Re: [At-Large] [NA-Discuss] GNSO reform and ALAC
Evan, The ALAC has participated in a joint statement without any consultative engagement with its own membership; such behavior should not be countenanced -- the final Statement is posted here: http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-improvements-report-2008/msg00012.html regards, Danny --- Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Hello everyone,
For reasons that are unclear to me, there is a document being drafted on a proposed revision to the GNSO to allow for some sort of "public" representation that has come up with some very strange conclusions. Here is an early draft of the document:
http://www.ipconstituency.org/PDFs/Position%20to%20Board%20on%20GNSO%20Refor...
A more recent version of the draft has essentially gutted ALAC's role and calls for some sort of direct participation by ALSs. The truly amazing thing is that this is being advanced as having the support of ALAC itself!
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ispcp/msg00413.html
Compounding the problem is that the closing of public comments is this week -- and the fact that the document is still in flux!! How can "the public" adequately address a moving target in this manner?
Frankly, not only the document but the process that has produced it is flawed to the point of causing distress. I've now heard from Beau and Wendy (who have sopken up on the internal ALAC list -- why is it being debated there?) and Danny (in personal contact with me). I am asking one or more of you to help craft a NARALO position that we can submit this week. I will do my best to help but I will likely be incapacitated for most of the rest of this week because of surgery.
Both the document (at least in its current form) and the process that developed it IMO should not be submitted as something with widespread -- let alone universal -- public support. Can some folks here please get together to draft something upon which NARALO can get a consensus statement and submit before the deadline?
Thanks!
- Evan
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Danny Younger wrote:
The ALAC has participated in a joint statement without any consultative engagement with its own membership; such behavior should not be countenanced -- the final Statement is posted here: http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-improvements-report-2008/msg00012.html
I am not immune to the irony in complaining about the ALAC's disenfranchisement in the GNSO document, while simultaneously complaining about the ALAC disenfranchisement of its own community. It sometimes makes one wonder if ALAC is worth defending -- but doing so is better than standing by silently while a system is proposed that invites gaming while further slowing the At-Large maturation process.. Danny, can you -- maybe together with Wendy, Brett and Beau -- draft a brief statement that expresses our disgust, both with the document and the process that produced it? I would very much want to get NARALO consensus on it and submit it before the public comment deadline. - Evan
What a farce. Whether or not the document is any good, I saw no consultation with ALAC that would support the claim that "The attached document is a unique collaboration of the joint users groups represented within ICANN today: The At-Large Advisory Committee The Commercial and Business Users Constituency The Intellectual Property Constituency The Internet Service and Connection Providers Constituency The Non-Commercial Users Constituency." --Wendy Danny Younger wrote:
Evan,
The ALAC has participated in a joint statement without any consultative engagement with its own membership; such behavior should not be countenanced -- the final Statement is posted here: http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-improvements-report-2008/msg00012.html
regards, Danny
--- Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Hello everyone,
For reasons that are unclear to me, there is a document being drafted on a proposed revision to the GNSO to allow for some sort of "public" representation that has come up with some very strange conclusions. Here is an early draft of the document:
http://www.ipconstituency.org/PDFs/Position%20to%20Board%20on%20GNSO%20Refor...
A more recent version of the draft has essentially gutted ALAC's role and calls for some sort of direct participation by ALSs. The truly amazing thing is that this is being advanced as having the support of ALAC itself!
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ispcp/msg00413.html
Compounding the problem is that the closing of public comments is this week -- and the fact that the document is still in flux!! How can "the public" adequately address a moving target in this manner?
Frankly, not only the document but the process that has produced it is flawed to the point of causing distress. I've now heard from Beau and Wendy (who have sopken up on the internal ALAC list -- why is it being debated there?) and Danny (in personal contact with me). I am asking one or more of you to help craft a NARALO position that we can submit this week. I will do my best to help but I will likely be incapacitated for most of the rest of this week because of surgery.
Both the document (at least in its current form) and the process that developed it IMO should not be submitted as something with widespread -- let alone universal -- public support. Can some folks here please get together to draft something upon which NARALO can get a consensus statement and submit before the deadline?
Thanks!
- Evan
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-- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org Visiting Professor, Northeastern University School of Law Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/ https://www.torproject.org/
For what it's worth, the document was never posted on the NCUC list either. --- Wendy Seltzer <wendy@seltzer.com> wrote:
What a farce.
Whether or not the document is any good, I saw no consultation with ALAC that would support the claim that "The attached document is a unique collaboration of the joint users groups represented within ICANN today: The At-Large Advisory Committee The Commercial and Business Users Constituency The Intellectual Property Constituency The Internet Service and Connection Providers Constituency The Non-Commercial Users Constituency."
