[EURO-Discuss] EURALO Delhi report 4

Fri Feb 15 02:54:08 EST 2008

I actually hope, that we can come to an agreement to make it an ALAC/RALO 
statement. If not, the EURALO might want to support it

greetings to all
annette
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wolf Ludwig" <wolf.ludwig at comunica-ch.net>
To: "Europe disc at large" <euro-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Cc: "Brendler, Beau" <Brenbe at consumer.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 10:51 AM
Subject: [EURO-Discuss] EURALO Delhi report 4

> Hi all,
>
> Yesterday (Wednesday) morning I participated in the open GNSO Council 
> Meeting trying to get familiar with this body and the variety of subjects 
> of its six constituencies. The debate comprised issues like domain 
> tasting, new gTLDs, IDNs and changes to the GNSO’s structure and the GNSO 
> Improvements report submitted by the Board Governance Committee (BGC) 
> early February 08.
>
> In the afternoon I followed Workshops on the IPv6 Update, Translation 
> Policy and the Operating Plan. In the evening ALAC plus Secretariats had 
> cocktails and hors d'oeuvres with members of the GNSO Council.
> In this report I would like to share a comment of the Consumer Union of 
> the US on ICANN’s Joint Project Agreement (JPA) which is supported by many 
> at ALAC with you:
>
> ___
> COMMENTS OF CONSUMER REPORTS WEBWATCH,
> Consumers Union of the U.S., On ICANN Joint Project Agreement with U.S. 
> Commerce Department
> February 14, 2008
>
> Consumer Reports WebWatch of the Consumers Union, representing 9 million 
> consumers in the United States and Canada, supports ICANN’s efforts to 
> evolve and move forward toward an existence apart from the JPA agreement 
> with the U.S. Department of Commerce. However, at this mid-term review 
> phase, we do not believe the organization is ready to function without a 
> similar accountability mechanism to the JPA in place. Major changes need 
> to occur within the organization to assure more efficient and meaningful 
> user community representation, with long-term guarantees that such 
> representation would endure unforeseen scenarios in the future.
>
> Our justifications for this position are simple: First, we do not believe 
> the structure of ICANN as it exists today sufficiently takes into account 
> the needs and opinions of end-users. Based on a review of operational 
> documents and bylaws, we do not see any sort of language guaranteeing 
> meaningful user participation into the future. To address this issue, 
> Consumers Union believes the at-large community needs multiple seats on 
> the ICANN board; the initial bylaws, in fact, called for fully half the 
> board to be elected by the at-large.
>
> We base this opinion on Consumer Reports WebWatch’s own 11-month 
> experience as an “at-large structure” recruited by ICANN, and our eight 
> months’ experience as an elected representative to the at-large advisory 
> committee.__Second, though the outreach work of ICANN at-large staff Nick 
> Ashton-Hart and Kieran McCarthy is commendable, ICANN’s staff and public 
> communications budget is insufficient to address a much larger problem of 
> outreach. To elaborate: Currently, the NA-RALO is made up of a scant 
> handful of organizations. While these are valuable partners, in no way 
> could the NA-RALO be characterized as a viable representation of a 
> broad-based user community in the United States and Canada. Further, many 
> consumer organizations in the United States with a mission that includes 
> the intersection of technology and consumer issues, remain skeptical of 
> ICANN's intentions and its viability as an organization that takes 
> consumer views into account. Until something is done to bridge this gap 
> and ICANN demonstrates its good intentions and long-term structural 
> viability to organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 
> Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and others, we do not believe ICANN can be 
> considered to be acting in accordance with the concerns of the user 
> community in North America.__In addition, there are no guarantees beyond 
> mention in the bylaws that the "at-large community," itself currently 
> under review, would remain a part of the ICANN structure 20 or even 10 
> years from now. The at-large advisory committee is without a vote in any 
> meaningful policy forum. Without direct user community representation on 
> the ICANN board, we do not believe ICANN is truly acting as a 
> “multi-stakeholder" organization. We are concerned, in fact, that ICANN 
> does sees itself as a multi-stakeholder organization, with industry, 
> government, and industry groups as the stakeholders. It does not help 
> matters much that many within the ICANN community view domain name 
> registrants as the Internet’s “end-users,” and therefore the farthest 
> realm the ICANN needs to reach.
>
> Until these issues are addressed we do not believe the organization is 
> ready to progress beyond the JPA, which refers to "the global 
> participation of all stakeholders" and "mechanisms for involvement of 
> those affected by the ICANN policies."  As the Internet-using public is a 
> key set of stakeholders affected by ICANN's policies, it is critical, 
> including for Internet security and stability, that the organization be 
> accountable to the public and account effectively for its input.
>
> We believe the following three things need to happen in order for ICANN to 
> move forward beyond the JPA:
> 1.      Address lack of meaningful user representation, and assure its 
> long-term viability within the organization, by creating multiple “user 
> community” seats on the ICANN board.
> 2.      Allocate significant budget to get the message that it has done 
> so, out to civil society stakeholder groups in North America and the 
> global user community.
> 3.      Take administrative steps to ensure the long-term structural 
> existence of user community presence and participation in decision-making.
>
> We appreciate the opportunity to comment.
>
> Beau Brendler, Director, Consumer Reports WebWatch, and member, ICANN 
> at-large advisory committee
> ___
>
>
> The complete schedule for ICANN's 31st meeting, as well as links to 
> webcast sessions and our public participation website, can be found at: 
> http://delhi.icann.org/. So far,
>
> Best regards from Delhi,
> Wolf
>
>
>
> comunica-ch
> phone +41 79 204 83 87
> www.comunica-ch.net
>
> http://blog.allmend.ch -
> Digitale Allmend
>
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