Thank you very much, Vittorio, for this excellent draft statement what I fully support in its "hard on ICANN" manner. The text is well substantiated and the operational plan and budget document is contradicting all the official talk about "multistakeholder involvement" and "Bottom-up policy development". Best, Wolf Vittorio Bertola wrote Wed, 4 Mar 2009 01:55:

Hello,

I couldn't meet with anyone else but, as requested earlier today, here is a draft statement on the operational plan and budget document. Beware that, as envisaged, it is quite hard on ICANN...

==== The European Regional At-Large Organization is astonished by the reading of the "Proposed Framework for FY10 Operating Plan and Budget". We note with perplexity that neither the At-Large constituency nor the ALAC is ever mentioned once in the entire body of the document; even in the nine pages of Appendix A, which lists ICANN's operating plan items up to the details of "Coordinate and manage Board website hosting" and "Facilitate payment of Director expenses", the ALAC and the At-Large appear only four times, of which three are actions aimed at "improving their performance" (whatever that means) among that of other bodies.

For example, of the 16 action items that constitute section 7 "Constituency support", ten regard support for registries and registrars; two regard the GNSO; one regards the GAC; the remaining three are generic points that include all SOs and ACs. Apparently, no specific effort is planned by ICANN to support the At Large or user constituencies.

Moreover, section 9 "Global engagement and increased international participation" describes a huge work programme that only focuses on involving more registries, more registrars and more governments throughout the world; several detailed action items are designed to involve new governments in the GAC. It is unbelievable that no mention is made of the need to increase the participation of the public, either through the At Large or through public participation channels in general. From this plan, it looks like ICANN's operating plan is to promote a business fair or trade cartel for registries and registrars, while pleading with governments not to disrupt the plan, and while ignoring anyone else.

We think that global engagement and international participation are a vital part of ICANN's credibility and legitimacy, but definitely not in the sense that ICANN implies with this document. Thus we urge the ICANN Board to check out the corporation's priorities and ensure that appropriate attention, means and budget are allocated to promoting and supporting participation by the global public. ====

Ciao, -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <--------

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For me the proposed budget framework is pretty symbolic and symptomatic. It precisely enlightens the real priorities of ICANN as an organization definitely trapped in the money and politics. My experience is that once the money is taken into consideration the real motives come out. All the rest is just babbling for the masses. For me it is a clear message that At-Large needs dauntless and courageous people in thinking and acting, not frightened and servile people in its leading positions and active auditorium. The main problem is to realize that the fish stinks from the head and that ICANN is being lead by not enough competent people, however, still presumptuous enough to ignore and disregard others' efforts whenever private, business and governmental interests are at stake regardless of all the core values and other principles they claim to abide by. ICANN under its current leadership has a little to do with real public participation. Involving many people into the process picking interesting ideas and efforts and eventually deciding from the narrow-minded perspective of few is, in my opinion, by no means a public participation but better a public exploitation. Unless At-Large does recognize and fully understands this fact its activity is of very limited help to the public community. It is not a problem of issues, better communication, organization, budgets and so on. There is inherently no such communication possible if the motives and goals of the leaders and the public community are different or even opposing. I mean real motives visible in actions and decisions, not those pretentiously presented at meetings and forgotten in a minute the door is closed. In such circumstances any important pro-public issue can be eventually refused at any time with aversive or buck passing explanation. If At-Large wants to succeed in improving its status, respect and importance it has to publicly and clearly point out the fact of insufficient competence in the ICANN leadership and insist on a change in this matter. Ignorant persons are only as strong as weak are polite persons allowing them to behave such a way. This fact has to be clearly recognized, demonstrated and consequently acted upon. Otherwise At-Large will just assist in building up the deceptive facade for the outer world. Effective At-Large is also about the strength with which it can face and conquer the incompetence. Most people in the ICANN structures and among active volunteers are Americans with rich human rights and equal opportunity tradition. I am therefore not able to understand how we can be talking over and over again for years about such thing as insufficient public participation. Dominik -----Original Message----- From: euro-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:euro-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Vittorio Bertola Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 1:55 AM To: euro-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org Subject: [EURO-Discuss] Draft statement on the operational plan and budget Hello, I couldn't meet with anyone else but, as requested earlier today, here is a draft statement on the operational plan and budget document. Beware that, as envisaged, it is quite hard on ICANN... ==== The European Regional At-Large Organization is astonished by the reading of the "Proposed Framework for FY10 Operating Plan and Budget". We note with perplexity that neither the At-Large constituency nor the ALAC is ever mentioned once in the entire body of the document; even in the nine pages of Appendix A, which lists ICANN's operating plan items up to the details of "Coordinate and manage Board website hosting" and "Facilitate payment of Director expenses", the ALAC and the At-Large appear only four times, of which three are actions aimed at "improving their performance" (whatever that means) among that of other bodies. For example, of the 16 action items that constitute section 7 "Constituency support", ten regard support for registries and registrars; two regard the GNSO; one regards the GAC; the remaining three are generic points that include all SOs and ACs. Apparently, no specific effort is planned by ICANN to support the At Large or user constituencies. Moreover, section 9 "Global engagement and increased international participation" describes a huge work programme that only focuses on involving more registries, more registrars and more governments throughout the world; several detailed action items are designed to involve new governments in the GAC. It is unbelievable that no mention is made of the need to increase the participation of the public, either through the At Large or through public participation channels in general. From this plan, it looks like ICANN's operating plan is to promote a business fair or trade cartel for registries and registrars, while pleading with governments not to disrupt the plan, and while ignoring anyone else. We think that global engagement and international participation are a vital part of ICANN's credibility and legitimacy, but definitely not in the sense that ICANN implies with this document. Thus we urge the ICANN Board to check out the corporation's priorities and ensure that appropriate attention, means and budget are allocated to promoting and supporting participation by the global public. ==== Ciao, -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <-------- _______________________________________________ EURO-Discuss mailing list EURO-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/euro-discuss_atlarge-lis ts.icann.org Homepage for the region: http://www.euralo.org