Wrapping up the thread/discussion - Apoligies
I wanted to not post any further messages related to the topic on the list, but specific private comments from Evan and others have made me post one last message. First, If my comments offended you veni - well, I do apologize. Secondly, my recent posts on the issue of the fall meeting and internet freedom and how it can be discussed inside ICANN, come not as a result of a "Red Bull binge" as some might suggest - but after consultation and discussion with numerous internet experts, users and NGOs at last week's computers, Freedom & Privacy conference at Yale University. Specifically, the request that ICANN comment on rights at the upcoming Egypt meeting came from the session on Internet Freedom & during the open discussion on technology policy recommendations to the new US administration. Ref: http://www.cfp2008.org/ http://cfp.wikia.com/wiki/CFP08 Thought many on this list might not believe internet freedom should be discussed inside ICANN, suffice it to say that others have a different opinion. I've posted a specific proposal. If there's no support among At-large or regionally at NA RALO, then i will not comment further on this list. regards Robert
Robert Guerra wrote:
my recent posts on the issue of the fall meeting and internet freedom and how it can be discussed inside ICANN, come not as a result of a "Red Bull binge" as some might suggest - but after consultation and discussion with numerous internet experts, users and NGOs at last week's computers, Freedom & Privacy conference at Yale University. Specifically, the request that ICANN comment on rights at the upcoming Egypt meeting came from the session on Internet Freedom & during the open discussion on technology policy recommendations to the new US administration.
Perhaps the real challenge is educating groups such as the CFP attendees about the actual -- as opposed to wishful thinking -- objectives of ICANN. Indeed, isn't that one of the explicit mandates of At-Large -- educating the public, and dispelling myths, about ICANN? Are you fulfilling your role, as a sitting member of ALAC, by allowing unchallenged the myth that ICANN's mandate includes issues such as Internet content censorship?
Thought many on this list might not believe internet freedom should be discussed inside ICANN, suffice it to say that others have a different opinion.
How benevolent of them. How many of those others understand the limits of ICANN's mandate? How many of this mainly-US audience was understanding of the diverse needs of ICANN's global community? What did you do, as a member of ALAC, to educate them? I note that if someone does a search for "ICANN" at http://cfp.wikia.com/wiki/CFP08 one sees only a single match; a single participant' s vague lumping of ICANN together with WIPO, WTO and other "governance institutions". Hardly a call to arms. Just as well, too. - Evan
Thought many on this list might not believe internet freedom should be discussed inside ICANN, suffice it to say that others have a different opinion.
Um, does that mean that if I get a bunch of my friends to caucus and decide that ICANN should address access to clean water, they have to do that, too? We are all painfully aware how poor the general understanding is of ICANN's limited areas of responsibility and authority. I can't say that I'm astonished that people who attended CFP are no better informed on that point than anyone else. R's, John PS: I'll stop now, too.
John Levine wrote:
Um, does that mean that if I get a bunch of my friends to caucus and decide that ICANN should address access to clean water, they have to do that, too?
Sorry to throw fuel on a dying fire, but I think the answer to the question has to be yes. ICANN isn't just an institution, it is us. We give it life and in most respects, we set the mandate. I think if you have enough friends that agree that ICANN should do something, then I think the organization should be equipped to incorporate that. In other words, we set ICANN's original mandate and we should be involved in its evolution. I don't think that we'll ever get enough people to agree that ICANN's mandate includes ensuring access to clean water, but there might be a point in the future where we do get broad agreement around ICANN's role dealing with content and censorship issues. For the record, I'm not likely to be one of those people, but I thought it was worth pointing out the principle that we can change ICANN. /r
Ross Rader wrote:
ICANN isn't just an institution, it is us. We give it life and in most respects, we set the mandate. As of this moment we (ie, At-Large) don't even have a single vote at the board. Hard to see how we set the mandate.
I think if you have enough friends that agree that ICANN should do something, then I think the organization should be equipped to incorporate that.
You mean like the way the IP constituency has used ICANN to exceed conventional treaties in application of trademark restrictions? Or how politics trumped tech in the application for .XXX? Just because I can observe distasteful extensions of ICANN's mandate by other groups, does not mean I want to add to the problem in favour of my own pet agenda. If anything I'd like to reduce the existing level of politics and narrow the focus, not broaden it. - Evan
All I'm saying is that I think it would serve our purposes to take a broader, less cynical view of the role that the community has in setting ICANN's agenda and mandate. Evan Leibovitch wrote:
Ross Rader wrote:
ICANN isn't just an institution, it is us. We give it life and in most respects, we set the mandate. As of this moment we (ie, At-Large) don't even have a single vote at the board. Hard to see how we set the mandate.
I think if you have enough friends that agree that ICANN should do something, then I think the organization should be equipped to incorporate that.
