There has been quite a bit of news lately regarding noises made about ICANN at the recent meeting of the International Telecom Union (ITU). One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy. I want to call your attention to a very thoughtful article in CircleID<http://www.circleid.com/posts/on_the_need_to_separate_the_telecom_business_agenda_from_government_policy/>written by ALAC's own Sivasubramanian Muthusamy, as well as the comments by former Board member Karl Auerbach to another CircleID piece<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20101004_plutocrats_and_the_internet/>written by Gregory Francis. I am very interested in hearing the views of others here on this topic. In some ways it seems that ICANN has practically begged for such intervention, through a history of opacity and an agenda driven by business and self-aggrandised senior staff rather than the public interest. Our own difficulty within At-Large to advance policy -- seen most recently through Board pushback on two important cross-community initiatives -- offers plenty of evidence of that. Then again, I have serious doubts that the ITU's oversight will be any better for the public interest, but rather just assert the worst of all levels of government control. Does ICANN At-Large have any role in this debate? Can we help save ICANN from such capture? Should we welcome it? Should we care? I welcome any comment that will help guide my own approach to this, including (especially!) from Karl and Sivas. - Evan
Dear Evan Thank you for posting my article here at the atLarge list. There is so much that at-Large can do deal with the ITU imbalance, independently as well as in consultation with GAC, but we will wait for some comments from the community on this article. Will it be in order if I make a translation request for this article? Sivasubramanian M On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 7:56 PM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
There has been quite a bit of news lately regarding noises made about ICANN at the recent meeting of the International Telecom Union (ITU).
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
I want to call your attention to a very thoughtful article in CircleID< http://www.circleid.com/posts/on_the_need_to_separate_the_telecom_business_a...
written by ALAC's own Sivasubramanian Muthusamy, as well as the comments by former Board member Karl Auerbach to another CircleID piece<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20101004_plutocrats_and_the_internet/ written by Gregory Francis.
I am very interested in hearing the views of others here on this topic. In some ways it seems that ICANN has practically begged for such intervention, through a history of opacity and an agenda driven by business and self-aggrandised senior staff rather than the public interest. Our own difficulty within At-Large to advance policy -- seen most recently through Board pushback on two important cross-community initiatives -- offers plenty of evidence of that.
Then again, I have serious doubts that the ITU's oversight will be any better for the public interest, but rather just assert the worst of all levels of government control.
Does ICANN At-Large have any role in this debate? Can we help save ICANN from such capture? Should we welcome it? Should we care?
I welcome any comment that will help guide my own approach to this, including (especially!) from Karl and Sivas.
- 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
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Sivas - good article. Gareth On 2010-10-09, at 7:41 AM, Sivasubramanian M wrote:
Dear Evan
Thank you for posting my article here at the atLarge list. There is so much that at-Large can do deal with the ITU imbalance, independently as well as in consultation with GAC, but we will wait for some comments from the community on this article.
Will it be in order if I make a translation request for this article?
Sivasubramanian M
On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 7:56 PM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
There has been quite a bit of news lately regarding noises made about ICANN at the recent meeting of the International Telecom Union (ITU).
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
I want to call your attention to a very thoughtful article in CircleID< http://www.circleid.com/posts/on_the_need_to_separate_the_telecom_business_a...
written by ALAC's own Sivasubramanian Muthusamy, as well as the comments by former Board member Karl Auerbach to another CircleID piece<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20101004_plutocrats_and_the_internet/ written by Gregory Francis.
I am very interested in hearing the views of others here on this topic. In some ways it seems that ICANN has practically begged for such intervention, through a history of opacity and an agenda driven by business and self-aggrandised senior staff rather than the public interest. Our own difficulty within At-Large to advance policy -- seen most recently through Board pushback on two important cross-community initiatives -- offers plenty of evidence of that.
Then again, I have serious doubts that the ITU's oversight will be any better for the public interest, but rather just assert the worst of all levels of government control.
Does ICANN At-Large have any role in this debate? Can we help save ICANN from such capture? Should we welcome it? Should we care?
I welcome any comment that will help guide my own approach to this, including (especially!) from Karl and Sivas.
