[At-Large] - Price caps - was: The Case for Regulatory Capture at ICANN | Review Signal Blog

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Mon, 1 Jul 2019 at 16:34, Roberto Gaetano <roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com>
wrote:

how can you ensure that you have the same level of participation in
> downtown NYC and in the steppes of Central Asia?
> It is obvious to me that if this is not achieved the system will be
> fundamentally biased.
> Does this sound like a discussion that we already had, and maybe more than
> once, in the last 20 years?



The bias is not just geographical, it's also one of competence and interest.

Individuals do not vote for the entities that govern automobile safety, or
ISO committees, or bodies like ICAO which governs air travel, etc. They all
have both technical and political components, and much money can be earned
or lost based on their decisions. Most people are affected greatly by what
these bodies do -- maybe even life or death -- yet don't feel either
qualified nor interested to elect their governors. They outsource their
expertise through government delegations, industry plays a crucial role but
does not drive policy, and generally the system works.

Why must the Internet be treated differently??

These other bodies are able to function with public trust because they have
external accountability and built-in public interest protections -- ICANN
has neither. To ensure diversity, each participating country is guaranteed
representation and can choose their delegations in their own manner --
technical experts, diplomats, etc.
Change is coming, eventually world governments will catch up. The key
question IMO is whether ICANN will have a role to play in whatever disrupts
it. If the desired goal is something more than ICANN and less than ITU, as
Macron suggested it's time to start envisioning what that is. The IGF has
failed spectacularly at that task (which is actually what I thought was its
main objective). I'm also disappointed that ISOC hasn't stepped up into
governance matters. If they won't design it, then who? Think tanks? ALAC?
Why not?

- Evan
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