[At-Large] [NA-Discuss] NARALO Formation Meeting

[Wendy Seltzer]

Roberto Gaetano wrote:
> I am seriously puzzled by this.
> I thought that the Chair of ALAC would have the authority to agree with
> ICANN about a meeting.

Perhaps, if that had been the process from the start.  In this case,
however, that procedure was chosen only after the previous one, in which
regional reps were looked to for advice about regional activites, failed
to produce the results ICANN wanted. It smacks of post-hoc routing
around critics.

> If something is flawed, it is not necessarily the RALO formation process
> (which is proceeding in all other regions).
> Incidentally, am I the only one who considers inappropriate the veto by the
> only remaining initial interim ALAC member (who should step down when the
> NARALO will become operational)? I still remember the "Boardsquatter"
> campaign....

I did not unilaterally decide a face-to-face meeting wasn't warranted,
but listened to discussion among the region's accredited ALSs.  Many of
them expressed the view that since the RALO would have to do its work
online, it should conduct its formation activities online as a test of
their workability.  I have heard nothing in subsequent discussions to
convince me that the consensus has shifted.

Squatting or astroturf (fake grassroots, engineered by ICANN itself)
seems to be the choice of the moment.

--Wendy
-- 
Wendy Seltzer -- wendy at seltzer.org
Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html
http://www.chillingeffects.org/