- 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
_______________________________________________ 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
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
It's hard to see how the ITU could force itself on ICANN. The US government would have to agree, which seems rather unlikely. As someone else has noted, as a California non-profit ICANN cannot give anyone a veto over the board, so it would have to reincorporate somewhere else, or the US would have to sign a treaty specifically giving the ITU that authority. Fat chance. Sometimes when it sounds like a lot of hot air, it really is a lot of hot air. I entirely agree that ICANN has a lot of self-inflicted wounds and self-generated enemies, but this isn't going anywhere. R's, John
On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 9:47 PM, John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
It's hard to see how the ITU could force itself on ICANN. The US government would have to agree, which seems rather unlikely. As someone else has noted, as a California non-profit ICANN cannot give anyone a veto over the board, so it would have to reincorporate somewhere else, or the US would have to sign a treaty specifically giving the ITU that authority.
These legal complications were probably well understood, yet this proposal surfaced, at the ITU Plenipotentiary. Irrespective of the legal feasibility or workability, this was calculatedly brought up. The Internet Community is silent on this, because the Diplomatic impact of even this unworkable idea is unknown. We can't take ITU mischief so lightly. In this context, in my article I raised a larger question which definitely requires attention: Should the Telecommunication Business Union continue to have the privilege of this extraordinary partnership with the Governments of the World? Sivasubramanian M
Fat chance.
Sometimes when it sounds like a lot of hot air, it really is a lot of hot air. I entirely agree that ICANN has a lot of self-inflicted wounds and self-generated enemies, but this isn't going anywhere.
R's, John _______________________________________________ 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
correction inline On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 10:04 PM, Sivasubramanian M <isolatedn@gmail.com>wrote:
On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 9:47 PM, John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
It's hard to see how the ITU could force itself on ICANN. The US government would have to agree, which seems rather unlikely. As someone else has noted, as a California non-profit ICANN cannot give anyone a veto over the board, so it would have to reincorporate somewhere else, or the US would have to sign a treaty specifically giving the ITU that authority.
These legal complications were probably well understood, yet this proposal surfaced, at the ITU Plenipotentiary. Irrespective of the legal feasibility or workability, this was calculatedly brought up. The Internet Community [can not afford to be] silent on this, because the Diplomatic impact of even this unworkable idea is unknown. We can't take ITU mischief so lightly.
In this context, in my article I raised a larger question which definitely requires attention: Should the Telecommunication Business Union continue to have the privilege of this extraordinary partnership with the Governments of the World?
Sivasubramanian M
Fat chance.
Sometimes when it sounds like a lot of hot air, it really is a lot of hot air. I entirely agree that ICANN has a lot of self-inflicted wounds and self-generated enemies, but this isn't going anywhere.
R's, John _______________________________________________ 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
Hi, On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Sivasubramanian M <isolatedn@gmail.com>wrote:
On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 9:47 PM, John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
It's hard to see how the ITU could force itself on ICANN. The US government would have to agree, which seems rather unlikely. As someone else has noted, as a California non-profit ICANN cannot give anyone a veto over the board, so it would have to reincorporate somewhere else, or the US would have to sign a treaty specifically giving the ITU that authority.
These legal complications were probably well understood, yet this proposal surfaced, at the ITU Plenipotentiary. Irrespective of the legal feasibility or workability, this was calculatedly brought up. The Internet Community is silent on this
Well there are a variety of Internet Community folk in Guadalajara, providing advice and doing capacity building. Unfortunately, they are not allowed inside the meeting proper to have a voice. -- Cheers, McTim "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel
On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 7:17 PM, John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
It's hard to see how the ITU could force itself on ICANN.
