Hi Evan, Thank you for sharing your detailed insights. As someone relatively new to the NARALO community, I really appreciate the context you provided. I understand that achieving greater influence within ICANN can be challenging, but perhaps we could begin by identifying specific instances where NARALO has encountered obstacles. This might help reveal patterns or recurring challenges. It could also be helpful to engage with other RALOs to see if they face similar issues. By raising these concerns collectively and consistently, we may be able to amplify our voice and drive meaningful change. I’d love to hear if you think there are particular areas where such joint efforts could have the greatest impact. Best regards, Mohibul On Sun, Dec 22, 2024 at 12:05 AM Evan Leibovitch <evanleibovitch@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Mohibul,
On Sat, Dec 21, 2024 at 6:28 PM Mohibul Mahmud via NA-Discuss < na-discuss@icann.org> wrote:
Evan, I’d like to better understand your concerns about At-Large’s influence and effectiveness. How do you think At-Large could strengthen its role within ICANN to better reflect the interests of the community?
In its current form, the structural barriers within ICANN prevent At-Large from being effective are significant:
- As mentioned, the inability to provide Board-level representation - The fact that ICANN's vested interests can compel the Board to act (via the GNSO) but ALAC may only provide advice
However, many non-structural ways through which ALAC impedes itself aren't helping. Its emphasis on diversity over expertise means it is often poorly equipped to counter the paid lobbyists, advocates and grifters within ICANN's many vested-interest constituencies. The number of instances of ALAC self-sabotage, usually through obsession with process and mission-creep into areas well beyond the public interest, are numerous enough to fill a book. As just one example of such egregious misdirection; does anyone really think that non-registrant end-users care deeply about "closed generics"? Does the public even know what they are, let alone oppose them as ALAC appears to do? *Why should it care?* Significant effort has been put into addressing many such ICANN issues without giving similar levels of thought on exactly how (or even whether) these issues impact non-registrant end-users who in large part don't know ICANN even exists.
Additionally, I’m curious—do you see specific areas where At-Large could take initiatives that align with the current needs or priorities of the At-Large Community? If possible, could you share what you think are the top three pressing needs or demands from the At-Large Community today?
Keep in mind that I see ICANN primarily as part of internet infrastructure, and generally the public doesn't think about infrastructure (water supply, sewage, roads, electrical supply, etc) unless it stops working. In that realm, stability is primary. But within ICANN, that stability is provided by expert-led advisory bodies (SSAC, RSAC) with which At-Large has little to do.
The non-infrastructure part of ICANN -- the rental of Internet domains -- is different, but that is where At-Large mostly works. There is a role to play in preventing end-user abuse by fighting for registrant transparency so that we may hold abusers accountable. This too is an area in which end-user interests veer sharply from those of commercial registrants (who IMO have way too much influence within ALAC even though they already have representation through multiple GNSO constituencies).
Beyond stability, ease-of-use should prevail as the issue for non-registrant end-users. Seekers of Internet goods and services should be able to easily find and reach the sources of such goods and services. There are multiple facets of the domain-name environment that make this overly complex, so much so that by and large people have come to prefer search engines, QR codes and increasingly AI chatbots over "memorable" domains. I'm not sure that this can be corrected by now, but ALAC has not done itself any favours by, for instance, uncritically cheerleading ICANN's disastrous approach to non-Latin character scripts. This too is probably too far-gone for redemption.
Given the large number of important issues which are now too late to fix, in my opinion the remaining priorities should be to:
- Take all steps necessary to inhibit use of domains to abuse and scam end-users, including fighting against registrant anonymity - De-incentivize and reduce the speculative hoarding of domains, which makes it needlessly expensive for new businesses to acquire domains that are intuitive to their customers - Engage in public research to determine what end-users need from ICANN, don't guess (because most previous guesses have been wrong)
I have little confidence that At-Large is capable of asserting these basic end-user interests to any level of effectiveness, because it is so caught up in internal process distractions and fighting the battles of other constituencies as described above. But I hope this answers your question.
Cheers,
- Evan