Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and elequent piece<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/>on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process. In the context of this I must express my utter disgust at the way ALAC has let down its community on this issue. Its position on .XXX was "we don't care how you resolve it, but please do it quickly". Such a position agonises about the speed of the process, not how it was done nor in what direction to take it moving forward. NARALO took a strong position in favour of accepting the application for .XXX, but ALAC rejected that for its own and left the NARALO statement dangling as an appendix rather than putting forth the divergent approaches within its own position. This is not only sad, but it is the first complete direliction of duty by ALAC that I've witnessed since I've become involved in ICANN. I was told that ALAC members jumped on the part of the NARALO statement that many considered this to be a freedom of speech issue, and it seemed that this was a convenient excuse to ignore all of the other valid reasons why ALAC should have demanded ICANN follow its own rules and allow the domain. I understand that the term "freedom of speech" is a non-starter in many places around the world, and ALAC is a global body. But striking that element, there are the fundamental points that: 1) The role of governing content lies with the registry, not ICANN 2) Porn will exist on the Internet, in much the same amount, with or without .XXX 3) XXX is a euphemism anyway (amongst other things it's the name of beers in Canada and Australia, a 2002 non-porn action movie, and an American brand of soda) 4) (MOST IMPORTANTLY) ICM did everything that ICANN asked it to and played by the rules By not taking ICANN to task for its treatment of ICM, ALAC has shirked its responsibility to hold ICANN accountable for not following its own painfully-crafted rules, in one of the few really important things it's mandated to do. The new Accountability and Transparency working group -- of which Cheryl is the lone voice for the billions of Internet users -- met this past week amidst much hype. The ALAC Skype chat vacuumed in anyone with a skype account whose name anyone knew, willing or not, even many who'd never spend a nanosecond working with At-Large before. (I received private Skype messages from people asking "why the hell am I here"). Everyone was being asked to hang on every word of the meeting audio stream as if ICANN's very existence depended upon it. This was a lurking blitz of unprecedented proportion -- if only such engagement happened for ALAC processes! Yet I have serious concerns that it's all for show. We have many, many examples in our own experiences of how ICANN just tends to go its own way -- it finds a constituency that agrees with what it wanted to do and latches on to that. How many of the clear and specific requests coming out of the At-Large Summit have been responded to at all, let alone in a manner that satisfies the needs of ICANN's global community of users? Who has followed up? Is there any reason to believe that ICANN will do anything besides look at the list of recommendations of this over-hyped A&T committee, loudly enable the ones that don't really affect operations, while briefly acknowledging -- and then mangling or deferring or silently forgetting about -- the others? There have been accusations that ICANN staff drives the show and generally does what it wants regardless of public good. Many of these accusations have merit. But the ICANN Board has the ability to reign this in and has never had the courage to do so. So I don't fully blame staff for just doing what it can get away with. ALAC had, for one brief moment here, the chance to stand up and beg the ICANN Board to show such courage for once -- instead it offered a(nother) free pass, a bland motion that begs to be ignored. It's a tacit statement that not only does ICANN have nothing to to atone for in breaking its own rules, but that it did nothing wrong. One comment on the wiki even admonished against "rushing into a pro-.XXX stance". All ALAC seems to care about is that the mess -- regardless of how it got there or how it's resolved -- is cleaned up quickly. It's one thing for ICANN to ignore its community -- sometimes I just think of that as "ICANN being ICANN". But it's truly distressing when ALAC mimics the ICANN Board by itself showing cowardice in the face of challenge. We're better than that, I like to think. - Evan
Hi Evan thanks for this link and the discussion points you raise... Sorry that the ALAC Statement has caused you such disgust, but I fear you have mis-characterized its intent with your "quote" bellow "we don't care how you resolve it, but please do it quickly"[sic]. The ALAC Statement had to reflect the views of all our RALOs as they were represented to us by the three people from each of the 5 Regions and that can mean not all matters or points of regionally established consensus views or of individuals are reflected as specifically as each RALO might desire ends up in the draft text. Please note this is specifically why in this matter I stated 'as Chair of the ALAC' that all regional Statements or indeed comments forwarded by At-Large that were on the created Wiki space were to be appended to our ALAC Statement, and these can be found at https://st.icann.org/alac-docs/index.cgi?statement_on_icm_application_for_th... the ALAC Statement text is copied below for your ready reference and full context; but it IS specifically designed to focus on the matters of transparency and accountability, the independent review process itself and that ICANN's actions now must be defensible in the light of the thoroughness of these independent review panel processes to that end I have made some bold highlights to the text under vote to aid the emphasis of intended meaning and I'm happy to transmit such a similarly formatted version to the Public Comments list and the ICANN Board, with my communities approval.
