The role of governments here is that of one set of stakeholders among many.  Governments don't get to be special stakeholders.  The essence of the multistakeholder model, rooted in the private sector (broadly defined), is that the people get to speak directly -- without the intermediation of governments.  

When government representatives speak here, their pronouncements don't carry extra weight.  The proposition has been put forth that when stakeholders speak, it is merely their own personal views.  If this is true for any stakeholders, it must be true for all.  Conversely, if it is not true for some stakeholders, it is not true for any.

The latter is clearly the case -- it is not true.  The multistakeholder model demands that each of us act in a representative capacity for the stakeholders in our particular community that do not participate directly.  This is not the special province of governments.  A fundamental truth of ICANN is that it is not and cannot be a "government-led" structure.  It is not merely a multistakeholder structure -- it is an equally multistakeholder structure.

I share Farzaneh's view that the utopian ideal of the government as nothing more than the representative of the people doesn't really hold true in reality.  Governments represent their own interests, which (for self-preservation) need to intersect with the interests of whoever (or whatever) put them in power -- party supporters, big donors, the establishment, etc.  That is not meant to invalidate governments -- just to caution against elevating them above other stakeholders in this process.

This is particularly true with regard to the topic of strings with geographic meanings (a/k/a geographic names).  These strings are not uniquely geographic; they have other meanings and applications.  We can't elevate the geographic meaning/application above other meanings/applications -- for that very reason we cannot elevate governments above other stakeholders.

Greg



On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 2:16 AM, Bonnie B Mtengwa <bmtengwa@potraz.gov.zw> wrote:

Dear Team

 

When relating to geo-Names we cannot avoid talking of Governments, because people in those areas are represented by their Governments, and the Governments appoints its own representatives in the GAC.

So whether legitimately elected or appointed, the fact is that Geo-Names are also in the purview of governments.

 

The role of governments then need to be clearly defined in our work, because they are critical if we need to move forward on this issue.

 

Bonnie

 

From: farzaneh badii <farzaneh.badii@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, 04 December 2017 at 07:14
To: <alexander@schubert.berlin>


Cc: Icann Gnso Newgtld Wg Wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5@icann.org>
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Concerns on the WT5 Terms of Reference and proposed expansion of the scope of geo-names to include other concepts as well

 

 


 

 

On Sat, Dec 2, 2017 at 5:03 PM, Alexander Schubert <alexander@schubert.berlin> wrote:

Dear Group,

 

regarding the role of “governments”:

People rely on their elected representatives to defend them from (for example) land grabs: e.g. city names, country names, or other geo based gTLDs. In this regard the “Government” doesn’t exercise some “control”: it protects the interests of its citizens! For the People (by the people).

In that regard: I see a very POSITIVE role in Governments protecting namespaces from being cyber squatted.

 

So thanks to the GAC: Keep fighting for The People.

Alexander.berlin

 

​Even for democratic countries the ​above sounds very optimistic to me. Governments don't  always fight  for their people they have their self interest and incentives, like many other entities and actors. Governments don't  always get elected by their people. Even in democratic countries when you talk about the government you need to be very specific. Government is big. Are you talking about the elected representatives or just some administrative representatives who are appointed not elected? GAC does not gain any legitimacy over other actors just because they are "governments". 

 

 

 

 

 

From: Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 [mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Arasteh
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2017 5:55 PM
To: Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>


Cc: Icann Gnso Newgtld Wg Wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5@icann.org>
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Concerns on the WT5 Terms of Reference and proposed expansion of the scope of geo-names to include other concepts as well

 

Dear All

There is no primacy issue here.

