[NA-Discuss] Inclusion of Individual Internet Users within the City-TLD Multistakeholder Governance Environment

[Alan Greenberg]

Your question presumes we are all left out of 
decision making processes. I do not agree.

ICANN holds many public consultations where 
anyone may provide input and be considered. Some 
people have claimed there are too many such 
consultations. In addition to any individual or 
organization's ability to submit comments, the 
ALAC often does on behalf of the At-Large Community.

The ALAC is empowered to provide advice on any 
subject at any time. And when an issue arises 
that the ALAC feels deserves such treatment we do 
so. And in many and probably most cases, there is 
an opportunity for our entire community to 
participate in the development of the advice.

In other decisions, there is an established 
policy that guides how that decision is made. The 
RSEP process is one such example. The 
multistakeholder (MS) community was the source of 
that policy, and once adopted (and until it is 
changed by a MS process), it is followed. That 
policy allows for community input in some cases, 
and in others it was decided (by the community) 
that input on individual application of the 
policy was not needed. The RSEP policy could be 
altered if there was a general perception that it 
is broken or was no longer appropriate.

As another example of this, the 2010 round of New 
gTLD Applications was governed by an immense set 
of policies and procedures as described in the 
Applicant Guide Book. An applicant, by making an 
application agreed to abide by the rules, and 
ICANN, in accepting the fee, also agreed to such 
rules. Among them was that once a complex set of 
criteria was met, ICANN would sign a Registry 
Agreement with the applicant. There was a lot of 
public involvement at many stages, but the actual 
signing of a contract did not (according to the 
rules establish with the overall community) did not require public input.

Some decisions are controlled by contracts and in 
those cases, whatever is in the contract dictates how things happen.

The release of two character strings at the 2nd 
level in new gTLDs was the subject of significant 
public comment, but was also subject to the 
agreement of the country or territory that has 
that string as a ccTLD-type string.

It is within the realm of possibility that ICANN 
could adopt a policy by which every single 
contract and contract amendment. I am pretty sure 
there would not be a lot of support for such a 
proposition, and there would be a high cost of 
implementing it. But it could happen if there 
were a general will to make it so.

Alan


At 12/05/2016 12:09 AM, Thomas Lowenhaupt wrote:

>The point I'm trying to make is: If we've all 
>accepted the multistakeholder model, how is it 
>that the local ALSes and individual Internet 
>users (residents and organizations as well) are 
>left out of the decision making process?
>
>Tom
>
>On 5/11/2016 11:14 AM, Joly MacFie wrote:
>>
>>On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 10:38 AM, Alan 
>>Greenberg <<mailto:alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca> wrote:
>>there  is nothing in the current policies that 
>>could compel .nyc, as a delegated TLD, to adopt 
>>such a policy other than voluntarily.
>>
>>
>>​Thanks for your thoughtful and detailed response, Alan.
>>
>>Tom, it does seem that your efforts might be 
>>better directed at stirring things up at a 
>>local​ level, but I think there has to be 
>>perceptible pain to get any movement.The 
>>tradeoffs between privacy, WHOIS and the nexus 
>>requirement might be a source of such pain. 
>>Currently, since proxy addresses are forbidden 
>>under the nexus policy, no private citizen in 
>>NYC can register a .nyc domain with revealing 
>>their personal address via WHOIS. The 
>>allocation and oversight of neighborhood 
>>reserved names, as per your recent meetup, is another.
>>
>>j
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>---------------------------------------------------------------
>>Joly MacFie  <tel:218%20565%209365>218 565 9365 
>><Skype:punkcast>Skype:punkcast
>>--------------------------------------------------------------
>>-
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