interest. Employees, owners and agents of contracted parties may not serve any NARALO leadership position. I don't know what other regions did but that was our approach. As far as I am concerned, a business association (not primarily involved with Internet infrastructure business) has as much right to be an ALS as a non-governmental agency or ISOC chapter, and deserves as much respect for its views. That is what At-Large is all about. End-users take many forms and it it dangerous to spend too much effort segmenting them. The only business users that concerns At-Large are those that have contractual relationships with ICANN, those who want to have such relationships, and their resellers and agents. IMO we need to acknowledge that At-Large means essentially everyone who is *not* a contracted party. We're all end-users and our voices all count.The president of Citibank has to use his computer just like you or me, and is affected by spam and phishing as much as us. IMO segmenting end-users, and going as far as saying the views of some users must be "balanced" by others, is what I find bothersome. Please reconsider this approach ... not just with regard to the Board member, but towards At-Large in general. - Evan
....here again, another reason why I reflexively distrust orthodoxy and all those that claim to be keepers of the seal! FWIW, your road to salvation matters little to me, just the salvation. It is for good reason then why I will always accord anyone his/her right to believe his/her own set of myths. So long as you would not demand that I value yours above that of the other fella. Apropos, I teach at the university, I provide consulting services to commercial clients, governments and multilateral institutions for fee. I do voluntary work as a member in good standing of ICT4D Jamaica and several NGOs concerned with education and technology use in education. I serve on the boards of two institutions concerned with education and training. I'm from an academic institution that has 53K students spread over lots of rocks, big and small, in 3M square miles of sea. I double dare anyone to tell me I do not and cannot represent "user" interests. Carlton ============================== Carlton A Samuels Mobile: 876-818-1799 Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround ============================= On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 5:11 PM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Hi again,
On 27 November 2010 12:37, Sivasubramanian M <isolatedn@gmail.com> wrote:
*As more and more at Large leadership positions are filled by people
from
the business constituency, It is becoming very important for ALAC and at Large to preserve at Large as a user's constituency to TRULY balance the business stakeholder group. Any leadership position within ALAC and at Large should be occupied by persons with ample concern for the end user.*
I must say that I'm perplexed by the nature of this question, and I take it personally even though I am not a candidate for Director.
Please don't.
I've changed the subject because my response no longer has anything to do with the election of Director. I explain this in the hope of changing some attitudes -- not about Director, but on larger issues surrounding the very nature of At-Large.
Here is why I take this statement very personally.
I work for a University, but I also own my own consulting firm and I am a partner in a startup venture. On travel visa applications my occupation is just listed as "businessman" or "consultant".
My name has also been put forward to become one of the coming year's ALAC Officers, which certainly qualifies as an "At-Large leadership position".
So I ask... Am I one of these "people from the Business Constituency" who needs to be balanced by others from a "user's constituency"? What views have I expressed in any policy work that would lead anyone to believe that I don't advocate from a user's perspective by virtue of my being a businessman? To what extent do my views need to be balanced ... and by what?
I am simply making the point here is that drawing such lines in At-Large between "business" and "non-business" is needlessly divisive and impedes our ability to make progress. While Chair of NARALO I made sure that there were Conflict of Interest guidelines and that all individual users have to submit Statements of Interest. Employees, owners and agents of contracted parties may not serve any NARALO leadership position. I don't know what other regions did but that was our approach. As far as I am concerned, a business association (not primarily involved with Internet infrastructure business) has as much right to be an ALS as a non-governmental agency or ISOC chapter, and deserves as much respect for its views. That is what At-Large is all about. End-users take many forms and it it dangerous to spend too much effort segmenting them. The only business users that concerns At-Large are those that have contractual relationships with ICANN, those who want to have such relationships, and their resellers and agents.
IMO we need to acknowledge that At-Large means essentially everyone who is *not* a contracted party. We're all end-users and our voices all count.The president of Citibank has to use his computer just like you or me, and is affected by spam and phishing as much as us. IMO segmenting end-users, and going as far as saying the views of some users must be "balanced" by others, is what I find bothersome. Please reconsider this approach ... not just with regard to the Board member, but towards At-Large in general.
- Evan _______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large
At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
On 11/27/2010 02:11 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
IMO we need to acknowledge that At-Large means essentially everyone who is *not* a contracted party.
In the At-Large review report (from which the director seat being filled emerged) we took an even more expansive view - that the at-large consists of people (natural persons as opposed to legal fictions such as corporations) who are affected by the internet. That definition leaves only an diminishing population outside the scope of the at-large. As to the point being discussed here - most of us are people who are intertwined with "the economy". It would be almost impossible to find a person who does not in some way engage in economic activity - (and I doubt that we would want such a person even if we could find one.) Part of the job of being a director is to be introspective to understand from whence one's motivations and opinions arise. A good director is able to separate his/her own private gainful drives from those of representing (or rather, synthesizing from a massive number of diverse and conflicting inputs) the opinions of the community of internet users. Being involved in business as a principal is not, at least not in my mind, a disqualifying characteristic. One of the reasons why I pound again and again on the idea that a director ought to publish a timely statement of how and why he/she reached each decision is that such a statement allows "the community" to view and, if necessary, make an expression that would allow a good director to revisit his/her methods of making decisions. A director *will* make mistakes. The measure of a good director is whether he/she is able to interact with the community to better conform his/her choices to the opinion of community. (A good director may sometimes chose to go against the opinion of the community, but he/she ought to express a strong reason why.) --karl--
On 27 November 2010 18:56, Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com> wrote:
On 11/27/2010 02:11 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
IMO we need to acknowledge that At-Large means essentially everyone who is *not* a contracted party.