It is the sovereignty of governments on the names of their cities, rivers. Historical places, religious holy places legends which must be respected

There should be a respect to all these and no commercial interests shall compromise them

If there is supremacy on the table it does not come from governments but it from others that which to forced governments to give up their national and historical heritage

You can support each other’s as many time as you wish but that does not deprive any governments from its legitimate rights

We need to express our views freely without being  criticised , collectively attacked and ofended 

Tks 

Kavouss

 

Sent from my iPhone


On 30 Nov 2017, at 15:44, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:

Robin, Greg and Aslam are completely correct.  The repeated efforts by the GAC to assert primacy in the development of rules and policies is antithetical to the very concept of the multi-stakeholder model.  It is particularly necessary to be cautious when GAC primacy is asserted in support of mandates and authoritarian models of behavior.

 

Paul

 

Paul Rosenzweig

M: +1 (202) 329-9650

VOIP: +1 (202) 738 1739

 

From: Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 [mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Greg Shatan
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2017 1:28 AM
To: Aslam Mohamed <aslam@rnaip.com>
Cc: Icann Gnso Newgtld Wg Wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5@icann.org>
Subject: Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] Concerns on the WT5 Terms of Reference and proposed expansion of the scope of geo-names to include other concepts as well

 

Robin;

 

Thank you very much for your thoughtful comments, with which I wholeheartedly agree.

 

It is important for all participants to acknowledge that the views of each participant carry equal weight and each participant participates on an equal footing.  Characterizing one participant’s comments as “personal views” seems intended to be dismissive. All views here are equally “personal”  as all are stakeholders.  This is not a cyberspace version of “Animal Farm,” where all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

 

Similarly, it’s important for any participant to be cautious about claiming to speak for other stakeholders without express authorization to do so.  This can appear to an attempt to inflate the importance of one’s own views by claiming they are the views of many. This is not helpful to genuine dialogue, especially in conjunction with attempts to minimize the views of others.

 

We are each here to represent the views and concerns of the many in our respective stakeholder communities who do not and cannot participate directly in the ICANN process. This equivalency is fundamentally important to the success of the multistakeholder process.

 

Greg

 

On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 2:59 PM Aslam Mohamed <aslam@rnaip.com> wrote:

Dear Kavouss

 

I was quite impressed by your emphatic advocacy for GAC in Abu Dhabi and I see it continues in your comments on ToR in the mail trailed below. However I would like to meet you sometime or offline and till then emphasize that in a multi stakeholder forum like ICANN, GAC will have to modify it’s approach and not seek GAC primacy in the decision making process. Hence I would suggest we approach the entire WT5 process in a spirit that GAC advice is NOT binding on the Board and that the GAC would accept this position as and when it arises.

 

Kind Regards

 

Aslam G Mohamed. Advocate

US Business Development



RNA, Technology and IP Attorneys 

 

On Nov 29, 2017, at 2:29 PM, Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Robin Gross via icann.org 

6:48 PM (1 hour ago)

mage removed by sender.

mage removed by sender.

mage removed by sender. within the lines

 

Dear All, I wish to comment on comments made by Robin

to gnso-newgtld-w.

mage removed by sender.

I didn’t have audio on last night’s WT5 call, so thought I’d send my comments directly to the list today about the proposed Terms of Reference revealed yesterday.

Paragraph 1: It is not appropriate to include an “approval" model as something this group will make recommendations on, that presumptively moves away from the model that the GNSO and Board created in the last round, which intentionally and explicitly did not require a permission-based model for names.  It is simply inappropriate for this fundamental policy change to be slipped-in to the Terms of Reference before we begin our work.  We would be ill-advised to “put the cart before the horse”, but this bracketed language does exactly that.

Reply

This is your views,

Views of many GAC MEMBER is entirely in line with draft The course of action mentioned by the Board is before  2016 there were two procedure either seeking agreement or apply the mitigation. Several GAC members opposed to the second option .There are several GAC ADVICE IN THIS REGARD

 .