From Wiki Drafy ALAC Statement text under current Vote BOLD emphasis placed here by me...
'On the issue of Possible Process Options for Further Consideration of the ICM Application for the .XXX sTLD, the At-Large Advisory Committee* (ALAC) is concerned with the transparency and accountability of the processes being undertaken.* We also note the considerable *time taken in and thoroughness of the independent review of this matter *and as such the ALAC supports that the process be carried *out in an expedient, equitable, and defensible manner taking into account the decision of the independent review panel*. We would like to see the issue *settled quickly with the necessary transparency *.' Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO) On 10 May 2010 00:48, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and elequent piece< http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/
on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process.
In the context of this I must express my utter disgust at the way ALAC has let down its community on this issue. Its position on .XXX was "we don't care how you resolve it, but please do it quickly". Such a position agonises about the speed of the process, not how it was done nor in what direction to take it moving forward.
NARALO took a strong position in favour of accepting the application for .XXX, but ALAC rejected that for its own and left the NARALO statement dangling as an appendix rather than putting forth the divergent approaches within its own position. This is not only sad, but it is the first complete direliction of duty by ALAC that I've witnessed since I've become involved in ICANN.
I was told that ALAC members jumped on the part of the NARALO statement that many considered this to be a freedom of speech issue, and it seemed that this was a convenient excuse to ignore all of the other valid reasons why ALAC should have demanded ICANN follow its own rules and allow the domain. I understand that the term "freedom of speech" is a non-starter in many places around the world, and ALAC is a global body. But striking that element, there are the fundamental points that: 1) The role of governing content lies with the registry, not ICANN 2) Porn will exist on the Internet, in much the same amount, with or without .XXX 3) XXX is a euphemism anyway (amongst other things it's the name of beers in Canada and Australia, a 2002 non-porn action movie, and an American brand of soda) 4) (MOST IMPORTANTLY) ICM did everything that ICANN asked it to and played by the rules
By not taking ICANN to task for its treatment of ICM, ALAC has shirked its responsibility to hold ICANN accountable for not following its own painfully-crafted rules, in one of the few really important things it's mandated to do.
The new Accountability and Transparency working group -- of which Cheryl is the lone voice for the billions of Internet users -- met this past week amidst much hype. The ALAC Skype chat vacuumed in anyone with a skype account whose name anyone knew, willing or not, even many who'd never spend a nanosecond working with At-Large before. (I received private Skype messages from people asking "why the hell am I here"). Everyone was being asked to hang on every word of the meeting audio stream as if ICANN's very existence depended upon it. This was a lurking blitz of unprecedented proportion -- if only such engagement happened for ALAC processes!
Yet I have serious concerns that it's all for show.
We have many, many examples in our own experiences of how ICANN just tends to go its own way -- it finds a constituency that agrees with what it wanted to do and latches on to that. How many of the clear and specific requests coming out of the At-Large Summit have been responded to at all, let alone in a manner that satisfies the needs of ICANN's global community of users? Who has followed up? Is there any reason to believe that ICANN will do anything besides look at the list of recommendations of this over-hyped A&T committee, loudly enable the ones that don't really affect operations, while briefly acknowledging -- and then mangling or deferring or silently forgetting about -- the others?
There have been accusations that ICANN staff drives the show and generally does what it wants regardless of public good. Many of these accusations have merit. But the ICANN Board has the ability to reign this in and has never had the courage to do so. So I don't fully blame staff for just doing what it can get away with.
ALAC had, for one brief moment here, the chance to stand up and beg the ICANN Board to show such courage for once -- instead it offered a(nother) free pass, a bland motion that begs to be ignored. It's a tacit statement that not only does ICANN have nothing to to atone for in breaking its own rules, but that it did nothing wrong. One comment on the wiki even admonished against "rushing into a pro-.XXX stance". All ALAC seems to care about is that the mess -- regardless of how it got there or how it's resolved -- is cleaned up quickly.
It's one thing for ICANN to ignore its community -- sometimes I just think of that as "ICANN being ICANN". But it's truly distressing when ALAC mimics the ICANN Board by itself showing cowardice in the face of challenge.
We're better than that, I like to think.
- Evan _______________________________________________ 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
On 09 May 2010, at 16:48, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and elequent piece<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/>on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process.
