On 10 August 2012 09:12, Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@abenaki.wabanaki.net>wrote:
You may recall that the US DoC/NTIA issued a Request for Information on the IANA Function, a NOTICE under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The response of the CEO, and presumably the Board, a COMMENT under the APA, viewed the IANA Functions as integral to the larger role of the contractor (ICANN).
The views of then-CEO Beckstrom were endorsed by the ALAC in its COMMENT.
The DoC/NTIA received several comments which offered a significantly different view on the contractual dependency of the IANA Functions and other functions exercised by the contractor (ICANN). I wrote one, co-signed by Beau Brendler and Jean-Jacques Subrenat, as did Bill Manning and Dimtry Burkov.
You may also recall that the DoC/NTIA rejected the theory offered in the Beckstrom letter and subsequently published a Request for Proposals in the Federal Register for a competitive award of the IANA Function, independent of the other roles carried out by the current contractor.
And then, after all that hemming and hawing, the IANA contract was eventually awarded to.... the current contractor. Given the lack of transparency on all sides, we have no way of knowing whether the USG rejection of the original ICANN position was on genuine philosophical grounds, political gamesmanship vis the EU and ITU, or simply trying to extract more concessions from ICANN. But the end result was the status quo. The effect on this process of Beckstrom's letter, the ALAC agreement with it, or any ancillary comments is impossible to determine but was likely negligible. The point I'm attempting to make is that agreement isn't advice, and the
ALAC, which includes a candidate in the current election, agreed with a view rejected by government -- its advice did not help the Board.
I am puzzled by the logical leap from "the ALAC's point of view being rejected by the US government", to "its actions were unhelpful or the wrong thing to do". I am quite sure I -- and many of you -- hold many personal beliefs that are contrary to various facets of US (or for that matter, Canadian or any) government policy. Expressing those beliefs is hardly unhelpful, and sometimes it is absolutely necessary. One thing is for certain, though... ALAC's bylaw-defined role is to advise ICANN, not the US government. Our advice to ICANN on other matters -- most notably on the excesses of over-zealous trademark protection and use of the DNS redirection as a tool of law enforcement -- would similarly be rejected. But that does not make it wrong (let alone unhelpful) to provide such advice. In our comments on the GAC "scorecard" on the gTLD program, the ALAC sometimes sided with the governments (to the chagrin of some of our colleagues in civil society). But we also frequently pushed back, agreeing with the established ICANN positions as being closer to what we perceived as the global public interest. And sometimes we suggested a middle ground between the two. What ALAC *has* done -- something in which I have played a significant role -- is markedly improving the relationship between ALAC and governments within the ICANN sphere. I was one of the co-authors of the first-*ever*joint GAC-ALAC statement, on gTLD applicant support. That effort produced results, changing previously-firm ICANN's policy; having that kind of results-producing collaboration happen was more important that having my signature on it. And more collaborative work is yet to come, as we research areas of common concern such as ICANN's lack of transparency and its difficulty in enforcing its own contracts. Cheers, - Evan