Agreed, the quote i saw is: "Consideration should be given to the expediency of having the functions of GAC carried out by a specially-constituted group within ITU with the authority to veto decisions adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors. If it is so decided, the ITU Secretary-General should be instructed to consult ICANN on the matter." Considering that they told the ICANN CEO that he wasn't welcome at their Plenipot meeting, etc., I think any such "consultation" would be brief and negative (as in "sod off") from ICANN. -- Cheers, McTim "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel
Most of the time, I see ITU initiatives with the Internet as distractions. We will spend lot of time and efforts in dealing with them while we could focus our efforts to more important things, like getting ICANN right. ----- Original Message ----- From: "John R. Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: "At-Large Worldwide" <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Sent: Saturday, 9 October, 2010 9:17:20 AM Subject: Re: [At-Large] ITU versus ICANN
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
It's hard to see how the ITU could force itself on ICANN. The US government would have to agree, which seems rather unlikely. As someone else has noted, as a California non-profit ICANN cannot give anyone a veto over the board, so it would have to reincorporate somewhere else, or the US would have to sign a treaty specifically giving the ITU that authority. Fat chance. Sometimes when it sounds like a lot of hot air, it really is a lot of hot air. I entirely agree that ICANN has a lot of self-inflicted wounds and self-generated enemies, but this isn't going anywhere. R's, John _______________________________________________ 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
Exactly! Bill Semich On Oct 9, 2010, at 3:12 PM, Franck Martin wrote:
Most of the time, I see ITU initiatives with the Internet as distractions. We will spend lot of time and efforts in dealing with them while we could focus our efforts to more important things, like getting ICANN right.
----- Original Message ----- From: "John R. Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: "At-Large Worldwide" <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Sent: Saturday, 9 October, 2010 9:17:20 AM Subject: Re: [At-Large] ITU versus ICANN
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
It's hard to see how the ITU could force itself on ICANN. The US government would have to agree, which seems rather unlikely. As someone else has noted, as a California non-profit ICANN cannot give anyone a veto over the board, so it would have to reincorporate somewhere else, or the US would have to sign a treaty specifically giving the ITU that authority.
Fat chance.
Sometimes when it sounds like a lot of hot air, it really is a lot of hot air. I entirely agree that ICANN has a lot of self-inflicted wounds and self-generated enemies, but this isn't going anywhere.
R's, John _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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
By-the-way, I believe that it is still the case that the US Dep't of Commerce Agency, the NTIA, has a veto power over ICANN with regard to TLDs. This authority, assuming it still exists, is a binary power to affect the presence or absence of a TLD. But it could be used as a lever to affect policies and TLD behavior. Is it still the case that ICANN merely recommends TLDs to NTIA? And does NTIA still issue instructions to Verisign regarding what edits to make to a root zone file? I am not sure how that has changed with DNSSEC signed records. Unless things have changed NTIA has the power to refuse to put any TLD authorized by ICANN into the root zone file currently used by root servers; and NTIA also has the power to insert any TLD that it would like into that root zone file. In other words the US seems to have, to some extent, what the other countries and ITU want. --karl--
Most of the issues related to Internet governance discussed and promoted via IGF and ITU, IMHO are hyperbolic attempts to grasp a little bit of control of something that does not require global control rather than coordination and collaboration on different planes. I see ITU's maneuvers as desperate attempts to be once again in control and more relevant in the standards development arena and common resources allocation and administration such as addressing and name spaces, enforcing the mandate of member states in policy development processes, screwing up multi-stake holder and bottom up approaches. As others noted, unless there is a substantial modification in the way ICANN has been incorporated, there is not much the ITU can do to have veto power over BoD decisions. As I mentioned several times in the past, it is a shame that ICANN is a member-less organization, since changes to its articles of incorporation and bylaws would require the vote of its members, ie the community, ie us. Right now the community has almost no control whatsoever on that plane, and the several attempts like the ATRT, supposed increased transparency (as Kieren recently noted on his blog where are the BoD papers/briefings for the last meeting?), the never ending dancing chairs game to take a spot on the titles of nobility distribution game, etc, etc, are borderline close to a joke. I believe we should take in account what is going on around, but as Franck said, ignore all the noise and keep focus and a steady effort to make ICANN right, we are far far far away for that to be true. My .02 Jorge
On 10/09/2010 08:55 PM, Jorge Amodio wrote:
As I mentioned several times in the past, it is a shame that ICANN is a member-less organization, since changes to its articles of incorporation and bylaws would require the vote of its members...