Thank you, Evan. I think all of us in the ALAC agree that ICANN has to follow its own processes. This is John's main point. Which is why, in the discussion, the ALAC also agreed not to talk about the content. That would only have contributed to blur the statement with something that is irrelevant to ICANN. Rather, we insisted on the need to respect the process and take into consideration the decision of the IRP.
In the context of this I must express my utter disgust at the way ALAC has let down its community on this issue.
NARALO took a strong position in favour of accepting the application for .XXX, but ALAC rejected that for its own and left the NARALO statement dangling as an appendix
Indeed, the minority statement from NARALO was included as an appendix, as were others. You could of course say the ALAC let down one *part* of its community by not adopting the NARALO statement as its own. Personal opinions of ALAC members may vary. For the record, my personal one was more along the lines of the NARALO statement. See http://forum.icann.org/lists/icm-options-report/msg00523.html and also featured on the ICM blog: http://www.icmregistry.com/blog/?p=10. However, the ALAC statement was an aggregate position of ALL its community. In the end, we ALAC have to find a language that every ALAC member can defend as a part of the group. This is called a compromise. We have had that in the past, and I do expect there will be others in the future. We need to speak as one voice. I personally feel that exposing our disagreements in public is counter-productive, and has largely contributed to the ALAC's lack of credibility in the past. This is not the present and future image we want to show. Patrick
Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and elequent piece<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/>on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process.
Don't miss Mike Roberts' response, which does a fine job of showing everyting that's wrong with ICANN's mindset. Process? What process? R's, John
I got a message from Richard Sexton http://bit.ly/cCVFRO who corrected some errors in your story. According to Sexton the .XXX TLD was proposed and rejected in 2000. You might want to check that. Also I had a look in my archives at the history behind .XXX. .XXX has been around since the 1996. It was first proposed to Jon Postel in 1995 by the American Information Network. But it was Eugene Kashpureff who was the first to launch .XXX in the Alternic Root. Shortly after Kashpureff hacked the Internic web site he had a falling out with his partner Jason Hendeles. They went to court and the court awarded title to the .XXX TLD to Jason. He then transferred his interests in the TLD to the ICM Registry. Here is an excerpt from the Postel 96 file also known as the "The IANA's File of iTLD Requests" published by Jon Postel on 5 December 1996. .XXX FORM 22 Sep 1995 18:29:12 American Information Network < nc@ai.net> .XXX MAIL 19 Jul 1996 19:00:06 Jason Itzler <jason@netrunner.net> .XXX FORM 31 Jul 1996 19:50:11 Jan K. Masek <JanKmasek@aol.com> .XXX LIST 12 Jul 1996 20:13:43 Eugene Kashpureff < ekashp@mrls.seanet.com> .XXX LIST 15 Jul 1996 12:28:40 Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> .XXX LIST 1 Aug 1996 14:07:27 <http://www.alternic.net> Hope that little bit of history helps. regards joe baptista On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 3:04 PM, John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and
elequent piece< http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/
on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process.
Don't miss Mike Roberts' response, which does a fine job of showing everyting that's wrong with ICANN's mindset. Process? What process?
R's, John
_______________________________________________ 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
-- Joe Baptista www.publicroot.org PublicRoot Consortium ---------------------------------------------------------------- The future of the Internet is Open, Transparent, Inclusive, Representative & Accountable to the Internet community @large. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Office: +1 (360) 526-6077 (extension 052) Fax: +1 (509) 479-0084 Personal: http://baptista.cynikal.net/
Good article. Exposes ICANN for what it is. regards joe baptista On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and elequent piece< http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/
on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process.
In the context of this I must express my utter disgust at the way ALAC has let down its community on this issue. Its position on .XXX was "we don't care how you resolve it, but please do it quickly". Such a position agonises about the speed of the process, not how it was done nor in what direction to take it moving forward.
NARALO took a strong position in favour of accepting the application for .XXX, but ALAC rejected that for its own and left the NARALO statement dangling as an appendix rather than putting forth the divergent approaches within its own position. This is not only sad, but it is the first complete direliction of duty by ALAC that I've witnessed since I've become involved in ICANN.
