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Dear Evan,<br>
<br>
please be so kind to find my responses interspersed in your text:<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 01/03/2019 11:39, Evan Leibovitch
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAMguqh3UezU34Ya+c+LRbjwskzyQdXP5gXqG1HLHNNpfzijRoQ@mail.gmail.com">
<div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"
class="gmail_default">There are other models of MS which I have
liked better than ICANN's. The IETF does IMO a good job keeping
corporate interests heard but not forced upon it. The model used
at the Netmundial conference in 2014 struck a better balance
between business, government and public interest, and deserves
consideration. There may be other models of which I am not
aware.<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Of course some will dispute the IETF as being expensive for
participants since one has to pay to register to attend an IETF
meeting and it is nearly impossible to get a standard through the
IETF process without physically attending an IETF meeting - or more
than one.<br>
Others, primarily from Civil Society, will tell you that NetMundial
was a complete failure. Remember how Civil Society withdrew its
support at the end? So your balance may not be the balance that
others see as being balanced. And that's already the first problem
of MS models.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAMguqh3UezU34Ya+c+LRbjwskzyQdXP5gXqG1HLHNNpfzijRoQ@mail.gmail.com">
<div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"
class="gmail_default"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"
class="gmail_default">Meanwhile ... the current status quo is
propped up by never-ending FUD that the only alternative to
ICANN's model of industry capture is the ITU model of government
capture. Of course, the ITU does its part to support ICANN by
periodically holding meetings so incompetently run so to justify
the fear. What is not spoken about is the fact that genuine
options exist beyond these two undesirable extremes.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Please elaborate on these options. I remember when ICANN was created
there were several alternative options on the table. I wonder what
would have happened, had we followed these options rather than
ICANN.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAMguqh3UezU34Ya+c+LRbjwskzyQdXP5gXqG1HLHNNpfzijRoQ@mail.gmail.com">
<div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"
class="gmail_default"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"
class="gmail_default">Once upon a time I believed that the
Internet Governance Forum was the perfect place in which
alternative models could be designed and proposed. That belief
has diminished as I have found the IGF over time to revel in its
own insignificance, and contents itself to fret over the
situation without considering real change. I have no idea where
true innovation in this field will come, and this realization is
a major source of my current cynicism.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Recently the MAG Chair has attempted to address the deficit of (a)
funding and (b) involvement from the Private Sector by holding
discussions with the World Economic Forum (WEF). The pushback from
Civil Society was vigorous. With such parochial outlook I cannot see
the IGF being able to evolve into a true multi-stakeholder
dialogue... let alone being able to actually run anything
operationally.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAMguqh3UezU34Ya+c+LRbjwskzyQdXP5gXqG1HLHNNpfzijRoQ@mail.gmail.com">
<div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"
class="gmail_default"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"
class="gmail_default">If a sane alternative does not arise, we
will continue to be presented with nothing more than choice
between the ICANN or ITU ways of doing things. Eventually the
ITU will win this binary duel because ultimately governments
will tire of the unwillingness of ICANN to truly incorporate the
public interest into its decision-making. And I remind once
again that there is no international treaty requiring the
countries of the world to acknowledge ICANN as manager of the
global DNS; ICANN's mandate is maintained through inertia and
(ever-diminishing) goodwill.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
That is the only point which I do not agree with you.<br>
I am not so sure that the ITU will win because it is so incredibly
inefficient, political and clueless when it comes to anything
operational. The ITU sustains development and negotiates standards.
