As far as I can tell we are fairly clear on purpose -- we exist to advocate the interests and values of the Internet-using public within ICANN, and to educate the public in ICANN activities and their effect on open and useful use of the Internet. Everything we do -- outreach, summits, position papers, advocacy -- is a tactic borne from this purpose.
Right. ICANN manages gTLDs. It does not manage ccTLDs such as .CA and .US. The management of .US is, frankly, none of the ALAC's or NARALO's business. I suspect that the Canadian ALS would not appreciate us southern devils telling CIRA how to run the .CA domain. Yet here are a bunch of Canadian ALS purporting to advise the US Department of Commerce on managing the .US domain. Personally, I happen to think that since the vast majority of .US domains are clearly registered for commercial purposes, there is an obvious pro-consumer benefit to registrant transparency, but if I want to lobby the US DOC, I will do so as a US citizen, not as part of an irrelevant advisory committee to an irrelevant organization. Were I to want to lobby CIRA about their anti-consumer data hiding for commercial .CA domains, I would talk to Canadian CIRA members I know to see if I could persuade them to make that argument. So can we stop now? R's, John