Dear Roberto,

On 14/06/2021 12:18, Roberto Gaetano via CPWG wrote:

At today's session on "End User Participation in ICANN PDPs and their Role within the ICANN ecosystem” we had different opinions on how to deal with the situation in which At-Large does not reach a consensus position.

This has happened on many occasions in the past.
Whenever the At-Large Community and therefore the ALAC does not reach consensus, the topic under question is either not address in the Statement, or the Statement itself is not issued.
When it comes to positions to take in a PDP, this has also happened on rare occasions in the past and the position was either amended to satisfy the majority or not the ALAC took no position - or defaulted to its default position that it had reached according to past ALAC advice.

So I do not see the issue of "no consensus" as either new, nor significant. The ALAC has processes to follow to reach consensus and sometimes there is no consensus, it's just a part of life.

Now the issue which I found more significant, and mentioned by, I think it was Jonathan Zuck, on the call, was the notion that the ALAC position could be a "minority position". That has a deeper consequence. As a member of the ICANN SO/AC/SG/C microcosm, the ALAC is indeed just one of the organisations, thus if it hold a position by itself, it is in a minority and thus holds a "minority opinion". But it is possible to argue that the ALAC is representing the interests of end users, which is by now several billion people, thus the majority of people affected by the policy. We immediately land in the contested zone of "who do you represent" and "what is your legitimacy", "you can't represent end users", "you are a bunch of self-selected power hungry... yadda yadda yadda....." and the rest is history.

Kindest regards,

Olivier