On August 10, 2018 10:44:15 AM EDT, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:

Hi Olivier,


 Whilst I agree with you that PICs should be meaningful & enforceable, I
 do not know what hard data you are basing your comments on their lack of
 usefulness.


You can't prove a negative. I ask for any -- ANY -- evidence that PICs from
the last round served any major benefit to the public interest. To my
awareness, there are none.

I have come to think of PICs the way I think of airport security --
theatre, which projects an air of public service but fails totally in
execution.

If they are currently not useful then let's get them
 improved!


ALAC did not invent the concept of PICs, they were imposed upon us as a
protocol that IMO was deliberately flawed by design (and, as a result,
beyond repair in its current form). I suggest that we aim higher, and focus
on the objectives of asserting the public interest into the delegation of
gTLDs. Since we clearly have no say on the implementation, our efforts are
better spent concentrating on the goals and metrics

Let's state clearly our vision for the protection of public interest in
future gTLD delegation. That is ... were we to get what we are asking for,
what would be the intended result?


 But throwing the towel in when we're actually in a position to
 make a difference is not constructive in my opinion. If we already go to
 battle saying we're wasting our time, then we've already lost the battle.


I am not suggesting saying nothing. Rather, my purpose is that we stay at a
high level and make very clear what we expect as the objectives of serving
the public interest rather than dwelling on tactical recommendations that
ICANN will once again surely ignore. We have finite (and stretched thin)
human resources to tackle the issue, and I do not relish another round of
hundreds of person-hours being wasted by a process that has already
demonstrated the ability to impose "solutions" that do not match our needs.

Let's focus on what needs to be done, acknowledging that we have zero
influence on how ICANN would intend to do it. Since we already have a
precedent that indicates how ICANN has reacted to At-Large advice in this
realm before, we should know better
<https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/doomed-to-repeat-it> than to do the
same thing multiple times and expect different results.

Cheers,

- Evan