Paragraph 2: Regulating "names with a cultural significance" and "names with economic significance" are outside the scope of this PDP.  This is a PDP regarding geo-names, so adding-on two additional types of names into the ToR is an inappropriate expansion of the scope of this group’s mandate.   Let’s focus on defining what “geo-names” are, rather than including other concepts into the ToR -- that are geo-names.  This PDP was set-up to work on geo-names, the chartering organizations agreed to participate under the understanding that it would be limited to geo-names, so we need to stick to our mandate and our agreement in setting up the WT

Reply

Again this is your personal views as many GAC members associate crucial importance to these two criteria

 While I support giving significant consideration to risks in our analysis, let's flesh this concept out more and also include benefits in the analysis, rather than being singularly focused on risks.  We are in danger of having a wholly “negative” analysis that won’t consider “positives” as well.  We may wish to recognize that some risks are worth taking and consider some element of a risk-to-benefit analysis in order to be more complete in our own evaluation.  Our analysis should recognize that some issues create risks to one part of ICANN community while simultaneously creating benefits to other parts of the ICANN community — we need to consider how we will handle such mixed outcomes and viewpoints in our analysis.   So I think this can be a highly useful approach, but needs to be fleshed out, balanced, and nuanced a bit further in light of the complexities.
Reply

While I disagree to start with risk based approach at the begining of the process , I disagree with you catégorisions it as negative

Regards

Kavouss

 

On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 7:56 PM, Martin Sutton <martin@brandregistrygroup.org> wrote:

Hi Robin,

 

Thank you for sending through your comments.  We will combine your comments on the ToR with those provided on the call and subsequent submissions from WT5 members, so we can review on next week’s call.

 

Regarding the risk approach, I over-simplified the slides in order to focus attention on drawing out the risks as a primary goal before leading us into assessing the risks.  At that stage we must look at whether the risks themselves warrant any specific controls (beyond the monitoring and enforcement mechanisms for a live registry) and how these could impact any positive elements of enabling new gTLDs relating to geographic terms. This is an important aspect of the process and needs to balance the risks we are concerned about with the level of controls applied.  Back to my physics days, every action has an equal and opposite reaction - so as we move the dial of controls, we do need to appreciate the impact of such changes with the aim of achieving an acceptable balance.  I should have made that clearer and I note that some of the comments in the chat I have subsequently read picked up on this point as well.

 

Kind regards,

 

Martin

  

Martin Sutton

Executive Director

Brand Registry Group



On 29 Nov 2017, at 17:48, Robin Gross <robin@ipjustice.org> wrote:

 

I didn’t have audio on last night’s WT5 call, so thought I’d send my comments directly to the list today about the proposed Terms of Reference revealed yesterday.

Paragraph 1: It is not appropriate to include an “approval" model as something this group will make recommendations on, that presumptively moves away from the model that the GNSO and Board created in the last round, which intentionally and explicitly did not require a permission-based model for names.  It is simply inappropriate for this fundamental policy change to be slipped-in to the Terms of Reference before we begin our work.  We would be ill-advised to “put the cart before the horse”, but this bracketed language does exactly that.

Paragraph 2: Regulating "names with a cultural significance" and "names with economic significance" are outside the scope of this PDP.  This is a PDP regarding geo-names, so adding-on two additional types of names into the ToR is an inappropriate expansion of the scope of this group’s mandate.   Let’s focus on defining what “geo-names” are, rather than including other concepts into the ToR -- that are geo-names.  This PDP was set-up to work on geo-names, the chartering organizations agreed to participate under the understanding that it would be limited to geo-names, so we need to stick to our mandate and our agreement in setting up the WT.

While I support giving significant consideration to risks in our analysis, let's flesh this concept out more and also include benefits in the analysis, rather than being singularly focused on risks.  We are in danger of having a wholly “negative” analysis that won’t consider “positives” as well.  We may wish to recognize that some risks are worth taking and consider some element of a risk-to-benefit analysis in order to be more complete in our own evaluation.  Our analysis should recognize that some issues create risks to one part of ICANN community while simultaneously creating benefits to other parts of the ICANN community — we need to consider how we will handle such mixed outcomes and viewpoints in our analysis.   So I think this can be a highly useful approach, but needs to be fleshed out, balanced, and nuanced a bit further in light of the complexities.

Thanks,
Robin

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