You mean like the way the IP constituency has used ICANN to exceed conventional treaties in application of trademark restrictions? Or how politics trumped tech in the application for .XXX?
Just because I can observe distasteful extensions of ICANN's mandate by other groups, does not mean I want to add to the problem in favour of my own pet agenda. If anything I'd like to reduce the existing level of politics and narrow the focus, not broaden it.
- Evan
Ross Rader wrote:
All I'm saying is that I think it would serve our purposes to take a broader, less cynical view of the role that the community has in setting ICANN's agenda and mandate.
I hear you. It's just that At-Large is still teething. We can barely wrap our collective heads around the narrow issues such as domain tasting, new gTLDs and IDNs. (*you* say "fast flux" quickly ten times...) Until not very long ago procedure dominated policy as At-Large's collective time-suck. Much of the top layer of At-Large is still distressingly elitist, but things are improving. Slowly. Things are starting to gel, but we're still some distance from what I would consider the maturity necessary to be consistently taken seriously as the "voice of the public" by the rest of ICANN. In other words, I'd like see ALAC achieve its existing mandate before even considering to take on more. And I don't even think I can see that far ahead... - Evan
Just wanted to share something I posted on the governance list with regard to Robert's post. -- Bret Begin forwarded message: I believe in the power of making statements. I believe that making statements about what is right and just is both good in and of itself and sometimes has the power to create change for the better in the world. The participants in ICANN ought to know that the presence of an ICANN meeting in a host country is used by many inside that country as a sign that they are doing something right. If Egypt, or any host country for that matter, is filtering Internet access or otherwise abusing its gateways to prevent or impair end-to-end communications between users of the world, that is something that, in my view, ought to be publicized and condemned. We ought not let the presence of an ICANN meeting be misused, by those who would deny Internet access to others, as a symbol that they are doing the right thing. I don't know what the Internet in Egypt looks like, but I will certainly investigate that before the Cairo meeting. Certainly filtering is not an ICANN issue, but the celebration of the local Internet community always accompanies an ICANN meeting. While I wouldn't necessarily expect ICANN, as a corporation, to make any statements about the host community's Internet policies and practices on filtering, I would applaud ICANN _as a community_ for making a statement about what is right and just. -- Bret
Bret, Can we all try to limit cross-posting from different mailing lists? Needless to say, the IG caucus list is the perfect place for such a discussion, and not the ALAC one, as we know that at the IGC there are people who are experts in everything. For the record, ONI says there's no Internet filtering in Egypt: http://opennet.net/research/profiles/egypt best, veni
from the Far East, I see both points from Ross and Evan, and somewhat trying to agree with both - To me, what Ross is saying is, in principle we set the agenda, be active and responsible. I agree with this. What Evan is saying is "first thing first". We better do the immediate home work, which is not there yet. I also agree and admit that. Both are right. Now, what Robert and CFP folks tried to indentify about the Internet Free speech, I don't see any immediate need to address this issue at our Ciaro meeting - unless there is clear and burning evidence that it affects the global ICANN community under our mandate, which I cannot find it. Different countries have different situation and values, and it is not easy for outsiders to judge these without having careful and meaningful dialogues with local partners and stakeholders. So, unless our Middle East AtLarge folks and their friends make clear and simple case, I think we better not push it that much. Thanks Robert, and all others, izumi P.S. I didn't mind much about "cross-posting" this time. I do not read ALL Governance list stuff, and in this case it was helpful for me to read it. 2008/5/28 Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org>:
Ross Rader wrote:
All I'm saying is that I think it would serve our purposes to take a broader, less cynical view of the role that the community has in setting ICANN's agenda and mandate.
I hear you. It's just that At-Large is still teething. We can barely wrap our collective heads around the narrow issues such as domain tasting, new gTLDs and IDNs. (*you* say "fast flux" quickly ten times...) Until not very long ago procedure dominated policy as At-Large's collective time-suck. Much of the top layer of At-Large is still distressingly elitist, but things are improving. Slowly.
Things are starting to gel, but we're still some distance from what I would consider the maturity necessary to be consistently taken seriously as the "voice of the public" by the rest of ICANN.
In other words, I'd like see ALAC achieve its existing mandate before even considering to take on more. And I don't even think I can see that far ahead...