In the At-Large review report (from which the director seat being filled emerged) we took an even more expansive view - that the at-large consists of people (natural persons as opposed to legal fictions such as corporations) who are affected by the internet.
This is true, but the infrastructure requirement of the ALS in most regions means that at least structurally, those legal fictions have a core role. Whether NGO, trade union. board of trade, professional society, computer club, or something else ... such aggregators of people are a core component of the chain used to (in theory) pass information down and policy up.
That definition leaves only an diminishing population outside the scope of the at-large.
Indeed. One remaining question I have in this regard is: where do registrants fit in? Many individuals are registrants, as are many "legal fictions". They participate in the ICANN food chain at the bottom, the primary direct source of revenue that drives and funds the activities of contracted parties and ICANN itself. They are directly impacted by the RAA, Vertical Integration, PEDNR, trademark policies and the diversity of TLD choices. They are simultaneously consumers (as in, these are the purchasers of domains) and suppliers (by using these domains to supply information, sell things and present advertising to non-registrant end-users). And they also include domainers, a sub-category that treats domains not as identity but as mere commodity who arguably profit from ICANN policy by creating artificial scarcity but without adding any value. I often wonder if registrants are sufficiently represented in ICANN as stakeholders that may have a slightly different agenda. Were the BC and NCUC supposed to be the soapboxes for registrants? The makeup and agendas of these constituencies (as I understand them) don't always fit those roles. So I ask: Is At-Large charged with the task of represent the interest of registrants, the tiny proportion of the public at large that owns domains? Is that to be found in the "User House" of GNSO? Is the registrant lost in the gap between registrar and end-user? If so, how can this be fixed? - Evan
It has been my, perhaps naive, idea that At-Large represents Internet users as a whole in ICANN matters as a whole, including interests that are beyond the GNSO. Thus there is not a conflict of an ALS such as ISOC-NY participating more directly in the GNSO via the NCUC, but also interacting more widely via At-Large. That broad tent of individual users I would consider includes even contracted parties included as well as registrants and end-users. At-large's role is to look out for everybody and particularly those that are under-represented in the GNSO, which some might argue, registrants currently are. If that's the case we should be looking to redress that, while keeping in mind it is always At-Large's responsibility to speak up for end-users. j On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 1:19 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
So I ask: Is At-Large charged with the task of represent the interest of registrants, the tiny proportion of the public at large that owns domains? Is that to be found in the "User House" of GNSO? Is the registrant lost in the gap between registrar and end-user? If so, how can this be fixed?
-- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com Secretary - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org ---------------------------------------------------------------
On 11/27/2010 10:19 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
I often wonder if registrants are sufficiently represented in ICANN as stakeholders
"Registrants" have contracts that define their rights and duties. It is a shame, and indeed worse - it is scandalous - that ICANN does not grant to registrants what are called "third party beneficiary" rights that would allow registrants to require Registrars and Registries to live up to the obligations imposed upon them by their own contracts with ICANN. But at least registrants have some grounds to stand upon; they have "standing" to be recognized and heard. Internet users within ICANN have none. ICANN's policies are often justified from the effect of a given practice not on name registrants but on internet users and other third parties. For example the huge brouhaha about Verisign's Sitefinder was largely argued on the basis of how it would impact internet users rather than name registrants. Similarly, whois policy is argued by ICANN on reasons pertaining to trademark protection and law enforcement, neither of which are necessarily registrants. In such an ICANN who is there to speak for these users and third parties? For users the answer is no one. (For law enforcement and trademark protection ICANN has created welcome mats.) Looking at the at-large as a mouthpiece for name registrants is to essentially subtract from its power to be a voice for internet users. Moreover, ICANN's role encompasses more than domain names; ICANN also covers IP addresses. An IP addresses is a more basic requirement for internet use than is a domain name. An ICANN at large that sees itself only in the reflected light of domain names is an ICANN at-large that is walking on one leg and fighting with one arm. By-the-way, in my dictionary the word "stakeholder" is a pejorative - it is a polite bundling of Freddy the Pig's line in Animal Farm that some animals are more equal than others. We have seen in ICANN how the "stakeholder" game gives some people multiple voices - as registries and registrars and technicians and intellectual property protectors and commercial groups - in addition to whatever voice they may have as natural people. That contrary to the democratic idea that to one man/woman goes one vote and only one vote. --karl--
participants (4)
-
Carlton Samuels -
Evan Leibovitch -
Joly MacFie -
Karl Auerbach