Yes - for details of those rights see http://www.cavebear.com/archive/icann-board/platform.htm#full-members ICANN actively and quite overtly pursed a course to try to evade being classified as a "membership" flavor of a California public-benefit corporation. Because elections trigger that status ICANN called the election of year 2000 a "selection". Shakespeare said that a rose by any other name is still a rose. I guess ICANN doesn't read Shakespeare. ICANN was, and I assume still is, in deadly fear of "derivative actions", a form of legal action in which members can cause the corporation to sue itself for failures to behave correctly. The concept of "accountability" involves the question of "to whom is that duty of accountability owed?". A secondary question then is "how do those to whom that duty owed enforce that duty?" These are good questions to ask. --karl--
The concept of "accountability" involves the question of "to whom is that duty of accountability owed?".
AFAIK and you have much more expertise than me on the subject, on paper ICANN is only accountable to the General Attorney of the State of California, and for whatever remains of the IANA contract to NTIA as a contractor. The rest is all smoke and mirrors. Regards Jorge
Um, more of the same......there is an aggrieved group left without spoils to which it thinks itself entitled. Powers contesting for control, that is all that this is. And always to the detriment of less powerful interests, like our civil society groups! The rules remain the same; those who pay the piper usually calls the tune and if you would wish to understand influence, then follow the money. Subject to correction, we can all agree that commercial interests influence our governments and institutions perhaps more than is healthy for all of us. But so long as money is and remains the mother's milk of politics, this is horses for courses. Case in point: I'm in California at the minute. It's just weeks before the US mid-term elections and the dueling political ads make the case 'in your face'. Multimillionaires are spending huge sums of their own money to get a chance to direct public affairs. Again, in your face. Culture and historical antecedents aside, the very elements recur everywhere governments are raised. That the ITU - a treaty organisation - is discomfited by ICANN's role in Internet Governance is also not new. Recall some comments by Secretary General Toure at an ICANN meeting - probably Egypt? - getting similar play as those by the Russian Minister. That there are some governments that are yet uncomfortable with what they consider the USG's suzerainty of the Internet - thru ICANN - is also not new. AoC may have relieved the discomfort for some but there are others that are as anxious as they've been before and since. This breaks in several ways. The EU, at one point, floated the idea of an enlarged group of overseers, what I originally termed a 'rump of the economic G20', with a place at the table offered to India, Brazil and China. The rationale didn't even rise to the level of being 'artful'; rather naked old-fashioned power bloc politics, US vs. THEM! All that has happened at Guadalajara is that the Russians, the odd man and still out, are stoking the discontent and seeking advantage by soliciting partners for the cause. It is a variant of the same plaint: "Am I not a christian and a prince?" Carlton ============================== Carlton A Samuels Mobile: 876-818-1799 Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround ============================= On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
There has been quite a bit of news lately regarding noises made about ICANN at the recent meeting of the International Telecom Union (ITU).
One proposal from Russian-speaking countries has gone so far as to call for scrapping the GAC, and have ITU give itself veto power over all ICANN board decisions. Even a compromise would essentially undermine the finality of any ICANN Board policy.
I want to call your attention to a very thoughtful article in CircleID< http://www.circleid.com/posts/on_the_need_to_separate_the_telecom_business_a...
written by ALAC's own Sivasubramanian Muthusamy, as well as the comments by former Board member Karl Auerbach to another CircleID piece<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20101004_plutocrats_and_the_internet/ written by Gregory Francis.
I am very interested in hearing the views of others here on this topic. In some ways it seems that ICANN has practically begged for such intervention, through a history of opacity and an agenda driven by business and self-aggrandised senior staff rather than the public interest. Our own difficulty within At-Large to advance policy -- seen most recently through Board pushback on two important cross-community initiatives -- offers plenty of evidence of that.
Then again, I have serious doubts that the ITU's oversight will be any better for the public interest, but rather just assert the worst of all levels of government control.
Does ICANN At-Large have any role in this debate? Can we help save ICANN from such capture? Should we welcome it? Should we care?
I welcome any comment that will help guide my own approach to this, including (especially!) from Karl and Sivas.
- 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
participants (10)
-
Carlton Samuels -
Evan Leibovitch -
Franck Martin -
Gareth Shearman -
J William Semich -
John R. Levine -
Jorge Amodio -
Karl Auerbach -
McTim -
Sivasubramanian M