- Evan
At 19:35 27/05/2008, Ross Rader wrote:
All I'm saying is that I think it would serve our purposes to take a broader, less cynical view of the role that the community has in setting ICANN's agenda and mandate
ICANN as two missions. (1) To manage the IANA function. Something everyone could do. (2) Make believe it does it better than others, in order to address some real needs (network stability, US strategy, staff employment, registrar industry, etc.). Any proposition making ICANN more credible/stable as a IANA operator is good for it to take. Other can be confusing. A rule of thumb, it may be interesting to consider : if a considered role could remain interesting to assume even if ICANN was no more in charge of IANA, I tend to think it would be counterproductive. It would most probably lead to confusion at some stage. The risk, as I noted yesterday, is that ICANN does not adapt to the IANA architectural evolution. I am quite worried by the lack of concern of ALAC in that area. ALAC should be the first to report possible trend changes or events. For example, has ALAC discussed and reported to BoD about: - Web.2.0 impact on DNS usage (amy before I joined)? - ghost root server issue related concerns? For months the Internet could have been put to a progressive stop through DNS core pollution. Have ALS questionned their members on what they think of it and if there is an impact on their way to consider the net. What are their corporate/national plan B? Do they know their real dependance on the root servers system. Do they know the quantity of intelligence they leak through it? jfc
I don't know... (I really don't have a firm opinion on this) I'm just harkening back to the .xxx debate. In my mind, it was a good example of ICANN stepping outside of its role and taking part in a debate that was completely outside of its mandate. IMHO, if the .xxx people had all of their ducks in a row as per ICANN's rules, they should have been able to register that domain name. Instead there was this huge issue about morality (which is totally outside of ICANN's mandate). So, how far is this to be taken? Yes, I think that censorship is wrong but I don't think that this is the correct forum - similarly to John's drinking water point. Yes, we can and should change things from within but bringing up issues that are completely outside of ICANN's responsibility, no matter how important that they may be, only clouds why we are here in the first place. Oh, and Jeffrey, I know that you are being censored but that is because you will not comply with ALAC's well stated codes of conduct so don't bother using this e-mail for your handler's further diatribe. D Darlene A. Thompson Community Access Program Administrator Nunavut Dept. of Education / N-CAP P.O. Box 1000, Station 910 Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0 Phone: (867) 975-5631 Fax: (867) 975-5610 E-mail: dthompson@gov.nu.ca -----Original Message----- From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Ross Rader Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 1:10 PM To: John Levine Cc: At-Large Worldwide Subject: Re: [At-Large] Wrapping up the thread/discussion - Apoligies John Levine wrote:
Um, does that mean that if I get a bunch of my friends to caucus and decide that ICANN should address access to clean water, they have to do that, too?
Sorry to throw fuel on a dying fire, but I think the answer to the question has to be yes. ICANN isn't just an institution, it is us. We give it life and in most respects, we set the mandate. I think if you have enough friends that agree that ICANN should do something, then I think the organization should be equipped to incorporate that. In other words, we set ICANN's original mandate and we should be involved in its evolution. I don't think that we'll ever get enough people to agree that ICANN's mandate includes ensuring access to clean water, but there might be a point in the future where we do get broad agreement around ICANN's role dealing with content and censorship issues. For the record, I'm not likely to be one of those people, but I thought it was worth pointing out the principle that we can change ICANN. /r _______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann .org At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
Darlene I don't think Jeffrey is being censored - it's his behaviour that's being censured :) cen·sure 1*:* a judgment involving condemnation 2/ archaic/ *:* opinion, judgment 3*:* the act of blaming or condemning sternly 4*:* an official reprimand Jacqueline Thompson, Darlene wrote:
Oh, and Jeffrey, I know that you are being censored but that is because you will not comply with ALAC's well stated codes of conduct so don't bother using this e-mail for your handler's further diatribe.
D
Precisely - sorry for the sloppy English! It's a little scary that I also work for the Department of Education, eh? :) D Darlene A. Thompson Community Access Program Administrator Nunavut Dept. of Education / N-CAP P.O. Box 1000, Station 910 Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0 Phone: (867) 975-5631 Fax: (867) 975-5610 E-mail: dthompson@gov.nu.ca -----Original Message----- From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Jacqueline A. Morris Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 1:57 PM To: Thompson, Darlene Cc: At-Large Worldwide Subject: Re: [At-Large] Wrapping up the thread/discussion - Apoligies Darlene I don't think Jeffrey is being censored - it's his behaviour that's being censured :) cen*sure 1*:* a judgment involving condemnation 2/ archaic/ *:* opinion, judgment 3*:* the act of blaming or condemning sternly 4*:* an official reprimand Jacqueline Thompson, Darlene wrote:
Oh, and Jeffrey, I know that you are being censored but that is
because
you will not comply with ALAC's well stated codes of conduct so don't bother using this e-mail for your handler's further diatribe.
D
_______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann .org At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
Darlene,
(I really don't have a firm opinion on this) I'm just harkening back to the .xxx debate. In my mind, it was a good example of ICANN stepping outside of its role and taking part in a debate that was completely outside of its mandate. IMHO, if the .xxx people had all of their ducks in a row as per ICANN's rules, they should have been able to register that domain name. Instead there was this huge issue about morality (which is totally outside of ICANN's mandate). So, how far is this to be taken?
