PICs offer registries a purely-cosmetic means to demonstrate care for the public interest, knowing that the bar of proof and evidence required to contest is so high as to be impenetrable. On the challengers' side you have a high bar of evidence that may require substantial legal instincts but falls to public-interest volunteers who lack the necessary time or resources. On the other side is fulltime registry legal staff whose paid task is to do whatever is necessary to defend. By design it's horribly imbalanced.

IIRC, the last time ALAC launched a PIC challenge it was dismissed before we ever got to argue substance because the PICDRP said that ALAC did not have sufficient standing to intervene(!). Such are the rules.

Yeah the theory behind PICs is wonderful but it would need a ground-up rewrite -- with something approaching a level playing field, and funding for challengers -- to be useful. The work necessary to "give teeth" to the PICs would need to be done before the Ethos offer could be even considered. Is there time for that?

- Evan

On Fri, 21 Feb 2020 at 15:33, Greg Shatan <greg@isoc-ny.org> wrote:

I’d rather work on giving teeth to PICs than give up on PICs.

On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 1:43 PM Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org> wrote:

Well part of our interventions on SubPro is improvements to that process, no? It seems as though At-Large are still in favor of PICs if they are enforceable. Is there a better mechanism?

From: Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org>
Date: Friday, February 21, 2020 at 10:32 AM
To: Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org>
Cc: CPWG <cpwg@icann.org>
Subject: Re: [CPWG] PIC commitments on ORG

Yecch. PICDRPs. I can't think of one instance in which they've sided with interveners in previous cases, and they're not exactly chosen because of sensitivity to the public interest.

Depending on that process is essentially a free pass for Ethos.

- Evan

On Fri, 21 Feb 2020 at 13:27, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org> wrote:

Agree Evan. Take a look at the document as it says explicitly the “or else” can include taking .ORG away from PIR and that the stewardship council has veto power over policies in those areas. It’s not bad language in that respect.

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