I was told that ALAC members jumped on the part of the NARALO statement that many considered this to be a freedom of speech issue, and it seemed that this was a convenient excuse to ignore all of the other valid reasons why ALAC should have demanded ICANN follow its own rules and allow the domain. I understand that the term "freedom of speech" is a non-starter in many places around the world, and ALAC is a global body. But striking that element, there are the fundamental points that: 1) The role of governing content lies with the registry, not ICANN 2) Porn will exist on the Internet, in much the same amount, with or without .XXX 3) XXX is a euphemism anyway (amongst other things it's the name of beers in Canada and Australia, a 2002 non-porn action movie, and an American brand of soda) 4) (MOST IMPORTANTLY) ICM did everything that ICANN asked it to and played by the rules
By not taking ICANN to task for its treatment of ICM, ALAC has shirked its responsibility to hold ICANN accountable for not following its own painfully-crafted rules, in one of the few really important things it's mandated to do.
The new Accountability and Transparency working group -- of which Cheryl is the lone voice for the billions of Internet users -- met this past week amidst much hype. The ALAC Skype chat vacuumed in anyone with a skype account whose name anyone knew, willing or not, even many who'd never spend a nanosecond working with At-Large before. (I received private Skype messages from people asking "why the hell am I here"). Everyone was being asked to hang on every word of the meeting audio stream as if ICANN's very existence depended upon it. This was a lurking blitz of unprecedented proportion -- if only such engagement happened for ALAC processes!
Yet I have serious concerns that it's all for show.
We have many, many examples in our own experiences of how ICANN just tends to go its own way -- it finds a constituency that agrees with what it wanted to do and latches on to that. How many of the clear and specific requests coming out of the At-Large Summit have been responded to at all, let alone in a manner that satisfies the needs of ICANN's global community of users? Who has followed up? Is there any reason to believe that ICANN will do anything besides look at the list of recommendations of this over-hyped A&T committee, loudly enable the ones that don't really affect operations, while briefly acknowledging -- and then mangling or deferring or silently forgetting about -- the others?
There have been accusations that ICANN staff drives the show and generally does what it wants regardless of public good. Many of these accusations have merit. But the ICANN Board has the ability to reign this in and has never had the courage to do so. So I don't fully blame staff for just doing what it can get away with.
ALAC had, for one brief moment here, the chance to stand up and beg the ICANN Board to show such courage for once -- instead it offered a(nother) free pass, a bland motion that begs to be ignored. It's a tacit statement that not only does ICANN have nothing to to atone for in breaking its own rules, but that it did nothing wrong. One comment on the wiki even admonished against "rushing into a pro-.XXX stance". All ALAC seems to care about is that the mess -- regardless of how it got there or how it's resolved -- is cleaned up quickly.
It's one thing for ICANN to ignore its community -- sometimes I just think of that as "ICANN being ICANN". But it's truly distressing when ALAC mimics the ICANN Board by itself showing cowardice in the face of challenge.
We're better than that, I like to think.
- Evan _______________________________________________ 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
-- Joe Baptista www.publicroot.org PublicRoot Consortium ---------------------------------------------------------------- The future of the Internet is Open, Transparent, Inclusive, Representative & Accountable to the Internet community @large. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Office: +1 (360) 526-6077 (extension 052) Fax: +1 (509) 479-0084 Personal: http://baptista.cynikal.net/
Well written! Darlene A. Thompson CAP Administrator Nunavut Department of Education/N-CAP P.O. Box 1000, Sation 910 Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0 Phone: (867) 975-5631 Fax: (867) 975-5610 E-mail: dthompson@gov.nu.ca ________________________________ From: at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org on behalf of Evan Leibovitch Sent: Sun 5/9/2010 10:48 AM To: ICANN At-Large list Subject: [At-Large] ICANN and .XXX -- the story behind the story Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and elequent piece<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/>on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process. In the context of this I must express my utter disgust at the way ALAC has let down its community on this issue. Its position on .XXX was "we don't care how you resolve it, but please do it quickly". Such a position agonises about the speed of the process, not how it was done nor in what direction to take it moving forward. NARALO took a strong position in favour of accepting the application for .XXX, but ALAC rejected that for its own and left the NARALO statement dangling as an appendix rather than putting forth the divergent approaches within its own position. This is not only sad, but it is the first complete direliction of duty by ALAC that I've witnessed since I've become involved in ICANN. I was told that ALAC members jumped on the part of the NARALO statement that many considered this to be a freedom of speech issue, and it seemed that this was a convenient excuse to ignore all of the other valid reasons why ALAC should have demanded ICANN follow its own rules and allow the domain. I understand that the term "freedom of speech" is a non-starter in many places around the world, and ALAC is a global body. But striking that element, there are the