To BC List: these are comments I filed today as the public comment period closes on this issue. I provide them fyi, and in case anyone wants to make comments to me and/or the public comment process. Thanks, Mike For nearly three years I have represented the Business Constituency as one of its Officers and GNSO Councilors, but make these comments in my personal capacity only, as they have not been reviewed by the BC. Why is ICANN refusing to allow new constituencies in the Contracted Party SG? There are applications for two subsets of newTLD registry operators -- geoTLDs and IDN TLDs. It seems reasonable for there to be a "Resellers Constituency." These commercial entities have interests wholly aligned with those of the Contracted Parties. Indeed resellers effectively are contracted parties, and prospective registry operators will have a contract with ICANN upon making their application. Meanwhile they have an "as soon as possible" expectancy of such a contract, and then a registry contract. Yet the Board and Staff, without any explanation that I have seen, have unilaterally decided that no other entities will be allowed into the "Contracted Party" House. These entities do not belong in the Non-Contracted Party SG, as they simply would dilute the power and voice of the vast majority of entities and individuals in the world, who do not rely substantially on ICANN contracts (or the expectation of ICANN contract) for their livelihood, but are materially impacted by the policies of ICANN and its contracting parties. Resellers and prospective registry applicants (if that was their primary purpose, at least) would not be allowed in the existing or proposed Business Constituency, ISPCPC or IPC -- and should not be allowed to dilute the voices of the new Commercial SG and Non-Commercial SG. Representatives of those parties have indicated assent, however reluctantly in many cases, to this restructuring plan on the basis that parties aligned with ICANN Contracting Parties would find their voice through that House, not ours. The voices and voting power of so-called "Non-Contracting" commercial interests are already heavily diluted under this restructuring scheme, with the NCSG gaining much and the Contracting Parties losing nothing whatsoever. Yet it is those "Non-Contracting" commercial interests that essentially fund by far the greatest portion of ICANN's budget through their domain registration fees, and it is those commercial interests that make domain names valuable. While those interests suffer much already in the proposed restructure, now it will be proposed that 'contracting party' interests be allowed in our House as well? The result will be an even stronger stranglehold on policy development than is already wielded by the Contracting Parties. Their two Constituencies are essentially aligned in interest on virtually all issues. Alignment will only increase if ICANN repeals restrictions on cross-ownership, which anyway do not exist with respect to ccTLDs in most cases, so we have seen registrars and registries teaming up on ventures for many years now. One of the GNSO Councilors, for the Registrar Constituency, is CEO of a registry services company. Effectively today they are one block with effective veto power over anything. The best way to cement that in place is to forbid any other voices from joining their House. Why do Contracting Parties maintain double voting? It is unwise that the Contracting Parties are allowed to continue with 'double voting' on the new Council. Is it not a main point of the restructure to increase participation and diversity on the Council? Why does this only apply to one House, and not the other? Particularly in the near future with hundreds more new TLD operators, and most likely hundreds more registrars, there is no excuse to allow just six seats in that House, while there are twelve in the other. That makes it twice as hard to persuade a single vote to "switch sides", which might make the difference in many cases. [Not sure if this is changed in their new charters, but for similar reasons it also should be forbidden that the Registry Constituency Councilors be required to vote as a block as they are today, rather than individually as in the Registrar Constituency.] ICANN should be well aware that this entire GNSO restructure has been a bitter pill for the "Non-Contracting" business community to swallow. Their power and voices will be diminished and those who have been involved know it. It has not caused such recent uproar since the newTLD process has proved to be a more immediate and distressing battle for some in that community, though by no means all. These details are also rather uninteresting for any normal person to consider, particularly anyone who has not participated on Council. From my perspective, these specific elements of the new restructure could result in a lot more bitterness in the years to come, and appear wholly contrary to the spirit and stated intention of the ICANN Board in its mandate of this effort. Moreover, they were primary facets of the compromise reached in 2008, which now appear to have been discarded by the Board and Staff, without explanation or reason. Sincerely, Mike Rodenbaugh Rodenbaugh Law 548 Market Street San Francisco, CA 94104 +1.415.738.8087 www.rodenbaugh.com