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Wendy Seltzer wrote:
What a farce.
Whether or not the document is any good
It isn't. It completely marginalizes the individual registrant and user communities by shifting most of the power to the commercial user/commercial registrant community (read: IPC/ISPC/BC). I think the paper is correct in pointing out that contracted parties do need some sort of grouping, but it forgets that registrants (of all types) are a highly important component of this. My strongest preference has always been to provide the contracted parties with 1/2 of the vote of the Council, and the user community with the other 1/2. How the 1/2s get divided up is a matter for discussion, but I think its time for a serious discussion of these matters before some half-baked scheme like this commercial power grab gets institutionalized. Sorry for cross posting this - not sure where this thread should actually live. /ross
Ross Rader wrote:
I think the paper is correct in pointing out that contracted parties do need some sort of grouping, but it forgets that registrants (of all types) are a highly important component of this. Personally, I would like to see a registrants' advisory board made up of those subsets of all constituencies (business, noncomm, at-large) that has an interest in protecting registrant's rights. Since these groups are already part of official constituencies I see this as an advsory board that would work with those constituency groups to help forumlate registrant-friendly policy.
For the same reasons, I don't see identification of registrants as a new separate constituency to be a good idea. - Evan
Evan Leibovitch wrote:
Ross Rader wrote:
I think the paper is correct in pointing out that contracted parties do need some sort of grouping, but it forgets that registrants (of all types) are a highly important component of this. Personally, I would like to see a registrants' advisory board made up of those subsets of all constituencies (business, noncomm, at-large) that has an interest in protecting registrant's rights. Since these groups are already part of official constituencies I see this as an advsory board that would work with those constituency groups to help forumlate registrant-friendly policy.
For the same reasons, I don't see identification of registrants as a new separate constituency to be a good idea.
I believe the current registrant constituencies should be dissolved and picked up under the new "registrant"/"user" split. As it currently stands, the commercial user community in the form of the BC/ISPC/IPC wields way too much power in the GNSO structure. There is also a smaller, but important, over-allotment to the registry and registrar constituencies. Both of these over-allotments (I believe) more rightly belong in the hands of the individual registrants and individual users - neither of which have any real representative voice in the GNSO process right now. Taking some "voice" away from the existing constituencies and re-apportioning it to a mostly new set of constituencies is, in my opinion, the only real way to create a proper and lasting balance in the structure. From what you are describing, the registrant advisory board sounds remarkably similar to the contracted registrant constituency that I am proposing. But what is missing from this is the other half of the equation - the users, which also need a seat at the table. /ross
Thanks for your input Ross. I'm from the school of thought that supports the one-man-one-vote principle (which in ICANN terms would equate to one-constituency-one vote). --- Ross Rader <ross@tucows.com> wrote:
Wendy Seltzer wrote:
What a farce.
Whether or not the document is any good
It isn't. It completely marginalizes the individual registrant and user communities by shifting most of the power to the commercial user/commercial registrant community (read: IPC/ISPC/BC).
I think the paper is correct in pointing out that contracted parties do need some sort of grouping, but it forgets that registrants (of all types) are a highly important component of this. My strongest preference has always been to provide the contracted parties with 1/2 of the vote of the Council, and the user community with the other 1/2. How the 1/2s get divided up is a matter for discussion, but I think its time for a serious discussion of these matters before some half-baked scheme like this commercial power grab gets institutionalized.
Sorry for cross posting this - not sure where this thread should actually live.
/ross
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First of all, I can't emphasize enough my disappointment in the ALAC for allowing this to go out, in the ALAC's name, without any consultation. I feel like I'm dealing with one of my children: if you can't play with that internal mailing list correctly, I'm going to have to take it away from you. We've been talking about this internal list problem for years. It's time to shut it down. On the substance though, the proposal isn't as bad as I feared. As I read it, ALS structures are part of a group that gets 1/3 of the seats on the GNSO. That would be an incremental improvement over the status quo. It certainly doesn't go far enough in giving users and registrants a real voice, but it's hard to know whether it is a reasonable and pragmatic compromise without knowing the history of the discussions that produced this draft. (see point 1). What I haven't seen in the last 24 hours since this issue hit the lists is a defense of this paper by anyone in the ALAC. If the ALAC signed onto this, please tell us why. Personally, I'm open to this, but need to see someone defend it. I also strongly dislike the phrase "contractual interest group," which ignores the fact that registrants are required to sign standard form contracts with registrars, each of which contains provisioned mandated by ICANN and passed down to the registrants through the registrars. The reality is that a registrant's rights in a domain name are limited in important ways by the ICANN-mandated terms of their registration contracts. These contracts also impose ICANN-mandated fees that registrants in gTLDs must pay annually. A better name for the current group is "registration interests." This isn't just a matter of language. The "contracted parties" lingo is used by the registries and registrars to get positions of budget approval and financial leverage within the ICANN process, completely ignoring the fact that it is the users who ultimately pay ICANN's bills. The increasing ICANN budget and the price increases of gTLD registries take a larger and larger bite out of registrants pockets each year, and we should no longer allow ourselves to be marginalized by false labels. Still waiting to read some official defense of this proposal from the ALAC. -- Bret
Bret Fausett wrote:
On the substance though, the proposal isn't as bad as I feared. As I read it, ALS structures are part of a group that gets 1/3 of the seats on the GNSO. May be, but IMO it's worse than that. They would have to invent a process for determining which ALSs get to play, and there's a sneaky use of the term "qualified ALSs". (Who determines what ALSs are "qualified"?) If it's by appointment the process is ripe for gaming; if it's by selection by the rest of the GNSO then only the docile ones need apply. And if it's elected by At-Large, then it's a parallel ALAC structure which invites some nasty divide-an-conquer tactics (not to mention needless more process work for the ALSs).