It is totally incapable of managing resources operationally.<br>
Second, regarding international treaties: the Internet sits outside
international treaties full stop. It would have never existed had it
required any kind of international treaty. Networks that had
previously been build with the mandate of an international treaty
failed commercially.<br>
The Internet is a network of networks where all networks
participating strike agreements with others to carry their traffic
and their interlocutors strike agreements with others to carry their
and your traffic - and this is all based on trust and peering
contracts. Nothing stops any network from losing trust in the
Internet and pulling out. That's indeed what several countries keep
on threatening and they forget that in the 90s, they were the ones
that asked to get connected to the Internet to start with. I know
that first hand as I helped connect some of them.<br>
The Internet runs on a circle of trust. The 13 root servers are
trusted to be a stable and reliable source of top level domain data
that's amended in the A root, itself trusted to be a stable and
reliable database of a stable addressing tree of generic top level
domains and country code top level domains. ICANN is trusted by all
parties to be the right location to issue orders regarding this
database, using clearly laid out and stable procedures. It is also
trusted by all parties to be the location for discussing the policy
related to generic top level domains and to take decisions about
these. So if one or more of the parties loses that trust, then they
are welcome to leave.<br>
<br>
And that's the fragile world that ICANN lives in. If the GAC gets
fed up that it is completely ignored, it can leave. It could look to
find a home within ITU for example - a dream that Richard Hill has
had for some time. If the ASO, doing so little in ICANN and most of
its work within the RIRs decides to leave, it could do. Ultimately
if these organisations were to leave, it would weaken ICANN's
multistakeholder model as without governments, ICANN's model is no
longer multistakeholder. ICANN would also lose a lot of legitimacy
in the face of governments without an incumbent forum for
governments within its ranks.<br>
<br>
So where does this take us? Well the question I periodically ask is
"Are we ready, we, as in the wider ICANN community that includes all
stakeholders, for an ICANN Version 3.0"?<br>
<br>
- ICANN 1.0: ICANN as it was set-up with a caretaker Board, and then
a global direct At-Large election process to fill at least half of
the ICANN Board seats. Deemed to have failed.<br>
- ICANN 2.0: in 2002/2003 creation of ALAC, stripping Board
director. SOs/ACs structure that we know today, with reduced power
for ACs and increased powers for SOs, especially the GNSO.<br>
- ICANN 2.5: ICANN 2.0 with the US government contract replaced by
an empowered community that has powers to keep the ICANN Board under
control.<br>
- ICANN 3.0: a new structure with a core public interest mandate. <br>
<br>
Recently I held long discussions with some old timers in the UK and
elsewhere. Whilst I lived the transition from ICANN 1.0 to ICANN 2.0
from the fringes, I was not part of the core group then, and I
wanted to understand what was the overwhelming force that came upon
ICANN to go from version 1.0 to version 2.0. I was told this was
complex but it involved some of the very big players out there, that
drove it forward, not necessarily players that knew the consequences
of what the changes were going to be, but there apparently was a
real will to improve ICANN then.<br>
<br>
I am a rather pragmatic player when it comes to such things, with
sometimes a sense of immobility that betrays my age. Right now, I do
not see the overwhelming force out there to evolve ICANN from 2.0 to
3.0. I do not see enough big players adhering to this scenario. I do
not see matters being so bad as to warrant an emergency summit to
"save ICANN" - because only then, would the huge commercial forces
currently holding ICANN into its current state because it serves
their purposes, bow down as for them it would be a choice between
reluctantly accepting a new ICANN 3.0 or losing it all.<br>
<br>
Now I might be completely wrong too. I infamously told Larry
Strickling during dinner at an ATRT2 meeting that if he wanted to be
remembered for his action, he could take the unprecedented step of
relinquishing the US Government control on the Root but that if he
was to launch such a process, he would face the biggest hurdle in
the US Congress -- and that I was therefore convinced that it could
not be done within less than 5 years. Well, Larry had the courage
and determination to do it much faster and although it was not
without its dramas, it worked.<br>
<br>
Perhaps should we follow the motto "Who Dares Wins". But as I have
said it in the past, this is likely to be a high stakes, high power,
particularly treacherous path which would need a lot of allies. It
could be very dangerous for ICANN itself. But then the world has
never advanced by sticking to the status quo.<br>
<br>
Kindest regards,<br>
<br>
Olivier<br>
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