To set the record straight, I did vote against the delegation of the TLD, but not at all because of moral issues. When the story begun, I was still ALAC Liaison. Since I had no precise mandate to present a specific position, I expressed my own opinion in the Board discussion, which was that in the case of a sponsored TLD one of the key element was the consensus of the sponsored community. For a number of reasons, this was not the case for triple-x. Just consider simply the fact that most sites with adult content would not go to a specific TLD, exactly to avoid ghettization, and easy filtering. They want to reach the widest possible audience, and therefore would not accept being in an easily identifiable corner. This was my reason since the beginning. Coherently with this position, expressed over the many months during which this saga continued, I cast my vote against it when time came, as in the meantime I have become a voting director. This said, I agree completely with you that the matter got politicized, and ICANN took the risk to act outside of its mandate. But the first move in this direction was not at all the consideration of moral opportunity, but the campaign promoted in favour of triple-x, with the (in my opinion bogus) consideration that delegation was necessary in order to promote free speech. I don't want to now reopen the debate of free speech vs. TLDs, and repeat things I have stated so many times, but would like only to note that the debate was derailed from the simple compliance to the charter to a broader (out-of-ICANN-scope) issue not by the opponents to the TLD for (in my opinion bogus) moral reasons, as they came into the picture only later, but by the folks who favoured the TLD for political reasons, who started campaigning from day one. Best regards, Roberto
Hi all I have already expressed my position against this in our meetings and have also stressed a little my position with the staff responsible for the implementation. I hope they will consider the community voices ( not only ALAC was against it) and skip the step when designing the final process. rgs Vanda Scartezini Polo Consultores Associados Alameda Santos 1470 #1407 Tel - +55113266.6253 Mob- +55118181.1464 vanda@uol.com.br Before print think about the Environment "The information contained in this message - and attached files - is restricted, and its confidentiality protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message and notify the sender immediately. Please be advised that the improper use of the aforementioned information will create grounds for legal action." "As informações existentes nesta mensagem e nos arquivos anexados são para uso restrito, com sigilo protegido por lei. Caso não seja o destinatário, favor apagar esta mensagem e notificar o remetente. O uso impróprio das informações desta mensagem será tratado conforme a legislação em vigor." -----Mensagem original----- De: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] Em nome de Roberto Gaetano Enviada em: quarta-feira, 28 de maio de 2008 13:08 Para: 'Thompson, Darlene'; 'Ross Rader'; 'John Levine' Cc: 'At-Large Worldwide' Assunto: [At-Large] The triple-x issue - Was: RE: Wrapping up thethread/discussion - Apoligies Darlene,
(I really don't have a firm opinion on this) I'm just harkening back to the .xxx debate. In my mind, it was a good example of ICANN stepping outside of its role and taking part in a debate that was completely outside of its mandate. IMHO, if the .xxx people had all of their ducks in a row as per ICANN's rules, they should have been able to register that domain name. Instead there was this huge issue about morality (which is totally outside of ICANN's mandate). So, how far is this to be taken?
To set the record straight, I did vote against the delegation of the TLD, but not at all because of moral issues. When the story begun, I was still ALAC Liaison. Since I had no precise mandate to present a specific position, I expressed my own opinion in the Board discussion, which was that in the case of a sponsored TLD one of the key element was the consensus of the sponsored community. For a number of reasons, this was not the case for triple-x. Just consider simply the fact that most sites with adult content would not go to a specific TLD, exactly to avoid ghettization, and easy filtering. They want to reach the widest possible audience, and therefore would not accept being in an easily identifiable corner. This was my reason since the beginning. Coherently with this position, expressed over the many months during which this saga continued, I cast my vote against it when time came, as in the meantime I have become a voting director. This said, I agree completely with you that the matter got politicized, and ICANN took the risk to act outside of its mandate. But the first move in this direction was not at all the consideration of moral opportunity, but the campaign promoted in favour of triple-x, with the (in my opinion bogus) consideration that delegation was necessary in order to promote free speech. I don't want to now reopen the debate of free speech vs. TLDs, and repeat things I have stated so many times, but would like only to note that the debate was derailed from the simple compliance to the charter to a broader (out-of-ICANN-scope) issue not by the opponents to the TLD for (in my opinion bogus) moral reasons, as they came into the picture only later, but by the folks who favoured the TLD for political reasons, who started campaigning from day one. Best regards, Roberto
participants (12)
-
Bret Fausett -
Evan Leibovitch -
Izumi AIZU -
Jacqueline A. Morris -
JFC Morfin -
John Levine -
Robert Guerra -
Roberto Gaetano -
Ross Rader -
Thompson, Darlene -
Vanda Scartezini UOL -
Veni Markovski