[At-Large] ICANN oversight

Sat Oct 10 16:01:27 UTC 2015

Evan

I am even more surprised by your email - although there is completely
honestly written all over it, and that from gbruen at knujon.com that
followed yours.

I am not sure what and whim exactly  you are so completely disgruntled
with . I am sure you are aware ofthis statement from ALAC
<https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+Cross+Community+Working+Group+on+Enhancing+ICANN+Accountability+2nd+Draft+Report+%28Work+Stream+1%29+Workspace>
on the ICANN oversight issue which says

"The ALAC is generally supportive of the overall proposal. Although the
ALAC preference was to have less “enforceability” and a lighter-weight
proposal than preferred by some other groups in ICANN,......"

which represents a position whose status quo-ism is beaten only by the
Board's own position.

So, when you criticise the Board for not listening to you/ ALAC I am not
how to square that with this status quoist statement of ALAC, which
refuses to make any structural changes to the current power configuration.

I am really even more puzzled. Will the real ALAC stand up!

More later, but the above has further confused me.

parminder

On Saturday 10 October 2015 08:08 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> Speaking for myself only...
>
> The ALAC has a number of people on the CCWG itself, so in that that
> sense At-Large has been central to that very confrontation with the
> Board which you note.
>
> But beyond that, what are your expectations? Fiery protest? An
> avalanche of advice statements? Caustic op-ed pieces in DomainIncite?
>
> Speaking for nobody but myself ... an example of the complacency that
> bothers you ... I think there's some war-weariness settling in.
>
> On the ground, very little that ALAC does seems to policy-wise have
> much real consequence. On an issue that (by name!) impacted our
> community the most in the TLD expansion -- Public Interest Commitments
> -- we were ignored before it was invented, and rebuffed after we
> complained that it did not serve its claimed purpose. This was serious
> enough that we called for a freeze of new gTLD deliveries, which led
> to a series of high-level discussions that .... burned a lot of
> volunteer time before being shut down with no change.
>
> In essence we were powerless to affect even the facet of ICANN that
> most directly impacted end-users. What chance does it have elsewhere?
>
> (In other words, from the PoV of end-user influence in ICANN policy,
> you can't get worse than powerless and we're already there.)
>
> Compound this with the time demanded to understand the complex CCWG
> issues. But At-Large, almost by definition, is not comprised of policy
> wonks, but rather of casual participants to whom ICANN is just one
> small corridor inside the Internet Governance labyrinth. Very few
> At-Largers would call Internet Governance a profession, and have the
> time to completely follow a really archaic process such as the IANA
> handoff.
>
> Meanwhile, there are other components of the labyrinth -- traffic
> blocking, site takedowns, zero-rating, RTBF -- that can make the
> fussing over domain names look trivial by comparison. ICANN attracts
> its level of attention because of the money floating around, not
> because its issues are the most critical to Internet users.
>
> So... combine a sense that the public interest will continue to be
> ignored regardless of who oversees ICANN, together with these other
> factors, and perhaps the result is the seeming complacency that
> appears to irritate.
>
> - Evan
>
>
>
> On 10 October 2015 at 13:13, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net
> <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>> wrote:
>
>     I cannot but note with considerable surprise and disappoinment
>     that when
>     everyone with any thing ever to do with ICANN is currently hotly
>     debating the issue of the stand off between the ICANN board and
>     CCWG on
>     ICANN accountability, ALAC remains so aloof from the issue....
>     When this
>     should prima facie be the one part of the ICANN structure, as
>     representing the peripheries, that should be most bothered by
>     efforts at
>     concentration of power, or of holding on it,  vis a vis the rights of
>     the public.
>
>     I have not been able to follow the process closely, but if I am right
>     -and please correct me if I am not - even in the earlier discussions
>     ALAC has been most lukewarm to any kind of structural changes that
>     could
>     indeed place an effective oversight of the 'community' over the ICANN
>     board, when as said ALAC is the one group that should be most keen on
>     institutionalising such checks over centralisation of power with the
>     ICANN board. Can anyone explain me why it is so. It really
>     intrigues me,
>     and I am sure I am missing something here.
>
>     Thanks, parminder
>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Evan Leibovitch
> Geneva, CH
>
>     Em: evan at telly dot org
>     Sk: evanleibovitch
>     Tw: el56
>

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