[At-Large] On a "consumer" agenda for ICANN

Mon Sep 5 22:14:40 UTC 2016

> On Sep 5, 2016, at 2:27 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:
> 
> I think the main issue of accountability stems from a fundamental lack of public understanding on "accountable to whom? and how to assert this?"
> 

I don’t want to sound overly harsh because I greatly respect those of you who have diligently worked on behalf of users within the ICANN process for so long.  But I would argue the opposite is also true.  The same details you state below also support a view that on the whole the ICANN + registration industry has a lack of clarity about who registrants are (or could be). In the US where the VAST majority of businesses are sole proprietor or under 25 employees— arguably each one a potential registrant— a large portion of these are now likely better served by creating a Facebook Page than a website. Compared to registering your own domain etc, Facebook fills a niche largely by addressing head on a number of issues that time and again get discussed at ICANN but simply have not been addressed as satisfactorily: namely security, simplicity,  and cost. Yes, there are many great people raising concerns on behalf of that segment of registrants— and certainly their have been improvements achieved through those efforts—  but the proof is in the pudding. That segment of registrants are just not a consistent and marked pre-occupation for all parties— as they would need to be to really get breakthrough solutions in place. 

Dharma Dailey  

> At a macro level, The inability of ICANN to simply explain to whom it is accountable who is a major problem that feeds the conspiracy theories of Senator Cruz and others. As it has been until now, the US government exercised stunningly little oversight until now, amounting to Strickling writing a (sometimes mildly scolding) letter in advance of ICANN meetings but otherwise not getting in the way no matter what shenanigans the org would do (such as engage in this predictably massive failure of a gTLD expansion and contemplating another).
> 
> So now, even the scolding letter is going away, replaced by .... what? An oversight group, populated mostly by the industry ICANN should be overseeing, with the power to remove rogue Board members (perhaps Directors who might assert the public interest even if doing so diminishes ICANN). Maybe this is wildly inaccurate conclusion, but it's what I -- a not totally unsophisticated observer viewing from a distance -- can glean in simplest terms. There is very much of an "inmates are running the asylum" feel to it all.
> 
> At a micro level, the ability for non-registrant end-users to complain successfully to ICANN (on wholly in-scope issues such as bad WHOIS) appears laughable. ICANN, by corporate culture, sides with those who contribute to its revenue over those who threaten it. As Derek has documented, "the registrant/registrar has responded to your complaint" appears sufficient reason for ICANN to force a complaint closed, even if the remedial action is totally unacceptable to the complainant. Even the Ombudsman can be unsympathetic, impotent and/or overwhelmed. Here too, ICANN appears only accountable to itself.
> 
> As for its communications -- one of the best ways ICANN can serve the public, as mentioned in my original email -- the information ICANN produces is written to pander to the audience that already knows it. There is no effort made to explain ICANN, its processes, or consumer help in ways the otherwise-disinterested billions of Internet users need to understand. This is partially due to the real challenge of simple explanation, but also IMO the fear that -- stripped of jargon and self-interested language -- the explanation of how and why ICANN does what it does would be a public embarrassment.
>  
> 
> On 5 September 2016 at 07:13, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch <apisan at unam.mx <mailto:apisan at unam.mx>> wrote:
> Garth,
> 
> you say: "I feel the degree to which ICANN communities have focussed on  punishment in analyzing the accountability parts of the transition to be a misdirection in addressing answering processes and kind of pathologically weird." - truly refreshing to read.
> 
> That approach certainly contributes very little to even being able to define a "consumer" agenda for ICANN. It focusses on what consumers - however defined - least care about.
> 
> The unfeasibility of ICANN becoming the consumer rights agency for the Internet, or even for the full set of operations in the domain-name market, was tested and proven at least around 1999 (when ICANN was founded), around 2003 (when the present At Large scheme was devised and put into place) and later when ICANN found a way to enforce contractual compliance without going way out into extragalactic-space-scale mission creep. The new round of discussion is arriving very much at the same conclusion; where it is not, it is mostly going into that misssion-creep terrain.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Alejandro Pisanty