The result is a process which has superficial representation, but in reality is sufficiently splintered and neutered to have even less effectiveness -- while going through the same agonizing growing pains -- as ALAC. For this reason I would object to this even on an "it's better than nothing" rationale. Those who sees ALAC as an ICANN public relations stunt should see this GNSO move as the same thing but even worse.
I also strongly dislike the phrase "contractual interest group," which ignores the fact that registrants are required to sign standard form contracts with registrars, each of which contains provisioned mandated by ICANN and passed down to the registrants through the registrars. The reality is that a registrant's rights in a domain name are limited in important ways by the ICANN-mandated terms of their registration contracts. These contracts also impose ICANN-mandated fees that registrants in gTLDs must pay annually. A better name for the current group is "registration interests." This isn't just a matter of language. The "contracted parties" lingo is used by the registries and registrars to get positions of budget approval and financial leverage within the ICANN process, completely ignoring the fact that it is the users who ultimately pay ICANN's bills. The increasing ICANN budget and the price increases of gTLD registries take a larger and larger bite out of registrants pockets each year, and we should no longer allow ourselves to be marginalized by false labels.
Good point. As if we needed another reason to oppose the document. ;-) - Evan
I hate to comment on merit, because at the end of the day this proposal will end up on the Board's agenda, but I cannot avoid making a comment for clarification. The approach used by Ross (50% to contracted parties, or supplier, 50% to non-contracted parties, or users/consumers, plus possibly NomCom appointees as tie-breakers) was seen by the GNSO Review WG after very lengthy discussions as the only possible balance. This, incidentally, is exactly the status-quo, if you do the voting maths: Ry+Rar have 12 votes because of the weighted voting, BC+ISP+IP+NCUC have 12 votes, NomComAppointees have 3 (tie-break) votes. The "triangular" proposal reproposes the unbalanced situation we had before, that brought to the introduction of the weighted voting. If it didn't work before, and needed fixing, it has little chances to be considered workable now. At least, the document should explain to the Board why folks think that what did not work in the past would work in the future. On a different level, the whole point the GNSO Review WG was trying to address is the fact that in the current situation of ossified constituencies there is very little chance, if any, to have new stakeholder groups to be introduced, like individual registrants or individual users. Rather than engaging in the exercise of finding different structural solutions, would it be more useful to work towards building stakeholders groups that can operate in the model offered by the GNSO Review WG? Wouldn't this be more useful for the individual registrant and/or individual user communities? Cheers, Roberto
-----Original Message----- From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Ross Rader Sent: Wednesday, 23 April 2008 16:11 To: Wendy Seltzer Cc: At-Large Worldwide; Danny Younger; NA Discuss Subject: Re: [At-Large] [NA-Discuss] GNSO reform and ALAC
Wendy Seltzer wrote:
What a farce.
Whether or not the document is any good
It isn't. It completely marginalizes the individual registrant and user communities by shifting most of the power to the commercial user/commercial registrant community (read: IPC/ISPC/BC).
I think the paper is correct in pointing out that contracted parties do need some sort of grouping, but it forgets that registrants (of all types) are a highly important component of this. My strongest preference has always been to provide the contracted parties with 1/2 of the vote of the Council, and the user community with the other 1/2. How the 1/2s get divided up is a matter for discussion, but I think its time for a serious discussion of these matters before some half-baked scheme like this commercial power grab gets institutionalized.
Sorry for cross posting this - not sure where this thread should actually live.
/ross
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participants (6)
-
Bret Fausett -
Danny Younger -
Evan Leibovitch -
Roberto Gaetano -
Ross Rader -
Wendy Seltzer