[EURO-Discuss] EURALO Delhi report 4

[William Drake]

Hi Wolf,

Thanks for the report, and the interesting statement from the CU.  One
wonders if it wouldn't be useful to have some sort of panel on such matters
at the Paris summit (if there is one), alongside the training-type sessions?
It would certainly seem relevant to ALSers...

Best,

Bill

On 2/14/08 7:21 AM, "Wolf Ludwig" <wolf.ludwig at comunica-ch.net> wrote:

> 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 GNSO¹s 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 ICANN¹s
> 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 ICANN¹s 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 WebWatch¹s own 11-month experience as an ³at-large
> structure² recruited by ICANN, and our eight months¹ 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, ICANN¹s 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 ³multi-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 Internet¹s ³end-users,² 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 ³user
> community² 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

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Digitale
> Allmend

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***********************************************************
William J. Drake  
Director, Project on the Information
  Revolution and Global Governance/PSIO
Graduate Institute of International and
  Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
***********************************************************