fundamental points that: 1) The role of governing content lies with the registry, not ICANN 2) Porn will exist on the Internet, in much the same amount, with or without .XXX 3) XXX is a euphemism anyway (amongst other things it's the name of beers in Canada and Australia, a 2002 non-porn action movie, and an American brand of soda) 4) (MOST IMPORTANTLY) ICM did everything that ICANN asked it to and played by the rules By not taking ICANN to task for its treatment of ICM, ALAC has shirked its responsibility to hold ICANN accountable for not following its own painfully-crafted rules, in one of the few really important things it's mandated to do. The new Accountability and Transparency working group -- of which Cheryl is the lone voice for the billions of Internet users -- met this past week amidst much hype. The ALAC Skype chat vacuumed in anyone with a skype account whose name anyone knew, willing or not, even many who'd never spend a nanosecond working with At-Large before. (I received private Skype messages from people asking "why the hell am I here"). Everyone was being asked to hang on every word of the meeting audio stream as if ICANN's very existence depended upon it. This was a lurking blitz of unprecedented proportion -- if only such engagement happened for ALAC processes! Yet I have serious concerns that it's all for show. We have many, many examples in our own experiences of how ICANN just tends to go its own way -- it finds a constituency that agrees with what it wanted to do and latches on to that. How many of the clear and specific requests coming out of the At-Large Summit have been responded to at all, let alone in a manner that satisfies the needs of ICANN's global community of users? Who has followed up? Is there any reason to believe that ICANN will do anything besides look at the list of recommendations of this over-hyped A&T committee, loudly enable the ones that don't really affect operations, while briefly acknowledging -- and then mangling or deferring or silently forgetting about -- the others? There have been accusations that ICANN staff drives the show and generally does what it wants regardless of public good. Many of these accusations have merit. But the ICANN Board has the ability to reign this in and has never had the courage to do so. So I don't fully blame staff for just doing what it can get away with. ALAC had, for one brief moment here, the chance to stand up and beg the ICANN Board to show such courage for once -- instead it offered a(nother) free pass, a bland motion that begs to be ignored. It's a tacit statement that not only does ICANN have nothing to to atone for in breaking its own rules, but that it did nothing wrong. One comment on the wiki even admonished against "rushing into a pro-.XXX stance". All ALAC seems to care about is that the mess -- regardless of how it got there or how it's resolved -- is cleaned up quickly. It's one thing for ICANN to ignore its community -- sometimes I just think of that as "ICANN being ICANN". But it's truly distressing when ALAC mimics the ICANN Board by itself showing cowardice in the face of challenge. We're better than that, I like to think. - Evan _______________________________________________ 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 <http://atlarge.icann.org/>
I agree, Evan. On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and elequent piece< http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/
on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process.
In the context of this I must express my utter disgust at the way ALAC has let down its community on this issue. Its position on .XXX was "we don't care how you resolve it, but please do it quickly". Such a position agonises about the speed of the process, not how it was done nor in what direction to take it moving forward.
NARALO took a strong position in favour of accepting the application for .XXX, but ALAC rejected that for its own and left the NARALO statement dangling as an appendix rather than putting forth the divergent approaches within its own position. This is not only sad, but it is the first complete direliction of duty by ALAC that I've witnessed since I've become involved in ICANN.
I was told that ALAC members jumped on the part of the NARALO statement that many considered this to be a freedom of speech issue, and it seemed that this was a convenient excuse to ignore all of the other valid reasons why ALAC should have demanded ICANN follow its own rules and allow the domain. I understand that the term "freedom of speech" is a non-starter in many places around the world, and ALAC is a global body. But striking that element, there are the fundamental points that: 1) The role of governing content lies with the registry, not ICANN 2) Porn will exist on the Internet, in much the same amount, with or without .XXX 3) XXX is a euphemism anyway (amongst other things it's the name of beers in Canada and Australia, a 2002 non-porn action movie, and an American brand of soda) 4) (MOST IMPORTANTLY) ICM did everything that ICANN asked it to and played by the rules
By not taking ICANN to task for its treatment of ICM, ALAC has shirked its responsibility to hold ICANN accountable for not following its own painfully-crafted rules, in one of the few really important things it's mandated to do.
The new Accountability and Transparency working group -- of which Cheryl is the lone voice for the billions of Internet users -- met this past week amidst much hype. The ALAC Skype chat vacuumed in anyone with a skype account whose name anyone knew, willing or not, even many who'd never spend a nanosecond working with At-Large before. (I received private Skype messages from people asking "why the hell am I here"). Everyone was being asked to hang on every word of the meeting audio stream as if ICANN's very existence depended upon it. This was a lurking blitz of unprecedented proportion -- if only such engagement happened for ALAC processes!
