I appreciate the earlier questions raised by Michael Maranda, and this is partially in response. I hope the attachments get through, as my mailer often seems to choke when posting to this list. I made a separate post similar to this one to the internal ALAC list, so you can delete this one and you have my apologies for the double post. Here are the actual consumer constituency documents, to help take the mystery out of this. The following people have expressed interest to me about being part of the Consumers Constituency. Whether they are still interested after all this, I cannot tell you, but I am in the process of getting in touch with them. Holly Raiche, ACCAN of Australia Gareth Shearman and his wife and their local consumer org Rudi VanSnick and the users org he is affiliated with, which claims 10,000 members Breda Kutin of the national consumers organization of Slovenia (which, despite the country's size, is one of the most active in Europe) CADNA (they were interested early on, but I was hesitant, given that they are funded by and are a lobby group for corporate IP interests -- however, in the revised charter, they might meet the qualifications, but I would put their request for membership up to a vote). We are seeking the participation of two other consumer groups within the at-large, KEPKA from Greece, and the national consumer organization representing Jamaica, neither of which to my knowledge have been particularly active in at-large matters at all. There are other people on the record in the NCUC as being in support of the consumer constituency. I won't name them here. The original document written back in February, when I was still employed by Consumers Union, implied that we had the support of organizations like the TACD and others. We do not, and Consumers Union is unlikely to want to get involved -- their entire telecom staff has either left or been laid off because of their shift in focus to health care. I should state unequivocally and for the record that there is no ICANN funding being provided for this group, or to me or anyone else. We have had a good deal of help from staff, primarily in writing the charter (and updating the charter) to conform with the events of the last year. However, anything in these documents that bears the slightest controversy, or opinion, or anything else, was written by me, with a few contributions by Holly. Staff did not write these documents. If ICANN staff is saying anything to the contrary, I haven't heard it, but then again, I have been incredibly busy in my personal life and have not paid attention. What was the purpose for creating this constituency? Exactly what is said in these documents, no more, no less. No agenda other than providing a voice for consumer >organizations< in the GNSO [hence the limiting language: "The major areas of consumer interest related to the Internet pertain to transactions of some kind, buying and selling; therefore, issues such as fraud, spam, phishing, identity theft, network neutrality, privacy, WHOIS, and new gTLDs are of major consumer concern. "]. And if we can come to the determination that users are better served in the GNSO by withdrawing this petition and clubbing in with the NCSG, well, hey, I'd be for it if everyone else I mentioned agrees. Here it is in print: "The intended purpose of the Consumers Constituency is to serve as the conduit for consumer interests as they relate to the safety and stability of the Internet at the juncture where they fall into the remit of ICANN. The major areas of consumer interest related to the Internet pertain to transactions of some kind, buying and selling; therefore, issues such as fraud, spam, phishing, identity theft, network neutrality, privacy, WHOIS, and new gTLDs are of major consumer concern. While “cybercrime” issues do not directly fall within ICANN’s remit, none of this activity is possible without using the DNS for abusive and fraudulent activity. Thus, the focus of the Consumers Constituency will be to ensure that consumers’ safety, security and stability concerns regarding the DNS are adequately represented within ICANN policy development."