> 
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
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> ________________________________________
> Desde: at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org <mailto:at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org> [at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org <mailto:at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org>] en nombre de Garth Graham [garth.graham at telus.net <mailto:garth.graham at telus.net>]
> Enviado el: domingo, 04 de septiembre de 2016 10:14
> Hasta: karl at cavebear.com <mailto:karl at cavebear.com>
> CC: ICANN At-Large list
> Asunto: Re: [At-Large] On a "consumer" agenda for ICANN
> 
> > On Sep 2, 2016, at 5:05 PM, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com <mailto:karl at cavebear.com>> wrote:
> >
> >> On 09/02/2016 11:12 AM, Garth Graham wrote:
> >>
> >> "Accountability is the responsibility to answer for how you got done what you committed to do."
> >
> > I sense you mean something a bit stronger than your words suggest.
> >
> > For instance, I read your formulation as allowing a decision maker to simply say "Yes, I did it".
> 
> Yes, I slighted the description of the mechanisms for producing an impact or equity statement in the interests of not running on too long.  The more open and reciprocal the process of analysis the better.  But, in situations where the governing mind of the organization is revealed to be disguising its intentions, there is nothing stopping those most strongly impacted by the intended action from proposing their own.  The answering, of course, is about measuring who actually benefitted and who actually paid against the scale of what was intended as the outcome, not merely that action occurred.  It's a different lens for seeing the play of the political process of deciding.  Often, decision makers actually do not want to be fully informed of the consequences of their actions in advance.
> 
> In ICANN's case, the stand in for representing the benefits and/or costs to the individual Internet user of a decision would usually but not always be ALAC.
> 
> > In other words I think something more than being required to give an "answer" is sufficient for true accountability.
> >
> > At a minimum "accountability" ought to mean that those to whom the duty of accountability is owed have the power and ability to "throw the bums out" (i.e. to replace the decision makers who failed to do their duty).
> >
> > It also means the power to force the undertaking of remedial actions such as reversing the ill decision and repairing any damage caused.
> 
> I see that action on a failure to answer (to account) for the consequences of an action taken, falls outside the scope of accountability.  What the equity statement would do is anticipate a bit more deeply the consequences of deciding and acting before the fact.  It either modifies the equity of an intended action or highlights the fact that the beneficiaries of the intended action are quite a bit more narrow than the decision makers had revealed. Then when the answering does occur, it allows the statement of who would benefit and who would pay to stand as a scale of measurement of the truth of the answer.
> 
> I'm nowhere near being a lawyer. I'll leave to those who are the legal framework that governs what happens when the governing mind of an organization is seen by the answering process to have failed in reaching its intentions or in meeting its responsibilities.  But I feel the degree to which ICANN communities have focussed on  punishment in analyzing the accountability parts of the transition to be a misdirection in addressing answering processes and kind of pathologically weird.
> >
> > In normal corporate structures (and ICANN *is* a corporation, or, now, two) that is done through periodic elections of the board of directors (with those to whom the duty of accountability having the power to vote), by derivative actions (of which ICANN's law firm has a terrible fear), and by normal actions against the corporation, its directors, and sometimes its officers for violations of fiduciary and other duties.
> >
> > There are other forms of accountability.  For example, directors of IRS 501(c)(3) corporations (which includes ICANN) are subject to "intermediate sanctions" if there is an interaction between the corporation and a closely related party in which an undue benefit is conferred.  Yes, those are somewhat vague terms, but there is nothing vague in the means in which that accountability is imposed: through a 200% excise tax (yes, a tax - which is often not covered by corporate insurance) directly imposed on the personal assets of the directors as well as on the corporation itself.
> >
> >    --karl--
> >
> >
> >
> 
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> Evan Leibovitch
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