Yet I have serious concerns that it's all for show.
We have many, many examples in our own experiences of how ICANN just tends to go its own way -- it finds a constituency that agrees with what it wanted to do and latches on to that. How many of the clear and specific requests coming out of the At-Large Summit have been responded to at all, let alone in a manner that satisfies the needs of ICANN's global community of users? Who has followed up? Is there any reason to believe that ICANN will do anything besides look at the list of recommendations of this over-hyped A&T committee, loudly enable the ones that don't really affect operations, while briefly acknowledging -- and then mangling or deferring or silently forgetting about -- the others?
There have been accusations that ICANN staff drives the show and generally does what it wants regardless of public good. Many of these accusations have merit. But the ICANN Board has the ability to reign this in and has never had the courage to do so. So I don't fully blame staff for just doing what it can get away with.
ALAC had, for one brief moment here, the chance to stand up and beg the ICANN Board to show such courage for once -- instead it offered a(nother) free pass, a bland motion that begs to be ignored. It's a tacit statement that not only does ICANN have nothing to to atone for in breaking its own rules, but that it did nothing wrong. One comment on the wiki even admonished against "rushing into a pro-.XXX stance". All ALAC seems to care about is that the mess -- regardless of how it got there or how it's resolved -- is cleaned up quickly.
It's one thing for ICANN to ignore its community -- sometimes I just think of that as "ICANN being ICANN". But it's truly distressing when ALAC mimics the ICANN Board by itself showing cowardice in the face of challenge.
We're better than that, I like to think.
- Evan _______________________________________________ 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
-- ------------------------- RJ Glass A@L AmericaAtLarge.org
Evan: I know that on this issue we are in the same place philosophically. But I have to say that in your very passionate statement, you may have mis-characterized the official ALAC Statement. Since I am on record as voting for the ALAC statement PLUS fully supporting the more pointed NARALO one, maybe my explanation can provide some context. In the diplomatic business, they have a phrase: "a full and frank exchange of views". Loosely translated, it sometimes comes down to this: "stop pissing about and get on with it". Unfortunately, the ALAC may not be so undiplomatic. In context, our statement was crafted in exceedingly diplomatic language not only to recognize a lack of unanimity of views in the community but also to deny the usual kibbitzing around content this issue tends to generate. In context and on principle, the ALAC statement records that in this matter and with this our era of AoC, board action - or inaction - should properly be assessed against its commitment to "accountability and transparency". Here's why. All of ICANN's processes were followed in adjudicating this .XXX matter. And the outcome has incontestably been in favour of .XXX. This statement was the diplomatic way of saying "stop pissing about and get on with it". It also allowed for separate RALO-developed statements to be appended, the easiest way to mediate the lack of consensus opinion on an issue all of us consider important in one or other way. Now, in regard .XXX and free speech, this is the juncture at which my personal position rises to the top. I consider myself the only authority to decide what I might see or consume in content. And in context, I hold it loathsome for any man, woman or group to deny me a right to which I am born. Where I come from, this marks me as a civic American! Only yesterday this topic left me isolated at a workshop on ICT4D policy advocacy I attended as a expert adviser on policy development in a regulatory framework. Defense of free speech is the compelling issue that allows me to fully support NARALO's statement without hesitation. Carlton ================================ Carlton A Samuels Mobile: 876-818-1799 Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and elequent piece< http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/
on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process.
In the context of this I must express my utter disgust at the way ALAC has let down its community on this issue. Its position on .XXX was "we don't care how you resolve it, but please do it quickly". Such a position agonises about the speed of the process, not how it was done nor in what direction to take it moving forward.
NARALO took a strong position in favour of accepting the application for .XXX, but ALAC rejected that for its own and left the NARALO statement dangling as an appendix rather than putting forth the divergent approaches within its own position. This is not only sad, but it is the first complete direliction of duty by ALAC that I've witnessed since I've become involved in ICANN.
I was told that ALAC members jumped on the part of the NARALO statement that many considered this to be a freedom of speech issue, and it seemed that this was a convenient excuse to ignore all of the other valid reasons why ALAC should have demanded ICANN follow its own rules and allow the domain. I understand that the term "freedom of speech" is a non-starter in many places around the world, and ALAC is a global body. But striking that element, there are the fundamental points that: 1) The role of governing content lies with the registry, not ICANN 2) Porn will exist on the Internet, in much the same amount, with or without .XXX 3) XXX is a euphemism anyway (amongst other things it's the name of beers in Canada and Australia, a 2002 non-porn action movie, and an American brand of soda) 4) (MOST IMPORTANTLY) ICM did everything that ICANN asked it to and played by the rules
By not taking ICANN to task for its treatment of ICM, ALAC has shirked its responsibility to hold ICANN accountable for not following its own painfully-crafted rules, in one of the few really important things it's mandated to do.
