On Saturday 25 February 2017 11:39 AM,
Nigel Roberts wrote:
There is a linguistic problem here.
Private sector is understood
differently in the US than almost everywhere else.
There may indeed by a linguistic problem as you suggest, since if
just one person understands a term-of-art different to the rest,
as you state you do, confusion inevitably obtains.
Nigel, you are being harsh on me -- it is not just me, i have heard
numerous people even in ICANN discussions posit this issue - even
from Europe, at least from the continental Europe.
But lets stick then to authoritative sources, most relevant to issue
under consideration. In the UN and all other substantial global
forums, including the OECD and G 20, private sector means only the
for profit sector ( see this,
this
and this
) . Does this close the issue! You may need to reassess who is
dancing on a pin here, I or you/ ICANN.....
"That is our collective contribution to the language! Its direct
antonym is "multilateral" which, it seems to me, you want, and I
don't.
" (NIgel)
I know that you, and many others here, prefer to fight strawmen than
respond to real arguments (for instances, whats wrong with getting
US immunity with waiver for California non profit law)... And it
simply does not matter if someone says a thousand times that there
is no intention to change ICANN's current structure -- but only the
jurisdictional level, which is even right now governmental. But I
know, for many the US gov smells of all the good things, and other
govs, especially of developing countries stink... Some hangovers
I'd say....
parminder
But there is not the widespread confusion you imply.
I am oustide the US. I do not understand the term differently.
"Private sector" is one of those terms which (like when lawyers
use the terms "convention" or "common law") has multiple subtly
different meanings which are wholly dependent upon context.
In British English, "private sector" means, pretty much, the same
as it mean in American English.
Its direct antonym is "public sector".
It therefore means exactly what it says on the tin.
In the debate over socialism and communism in late 19th and most
of the 20th Century, the controversy over ownership of capital and
the means of production was between the public sector
("nationalisation") and the private sector ("privatised business")
It is true that often "private sector" is used to refer to a
for-profit structure for business ownership being, e.g., better
than a bureaucratic socialist model (vide the - mostly -
successful privatisations by British Governments of both political
colours in the 1980s and 1990s).
The expression used in the UK when you want to distinguish this
kind of private sector body from the others is "voluntary sector"
or "third sector".
This means charities, non-profits and NGOs. But you really are
dancing on the head of a pin here.
ICANN is not private sector since it has governments as a
fundamental and important part.
It also is not private sector since it has the voluntary sector as
a fundamental and important part.
But it is undeniably "rooted" in the private sector irrespective
of which definition you use.
It has been quite fashionable since the aforementioned
privatisations in the UK for the government to get outof the
business of regulation. Hence the rise of "self-regulation" in the
private sector. An example of this is the Phone Paid Service
Authority (originally ICSTIS) http://psauthority.org.uk/ - a
self-regulatory authority that is wholly owned by the the private
sector that it regulates. (Yes, the poachers DO appoint the
gamekeeper).
ICANN is different from this exactly because of the participation
of the public sector (GAC) and the voluntary sector (ALAC).
But ICANN is still a private sector organisation.
And even it, in some contexts you want to distinguish the type of
organisation that ICANN is from a pure private sector
organisation, we have coined the term 'multistakeholder' for that
purpose.
That is our collective contribution to the language! Its direct
antonym is "multilateral" which, it seems to me, you want, and I
don't.
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