The new Accountability and Transparency working group -- of which Cheryl is the lone voice for the billions of Internet users -- met this past week amidst much hype. The ALAC Skype chat vacuumed in anyone with a skype account whose name anyone knew, willing or not, even many who'd never spend a nanosecond working with At-Large before. (I received private Skype messages from people asking "why the hell am I here"). Everyone was being asked to hang on every word of the meeting audio stream as if ICANN's very existence depended upon it. This was a lurking blitz of unprecedented proportion -- if only such engagement happened for ALAC processes!
Yet I have serious concerns that it's all for show.
We have many, many examples in our own experiences of how ICANN just tends to go its own way -- it finds a constituency that agrees with what it wanted to do and latches on to that. How many of the clear and specific requests coming out of the At-Large Summit have been responded to at all, let alone in a manner that satisfies the needs of ICANN's global community of users? Who has followed up? Is there any reason to believe that ICANN will do anything besides look at the list of recommendations of this over-hyped A&T committee, loudly enable the ones that don't really affect operations, while briefly acknowledging -- and then mangling or deferring or silently forgetting about -- the others?
There have been accusations that ICANN staff drives the show and generally does what it wants regardless of public good. Many of these accusations have merit. But the ICANN Board has the ability to reign this in and has never had the courage to do so. So I don't fully blame staff for just doing what it can get away with.
ALAC had, for one brief moment here, the chance to stand up and beg the ICANN Board to show such courage for once -- instead it offered a(nother) free pass, a bland motion that begs to be ignored. It's a tacit statement that not only does ICANN have nothing to to atone for in breaking its own rules, but that it did nothing wrong. One comment on the wiki even admonished against "rushing into a pro-.XXX stance". All ALAC seems to care about is that the mess -- regardless of how it got there or how it's resolved -- is cleaned up quickly.
It's one thing for ICANN to ignore its community -- sometimes I just think of that as "ICANN being ICANN". But it's truly distressing when ALAC mimics the ICANN Board by itself showing cowardice in the face of challenge.
We're better than that, I like to think.
- Evan _______________________________________________ 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
Thanks to all for the hard work on these position papers. Best regards Vanda Vanda Scartezini from BlackBerry -----Original Message----- From: Carlton Samuels <carlton.samuels@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 17:28:47 To: At-Large Worldwide<at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: Re: [At-Large] ICANN and .XXX -- the story behind the story Evan: I know that on this issue we are in the same place philosophically. But I have to say that in your very passionate statement, you may have mis-characterized the official ALAC Statement. Since I am on record as voting for the ALAC statement PLUS fully supporting the more pointed NARALO one, maybe my explanation can provide some context. In the diplomatic business, they have a phrase: "a full and frank exchange of views". Loosely translated, it sometimes comes down to this: "stop pissing about and get on with it". Unfortunately, the ALAC may not be so undiplomatic. In context, our statement was crafted in exceedingly diplomatic language not only to recognize a lack of unanimity of views in the community but also to deny the usual kibbitzing around content this issue tends to generate. In context and on principle, the ALAC statement records that in this matter and with this our era of AoC, board action - or inaction - should properly be assessed against its commitment to "accountability and transparency". Here's why. All of ICANN's processes were followed in adjudicating this .XXX matter. And the outcome has incontestably been in favour of .XXX. This statement was the diplomatic way of saying "stop pissing about and get on with it". It also allowed for separate RALO-developed statements to be appended, the easiest way to mediate the lack of consensus opinion on an issue all of us consider important in one or other way. Now, in regard .XXX and free speech, this is the juncture at which my personal position rises to the top. I consider myself the only authority to decide what I might see or consume in content. And in context, I hold it loathsome for any man, woman or group to deny me a right to which I am born. Where I come from, this marks me as a civic American! Only yesterday this topic left me isolated at a workshop on ICT4D policy advocacy I attended as a expert adviser on policy development in a regulatory framework. Defense of free speech is the compelling issue that allows me to fully support NARALO's statement without hesitation. Carlton ================================ Carlton A Samuels Mobile: 876-818-1799 Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Longtime advocate and NARALO member John Levine has written a concise and elequent piece< http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100508_the_real_issue_about_icann_and_xxx/
on the real problems behind ICANN's handling of .XXX. I don't think I've read anything that I could more recommend to someone working within ICANN's policy process.
In the context of this I must express my utter disgust at the way ALAC has let down its community on this issue. Its position on .XXX was "we don't care how you resolve it, but please do it quickly". Such a position agonises about the speed of the process, not how it was done nor in what direction to take it moving forward.
NARALO took a strong position in favour of accepting the application for .XXX, but ALAC rejected that for its own and left the NARALO statement dangling as an appendix rather than putting forth the divergent approaches within its own position. This is not only sad, but it is the first complete direliction of duty by ALAC that I've witnessed since I've become involved in ICANN.
I was told that ALAC members jumped on the part of the NARALO statement that many considered this to be a freedom of speech issue, and it seemed that this was a convenient excuse to ignore all of the other valid reasons why ALAC should have demanded ICANN follow its own rules and allow the domain. I understand that the term "freedom of speech" is a non-starter in many places around the world, and ALAC is a global body. But striking that element, there are the fundamental points that: 1) The role of governing content lies with the registry, not ICANN 2) Porn will exist on the Internet, in much the same amount, with or without .XXX 3) XXX is a euphemism anyway (amongst other things it's the name of beers in Canada and Australia, a 2002 non-porn action movie, and an American brand of soda) 4) (MOST IMPORTANTLY) ICM did everything that ICANN asked it to and played by the rules
By not taking ICANN to task for its treatment of ICM, ALAC has shirked its responsibility to hold ICANN accountable for not following its own painfully-crafted rules, in one of the few really important things it's mandated to do.
The new Accountability and Transparency working group -- of which Cheryl is the lone voice for the billions of Internet users -- met this past week amidst much hype. The ALAC Skype chat vacuumed in anyone with a skype account whose name anyone knew, willing or not, even many who'd never spend a nanosecond working with At-Large before. (I received private Skype messages from people asking "why the hell am I here"). Everyone was being asked to hang on every word of the meeting audio stream as if ICANN's very existence depended upon it. This was a lurking blitz of unprecedented proportion -- if only such engagement happened for ALAC processes!
Yet I have serious concerns that it's all for show.
We have many, many examples in our own experiences of how ICANN just tends to go its own way -- it finds a constituency that agrees with what it wanted to do and latches on to that. How many of the clear and specific requests coming out of the At-Large Summit have been responded to at all, let alone in a manner that satisfies the needs of ICANN's global community of users? Who has followed up? Is there any reason to believe that ICANN will do anything besides look at the list of recommendations of this over-hyped A&T committee, loudly enable the ones that don't really affect operations, while briefly acknowledging -- and then mangling or deferring or silently forgetting about -- the others?
There have been accusations that ICANN staff drives the show and generally does what it wants regardless of public good. Many of these accusations have merit. But the ICANN Board has the ability to reign this in and has never had the courage to do so. So I don't fully blame staff for just doing what it can get away with.
ALAC had, for one brief moment here, the chance to stand up and beg the ICANN Board to show such courage for once -- instead it offered a(nother) free pass, a bland motion that begs to be ignored. It's a tacit statement that not only does ICANN have nothing to to atone for in breaking its own rules, but that it did nothing wrong. One comment on the wiki even admonished against "rushing into a pro-.XXX stance". All ALAC seems to care about is that the mess -- regardless of how it got there or how it's resolved -- is cleaned up quickly.
It's one thing for ICANN to ignore its community -- sometimes I just think of that as "ICANN being ICANN". But it's truly distressing when ALAC mimics the ICANN Board by itself showing cowardice in the face of challenge.
We're better than that, I like to think.
- Evan _______________________________________________ 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
Well said, Carlton. As you indicated, we are definitely in the same place. In light of that, and your thorough explanation of the backstory to the motion, I downgrade my statement of 'disgust' to one of mere disappointment that ALAC's regions could not have found more common ground on this issue. As I said, perhaps we erred in framing this as a 'free speech' issue, or indeed related to content at all. In any case, at the last NARALO meeting the issue was debated with the resulting consensus of no further action beyond supporting the statement as submitted. - Evan
participants (9)
-
Carlton Samuels -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr -
Evan Leibovitch -
Joe Baptista -
John R. Levine -
Patrick Vande Walle -
RJGlass | America＠Large -
Thompson, Darlene -
Vanda Scartezini